The coronation of King Charles III on Saturday was watched by a peak domestic television audience of over 20 million Britons according to provisional viewing figures.
The event was the most watched TV broadcast of the year by some way, but the audience was down on the 29 million viewers who tuned in for last September’s formal state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
That was one of the biggest television audiences in the UK in modern times.
According to the Guardian the vast majority of the audience watched the BBC’s coverage.
The state broadcaster offered veteran Huw Edwards as host and transmitted across BBC One, BBC Two and the BBC News channel.
ITV’s coverage topped out at 3.6 million viewers and Sky’s coverage peaked at 800,000 people across Sky News and Sky Showcase, according to official Barb viewing figures provided by agency Digital-i.
The television viewing figures do not include the small but substantial number of people who will have watched the coronation through livestreams and through non-traditional broadcast methods such as YouTube.
Viewer numbers Saturday did overtake the ratings for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee concert, which took place in front of Buckingham Palace last June, as it was watched by an average of 13.1 million people on BBC One.
For perspective, last year’s state funeral of Charles’s mother Queen Elizabeth II attracted an estimated average audience of 26.2 million on TV sets alone, peaking at 28 million, including 18.5 million on the BBC.
The number was boosted when online audiences were added and other viewers tuned in around the globe as they did Saturday for King Charles III.
In 2011, more than 24 million viewers watched the wedding of Charles’s son Prince William on BBC terrestrial television.
People watch a television screening of the coronation of King Charles III during the Coronation party at Lincoln Center on May 6, 2023 in New York City. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)
In 1997, more than 32 million viewers in the UK watched the funeral of Charles’s first wife and William’s mother, Princess Diana.
The 1953 coronation of Elizabeth is seen as a breakthrough in broadcasting, as it was the first shown on TV at a time when the medium was first beginning to overtake radio.
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