<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Friday,  April 26 , 2024

Linkedin Pinterest
News / Life

Harry got more views than William

By Sonia Rao, The Washington Post
Published: May 22, 2018, 5:08pm

After all the hype, the numbers are in: More than 29 million Americans tuned in on Saturday to watch one of their own become British royalty.

The Nielsen metric refers to the live telecast of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding on 15 U.S. networks, according to Deadline, which means the figure doesn’t even include recap viewers who were too lazy to wake up at 7 a.m. or those who streamed it online.

For context, around 23 million Americans watched the 2011 nuptials of Kate Middleton and Prince William, the actual heir to the throne, on 11 U.S. networks. Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding attracted just over 17 million American viewers to broadcast networks in 1981. (Harry’s pulled in 17.6 million if you just keep it to ABC, CBS and NBC.)

So why the increase? First, some wild speculation: Maybe the level of Anglophilia among Americans has risen quite a bit since 2011. In that time, we received five more seasons of Masterpiece’s “Downton Abbey,” three of BBC’s “Sherlock” and two of Netflix’s “The Crown,” a Windsor-specific drama. Our nation was founded by men who believed in separation from the British monarchy, but come on — those accents are irresistible.

A second theory: The inexplicably large fan base of USA Network’s “Suits” boosted the viewership of Saturday’s wedding. In its seventh season, which aired last year, the legal drama was the second-highest-rated show on a cable network — second only to “Game of Thrones” on HBO. Markle’s final episode aired in April and centered on her character’s wedding (to longtime boyfriend Mike Ross, played by Patrick J. Adams). Perhaps “Suits” fans tuned in for the real-life version.

More than anything, it’s Markle who captivates viewers. The newly minted Duchess of Sussex is an unusual member of British royalty as a biracial American who has been married once before. Setting aside the novelty and our obsession with the “American falls in love with a foreign prince” genre, Markle has brought a sense of modernity to the royal family, starting with the wedding gown itself.

Loading...