Prince William vs. His Parents: Whose Wedding Got Higher TV Ratings?

A generation was glued to the television when Lady Diana Spencer walked down the aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral in London to marry Prince Charles in 1981.

But as the TV ratings come in for the Friday nuptials of their firstborn son, Prince William, there's no question about his enormous popularity in America.

Live coverage on 11 networks (starting 6 a.m. EST, and lasting more than an hour) of William and Kate's wedding at Westminster Abbey drew more than 18.5 million U.S. households, according to Nielson Media Research (via EW.com). Meanwhile, Charles and Diana's wedding drew an estimated household viewership of 14.2 million.

That means an awful lot of Americans tuned Friday in at 6 a.m. (or even earlier, depending on your time zone) to watch the live wedding of a royal Brit and his bride.

TV ratings for Prince Charles' second wedding, to Camilla Parker Bowles, were much weaker: 3.2 million U.S. households watched coverage of that 2005 event.

http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,localizationConfig,entry&id=998213&pid=998212&uts=1304076464http://www.aolcdn.com/ke/media_gallery/v1/ke_media_gallery_wrapper.swfIn this image taken from video, Britain's Prince William, second left, looks at his bride, Kate Middleton, as they stand at the altar at Westminster Abbey for the Royal Wedding in London on Friday, April, 29, 2011. (AP Photo/APTN) EDITORIAL USE ONLY NO ARCHIVE PHOTO TO BE USED SOLELY TO ILLUSTRATE NEWS REPORTING OR COMMENTARY ON THE FACTS OR EVENTS DEPICTED IN THIS IMAGEoKExp.start("popeatertv-popeater_royal_wedding");

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