Royal Wedding Ratings: Smiles At CNN

Who was #1 in royal wedding coverage? It depends on your clock. But it’s clear that CNN had a very strong showing. Between 7 and 11am, CNN was first: They averaged 1,597,000 viewers, compared to 1,499,000 for FNC and MSNBC’s 593,000, according to the network. CNN beat FNC in the 25-54 demo, as well (538k vs 485k).

CNN’s coverage officially began at 6am, though. If you’re measuring each network’s technical time period of live wedding coverage, FNC comes in #1. For the Nielsen records, each network commenced live coverage at a different time. So here are the raw numbers for each network’s coverage, based on the time period they covered the wedding:

FNC: 6:55 to 11am: 1.5 HH / 1,484,000 viewers / 481,000 demo

CNN: 6 to 11am: 1.4 HH / 1,352,000 viewers / 462,000 demo

MSNBC: 7 to 11am: 0.6 HH / 593,000 viewers / 133,000 demo