Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding ceremony was watched by a combined TV audience of more than 26 million on Friday 29th April across BBC, ITV and Sky.


This is the biggest UK audience since the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997 which was watched by 32.1 million people across the BBC and ITV. The wedding was also only 2 million viewers away from the 28.4 million people that watched the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981.

According to BBC figures, across BBC One, BBC One HD, the BBC News Channel and BBC iPlayer, the corporation's coverage peaked at 20 million near the end of the wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey. On ITV1, live coverage gained an average audience of 5.83 million whilst Sky News had an average audience of 661,000.

MEC Opinion:

This royal wedding was the first in which viewers had a multitude of platforms to watch it on. Access to HD channels, live coverage on catch up services and new channels meant that people really couldn't miss the build-up, the ceremony or the commentary afterwards. It has been reported that 2 billion people watched it worldwide on TV and online but without confirmed figures yet, it remains to be seen whether this was a realistic prediction.