TV SMASH HIT

Royal Wedding TV coverage was the biggest UK event this year for the BBC and ITV with almost 18 MILLION Brits tuning in

ALMOST 18 million Brits tuned in to watch Prince Harry and Meghan Markle say “I do” – making it the biggest television event of the year by far.

Yesterday’s ceremony was broadcast live across a multitude of channels from St George’s Chapel in Windsor.

Sky News
Sky News viewing figures were miles behind rivals BBC and ITV

Brits overwhelmingly tuned into the BBC’s coverage of proceedings, led by Kirsty Young, Huw Edwards and Dermot O’Leary, peaking at 13.1million viewers during the ceremony.

Coming in second, but miles behind, was the ITV coverage, which peaked at just 3.6 million viewers.

Records show audiences tuning in to Sky News and the BBC News Channel were substantially smaller – around 500,000 each.

While the viewing figures for Harry and Meghan’s big day are record breaking for 2018, they are significantly smaller than for the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

More than 24million people saw the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge exchange rings, with the BBC and ITV dominating TV coverage at the time.

BBC
The passionate address by US Bishop Michael Curry had audiences enthralled

How the Royal Wedding has unfolded so far…


ITV
ITV’s wedding coverage came second – but was far behind the staggering BBC figures

The BBC’s coverage of Prince Harry’s wedding attracted an average of 8.7 million viewers (64 per cent share), between 9am and 2pm.

By comparison, ITV’s coverage – which was fronted by Phillip Schofield and Julie Etchingham – averaged 2.5 million viewers (18.6 per cent share) between 9.25am and 3pm.

Sky News
Sky News introduced special branding and on-screen furniture to mark the occasion

More on the Royal Wedding

ONCE UPON A TIME
How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle met & when Archie was born
MAAR TO COME
Get to know ITV correspondent Rageh Omaar

As well as a number of national and international channels, the ceremony was also streamed live online on YouTube via the British Monarchy’s official The Royal Channel.

According to figures from Twitter, social media interest peaked during the passionate sermon delivered by US Bishop Michael Curry, with 40,000 tweets a minute.

The social network confirmed 3.4 million tweets were sent over the course of the entire wedding ceremony.


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