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.