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Royal Wedding - Harry & Meghan

Presentation coverage before and after (April 2018)

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LL
London Lite Founding member
For me, ITV won it by a mile, they basically did the 'This Morning meets ITV News' winning formula again and had the right mix of fluff and pomp with a mix of reporters seemingly everywhere.

Sky was second for me, great studio locations, the fact they offered it in UHD for Sky customers and let their hair down a bit.

BBC - Can't fault what they did inside the chapel, but a line-up including Tina Daheley and Dermot O'Leary was a massive turn-off. What I saw of Huw was authoritative.

CNN - Worst of the day, ruined by triple screen nonsense and graphics. A shame as when they did the analysis, it was good. The riverside studio looked a lot better today.
Last edited by London Lite on 20 May 2018 2:36am
IS
Inspector Sands
I thought the combination of Kirsty Young and Dermot o Leary was pretty good. Certainly made a nice change to have a non BBC face present it (I know he's on radio 2 but it's still rare for him to be in BBC TV). The juxtaposition between them and Huw doing the serious bits worked well.

Kirsty Young is so good on telly, the BBC should use her more
Cando, Brekkie and Custard56 gave kudos
RK
Rkolsen
Anyone got video of the Katty/Savannah piece? Wondering what they talked about.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Dermot has done more BBC telly than you might think, most notably being the last minute stand in for Sir Terry when he pulled out of CiN, but also plenty of Comic Relief nights.
UK
UKnews
Kirsty Young is so good on telly, the BBC should use her more

Only as long as it doesn’t stop her presenting ‘Desert Island Discs’ which she’s brilliant at.
RO
Rory
According to the ratings thread on Digital Spy, the BBC's coverage got 8.66m (63.9%), peaking at 13.10m (68.1%) at 13:10. ITV's got 2.50m (18.6%), peaking at 3.58m (32.6%) at 14:10.
ST
Stuart
Those are surprisingly low figures after all the hype. I appreciate that the percentage shares are high, but that was always going to happen when you've got the two main PSB channels showing the same event.

It would be interesting to compare this against the figures for the two Cup Finals.
MR
mromega
From Deadline:

It was considerably the most watched television event of the year in the UK. To put into context, the FA Cup Final, widely considered the closest sporting event to the Superbowl in the UK, was watched by an average of 6.7m viewers and a peak of 8.7m people later in the afternoon.
JA
james-2001
Those are surprisingly low figures after all the hype.


Well it shows the majority of people in the country weren't watching despite the media trying to tell us the entire country were excited and would be celebrating.
AA
Aaron_2015
Those are surprisingly low figures after all the hype.


Well it shows the majority of people in the country weren't watching despite the media trying to tell us the entire country were excited and would be celebrating.


Well, not really. Those figures only account for those watching at home on their TV. I’m sure many more watched the service in their gardens, local pubs or social clubs.

It was never going to rate as high as the 2011 Wedding.
UT
Upload TV
A few screengrabs from yesterday’s Sky News coverage
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OM
Omnipresent
RDJ posted:
NBC's Savannah Guthrie with BBC's Katty Kay on the NC and presumably World as well.

Strange considering the BBC / CBS partnership.


I’m 95% sure Katty is an MSNBC contributor and has popped up on NBC programs as well. So it could be a friendship thing.

During BBC One at the beginning they showed the worlds media and they actually interviewed two or three of NBC local anchors and showed a shot of Hoda Kotb during a break. But they didn’t show Gayle King of CBS.


I have seen Katty Kay on Morning Joe on MSNBC. I did look back at Katty Kay on the BBC News Channel yesterday evening and I couldn't find any interview with Savannah Guthrie. I did see Katty interviewing another American guest, so perhaps a case of mistaken identity?

Overall, I think the BBC got the tone right. Whilst the BBC was a little too stately at the last Royal Wedding and Huw seemed a bit isolated in the studio at Buckingham Palace, it would have been a mistake to treat this wedding as primarily entertainment. For many watching, this was culturally a hugely significant event. A mixed race American marrying into the Royal Family.

The relatively smaller scale of the event also helped as well. My overriding impression what an amazing job everyone must have done behind the scenes to handle the world's media descending on Windsor.

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