This letter appeared in The Guardian, Monday April 25th:

The big hitch

"Optimistic estimates suggest that up to 2 billion people will be watching" (Television's pre-wedding nerves, 4 April).

Please can you stop repeating these absurd claims? There has never been any reliable measurement of a global TV audience yet. I did some myself a few years ago, but it takes time and there are always huge gaps.

The main problem is that in most countries there is no TV audience measurement at all. And in the two largest countries, China and India, only large cities are fully measured. Only in Europe, the US, Canada, South Africa and a handful of other countries is anything like full national TV audience measurement done. So all claims for global TV audiences are complete fiction.

But you can if you like use your brains. One in three people watching the royal wedding? Half the world will be in bed! Most of the other half will be at work or enjoying themselves doing something else. Even in the UK it is very doubtful one in three people will watch. What has happened to the Grauniad? Matthew Engel once mocked these absurd claims in an article under the headline "There are lies, damned lies and global TV statistics". Where is Matthew when we need him?

Graham Mytton Audience Research Training and Consultancy