Hollyoaks it could have been worse

So Auntie took about 70pc of the audience, similar to previous royal weddings. I think ITV will always be resigned to the fact the BBC takes over two thirds of the audience for royal weddings, jubilees, etc, but didn't wave the white flag this time as occured in 2002. Also I did see a bit of Sky's coverage and they seemed to do well, considering they only had about 3pc of the audience.

Indeed, I've just ran some reach analysis over all Royal wedding programmes yesterday and all channels you listed this morning (excluding news and breakfast shows but including highlights programmes) and I have a cumulative reach of 36.2m, and this will surely rise with time shift.

I don't remember many of these claims?

Many of them would've been working. Many wouldn't have had an opinion one way or the other. And then the rest didn't watch out of principle. Either way, the ratings are a triumph for the monarchists. I was expecting only 10-15 million so these figures are way more than I thought.

Something quite spooky: TNS who help compile the ratings for BARB estimated in a press release almost 3 weeks ago that 26.2m people would watch the Royal Wedding: http://www.tnsglobal.com/news/news-5...28A7EEF92.aspx

Lo and behold, yesterday's Royal Wedding peaked at 26.2m!


Thanks for that - so about 59% of the population watched at some point.

Have some pretty graphs:

- http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/5336/weddingvs.png
- http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7...ddingtotal.png

Sorry, they're not massive, may need to zoom in to really see it.

Haha! I love it! Wonder whether BARB might be asking TNS some tough questions!

I see the Beeb are claiming a 34m reach for their live coverage alone yesterday including live web streaming (they also claim an absolute 20m (70pc) BBC TV peak at the end of the wedding service which presumably includes BBC News), so I would think over 40m out of 62m Brits watched what they could of it once you include web, timeshift, public viewing, mates houses and workplaces, and those actually there.

Which on any analysis is spectacular.

I find it bizarre that 0.5m chose to watch the Beeb's coverage on the news channel, complete with rolling news ticker. Baffling.

I don't know whether we can include this in the BBC1 rating as a simulcast. I suspect not, and we have to regard the 18.7m ceremony average as the figure the dancing dog show and karaoke contest have to beat in terms of single channel audiences in 2011...

Some more ratings for the Royal Wedding from around the world:

France
Channel...Morning (Ave).......Afternoon (Ave)
TF1.........4.95m (41.8%).......4.25m (31.9%)
FR2....... 3.92m (29.9%)..... ..4.82m (35.7%)
M6......... 0.47m (3.9%)....... ..0.69m (4.7%)

Total (ave): 9.34m (75.6%)..... 9.76m (72.3%)
Total (peak): 15.1m at 12.15 BST

Higher than recent royal weddings of:

- Spanish Latizia and Felipe in Madrid May 22, 2004: 3.5m
- Charles and Camilla UK: 4.8m

Source: Le Parisien

India
Total peak (I think) of 42.1 million viewers across all the channels which showed it.

That's higher than the 39 million who watched the opening match of 2011 ICC World Cup involving India, but lower than the highest ever rating in India of 67.6m for the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup final. Still seems very high though.

Source: Business Standard

If BARB splits the figures, ~18.7m will definitely be the highest rating of the year.

No way will anything beat that in terms of average. Last year's TXF final averaged 17.7m but it's likely this year's final will rate worse than that. BGT had 13.5m for its final last year - can't see it getting to 18.7m or anywhere near that.

If BARB don't split the figures, it'll end up with a ~13.5m average. BGT, SCD and TXF are capable of beating that, although obviously their peaks will be quite a bit lower than the Royal Wedding peak. It'd be a similar situation to last year: England v Algeria had a 18.8m match average but because its official average was for the entire broadcast (as ITV didn't elect to split their figures even though they could/shoud have), it ended up with a lower 'official rating' than a lot of programmes, even though it was the most watched TV moment of the year - 21.3m at its peak.

The 24m figure that seems to have been picked up in the media is, I assume, the combined average for the ceremony? I suspect that'll be the one that goes down in the history books - if not the BARB logs. I do hope the officials get split (though I suspect they might not) because it would be good to have such a remarkably rated broadcast at the top of the charts.

Some great numbers being turned out by international broadcasters too - especially in Europe. I didn't expect the wedding to perform so strongly, for instance, in France. The figures in Commonwealth countries like India areas are perhaps more comprehensible, but still seem to match up very well with other major events.

Yep, 24.5m was the combined BBC1+ITV1 average for the wedding ceremony.

Including the digital channels too such as BBC News, Sky News, Sky Living, E!, Fox News, it averaged 25.74m.

Bloody hell! They're keen in France! What did that get in the UK, it can't have been particularly high?

Any bets on BGT and Doctor Who? I'm going for 9 million for BGT and 7 million for Doctor Who, as tonight's episode was a lot stronger with more action. However, who are these idiots at the Sunday Mirror who say BGT is in crisis? 9 million is very good these days and the show grows as it goes along. I don't think we'll have a Subo moment, but don't rule out 14 million for the final.

And not forgetting the live iPlayer and other internet streams?

K

That's amazingly high for India, to compete with cricket is an accomplishment, and that the population per TV is far far higher. The cricket final: 67million, probably closer to 700million in reality. So one can imagine what the viewership would be for the royal wedding.

First of all, I'd like to echo others in giving huge thanks to rzt for his wonderful, detailed analysis, breakdowns and number crunching. You are a credit to Digital Spy and this forum really is the place to go for ratings news and analysis, and would be far, far poorer without you.

What a peak for the wedding! The peak and the averages totally exceeded my expectations. BBC1 naturally commanded the lion's share of the audience, with that 13.4m average about 5m higher than I expected! It is the channel the nation turns to for occasions like this and they seem to have delivered once again. However, ITV also did far better than I expected, and they can be proud of what they achieved. Their coverage was excellent, and was better than the BBC's in my opinion. They achieved very solid ratings, and even though it was well behind BBC1, 6m at 11am is still very good. I notice a couple of people (Jake, Georged) are trying to put a negative slant on ITV's figures but that just shows how petty they are (Jake in particular got very wound up this morning - in the words of the PM, calm down dear ). The fact that over half of the nation tuned in at some point just shows how the apathy was overstated, and that occasions like this really do grip the nation.

The highlights did decently for BBC1 later, but that's a very poor rating for Paul O'Grady, He's done badly two weeks in a row now which must be slightly concerning for ITV. The Million Pound Drop seems a bit low this series too - have they brought it back too soon?

As for tonight, the warm weather will depress ratings across the board once again, and will show up BBC1's stupidity in scheduling Doctor Who at 6pm once again. I'm thinking about 6m for Doctor Who and c.9m for BGT. Sing If You Can may well drop again, but I can see Life Stories with Widdecombe doing quite well.

I don't much care what Barb does. I think we already know the Beeb's figure will be the full 5hrs

But I know, and everyone knows, that 25.74m watched Wills and Kate marry and of that, 18.7m watched on BBC1. Those are the figures Cowell and ITV need to beat in the 2011 ratings contest.

The gauntlet has been thrown down. Just as the Olympics opening ceremony will do in August next year.

Not wishing to tempt fate, but I reckon Sing if You Can will shed another million tonight. It's this year's Who Dares Sings, another hopeless singing contest. ITV can do so much better than this. Well, of course, they can, BGT is on next.
I must admit ITV is starting to get it right with a stable of hits from that Old Stager ( Corrie) to the Cowell shows and, apart from the summer lull, has hits in every other month.

I watched it tonight, brilliantly atmospheric, but with sun streaming in through the windows its on a hiding to nothing in that respect. Next weeks looks brilliant too-but to enjoy it at its best means closing curtains etc-it just doesnt fit. I do wonder what drives the BBC to do this year after year. Surely at 1 million per episode you would want the best possible placement?

Not necessarily. Last year, the BBC world cup coverage was scheduled as 7-10pm but BARB still split the figures up. That's because on the timesheet the BBC submitted, they had the split up times. They might do the same for the royal wedding coverage, you never know.


Cowell and ITV would be well aware that they're not going to beat (or come close) to those Royal Wedding figures. It's such an impossible task, I doubt it's something they'd even think about!


Thanks a lot Score, appreciate it .

I really wish you'd stop this ridiculous comparison with Cowell's shows.

There's you and only you that keeps making this connection. The fact that TXF is often at the top of the ratings really does seem to wind you up, as you manage to mention it all year round.

If this is what we have got to look forward to in August 2012 regarding the Olympics ratings, then I can't wait

I think its keeping Robbie up at night though.:yawn: Every post seems to be about Cowell this or that. Of course the royals are the biggest vaudeville act of them all

PS great analysis from rzt today. But then hes always great anyway and probably one of the most impartial posters on the thread - although me saying that will probably get him into trouble!

Of course, the conspiracy theorists and Cowell bashers at the Mirror are telling us BGT is dying and are probably hoping TXF loses a million viewers and is in its death throes. Bull, BGT and TXF are still doing very good business, but barring another Subo type singer, neither shows are going to top the Royal Wedding, which at its peak had 30 million on BBC One.