The Royal Treatment

I’m really not sure where my fascination with the Royal Family began, but it has been kicked in to high-gear these past few weeks as all the details of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding are being shared worldwide.
I remember watching Harry’s mom and dad’s wedding back in 1981.  Sadly, I stayed up into the wee hours of the night when it was announced that Princess Di had been in a car accident and succumbed to her injuries.  And yes, I waited with bated breath to see the first kiss of Prince William and his bride, Kate.
The Royal Family has long utilized the media. Dating back to 1932, Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather George V gave his first holiday message, giving the monarch the opportunity to reflect on the year’s major events and the royal family’s personal milestones. Prior to 1957, it had been broadcast to the Commonwealth nations via radio, until the Queen accepted the BBC’s request to read her remarks live on television from her quarters at Sandringham, her Norfolk estate. Over the years, the message has been pre-recorded and people around the world can tune-in via a variety of media platforms.

Will you be watching?

It was estimated that 200 million people tuned into the BBC broadcast of Queen Elizabeth’s wedding.
Almost 2.2 billion viewers watched the coverage of the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. That outpaced the estimated 750 million who tuned in for Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981.
The pundits are estimating that nearly 3 billion people will listen to or watch Prince Harry and Meghan tie the knot. If that estimate is correct, that’s more than a third of the world’s population.
And I’ll be one of the 3 billion.