While around 800 million viewers tuned in to watch Prince Charles marry the late Princess Diana back in 1981, it’s expected that roughly 2 billion people will be eagerly watching the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29th; leading many people to wonder which networks will be covering the ceremony, who will be presenting, and how long will it be on for?
The BBC will be using 850 staff members to cover the wedding, with 21 cameras fixed on the Royal Family at all times, and evening news anchor Huw Edwards leading the coverage; which will be pooled to a number of US networks, shown in Asia, India, Latin America, Europe,the Middle East and Africa; whilst flooding the BBC Worldwide channels with a number of Royal documentaries (unsurprisingly including one about William and Kate’s relationship), and always insisting that they will not be making a profit from the wedding.
ITV in contrast, will be aiming to make a large profit from the Royal Wedding; by hiring out a number of its facilities to over 100 staff from 15 different international broadcasters (including networks from Canada, Germany and Australia), and partnering with NBC (who will be devote 20 hours of coverage to the Royals, and base 50 staff at ITN’s central London production office), as well as charging foreign networks up to £200,000 for access to a clean feed of their footage; with coverage lasting 10 hours, and being led by news presenter Julie Etchingham, and presented by This Mornings’ Philip Schofield.
Breakfast anchor and part-time This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes will be Sky News’ coverage; beginning at 6am on the 29th (10pm PT Thursday); and joined by Sky’s royal correspondent Sarah Hughes, and reporters across the country; filming the reactions of people in places of interest to the royal couple (including their home town, where they met, etc).
CNN’s coverage will be led by Piers Morgan; the ex-Britain’s Got Talent judge who’s been boasting that his British accent and London connections will give him an edge over rival presenters (who will undoubtedly have their own edge due to their lack of arrogant self-entitlement); claiming he has “connections that most American anchors can only dream of.”
Shepard Smith and Martha MacCallum will be anchoring the live coverage for Fox (beginning at 1am PT), while Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters will anchor the live coverage for ABC (also beginning at 1am PT); who will also feature a live edition of Good Morning America from Westminster Abbey; as Katie Couric leads CBS’s planned coverage.
While the news that Princes Charles’ offices stopped Rupert Murdoch from filming the wedding in 3D came as a blow to not only Murdoch (who would have undoubtedly seen a boost in 3D SKY TV packages), but royalists who would have watched the wedding in 3D, a similar blow was struck when large cinema chains such as Vue and Cineworld abandoned plans to screen the royal wedding live (a decision Charles’ office does not take credit for; preferring to blame the BBC). However British fans who do want to witness the wedding in a large public setting can attend one of the many street parties being held up and down the country, or the large screenings being held at stately homes and castles across the nation.
Yet despite all the interest, Channel 4 are refusing to pander to pressure; and will be airing a one-off special of their popular Big Fat Gypsy Weddings show, and only increasing their 7pm news show for an extra half hour (making for a total of one hour coverage); and NBC have even decided to roll back the amount of pre-taped footage it was due to air; as a result of possible overstating the degree of American interest in the royal couple.
Nevertheless, should you choose to try and ignore it (a feat that will likely prove extremely difficult over the next few days), line the streets of London in support, or choose one of the above networks to watch it on, The Royal Wedding is assured to be the biggest TV event in history, and one that some people predict could even break the internet; due to the huge amount of bandwidth needed to provide the streaming footage; leading people ask the question in years to come.. where were you when Prince William and Kate Middleton got married?
Matt Wheeldon.
Source: Deadline.
