Royal Wedding – TV Viewing Statistics

Wednesday 27th April 2011

As we countdown to the Royal Wedding TV ONE has drawn down some TV viewing statistics that may interest you.

- We can't tell you how many New Zealanders watched Prince Charles and Lady Diana marry in 1981 because TV ratings have only been collated since the mid-1990s

- It's often said that a global audience of 750,000,000 watched Charles and Di marry but we're not sure how accurate that figure is.

- It's estimated that a global audience of 2 billion will tune into watch William and Kate marry between 10-11pm on Friday night NZT.

- 53% of all New Zealanders (aged 5+) tuned into TV ONE's coverage of Lady Diana's funeral which equated to 1.6 million viewers in 1997

- Lady Diana's funeral is not the most watched TV event ever - the One News Special that covered the Christchurch earthquake on 22nd February this year had the most people tune in to a single event - 2.4 million viewers or 58% of the population

- The One News Election Special in November 1999 still holds the record for having the highest percentage of the population watching - not as many viewers because of the smaller population in 1999 but 59% of the population tuned in.

- How many NZers are expected to watch the Royal Wedding? We don't have any audience projections for this but we should be able to tell you by midday on Monday.

TV ONE's coverage of the Royal Wedding begins at 6pm on Friday night in ONE News with Wendy Petrie live from London.

Mark Sainsbury will be live for Close Up outside Westminster Abbey between 7-7:30pm as wedding guests start arriving.

At 7:30pm TV ONE joins the BBC's official broadcast from London which runs through until the kiss on the balcony at Buckingham Palace around 12:45am Saturday morning NZT.

ends