The broadcast and cable news organizations love the upcoming royal wedding, as it is news that will happen on a tight schedule, and it can be easily monetized by lining up sponsors that may not normally buy airtime.
Everyone from Fox News to CBS News to Bravo and Telemundo have wedding coverage plans.
Coverage of the wedding between Prince Charles and Princess Diana was enormous, so it is reasonable to think that there are enough Anglophiles to make coverage worthwhile for today’s networks. But in today’s New York Post, there are hints that perhaps interest is not as strong as originally believed.
“The US public’s interest was not what they thought,” sniped an NBC insider. “Kate and Prince William are both really boring.”
Ostensibly the story is about NBCUniversal scaling back its (enormous) coverage plans, but the more interesting angle concerns public interest in the wedding:
NBCU, along with other organizations, have been quietly polling viewers about their interest in the Royal Wedding, according to someone familiar with the situation. While the results of those surveys were not known by our source, if they showed lackluster interest, it is not unreasonable to think that coverage could be scaled back a bit.
Will millions of American be waking up at 4 AM ET to watch Prince William and Kate Middleton get married? We will find out soon…