Prince and Princess of Wales share coronation day video

The UK’s longest-serving heir apparent was finally crowned King in on Saturday. A “slimmed-down” guestlist may have meant just 2,000 attended Westminster Abbey, but the eyes of the world were upon him.

Despite poor weather and agitation from anti-monarchist protesters, thousands lined the streets on the King’s procession route from Buckingham Palace to catch a glimpse of history in action.

The 70 years since the country’s last Coronation have seen technological progress the then-four-year-old Prince Charles could only have dreamed of. It is estimated 27 million Brits watched the late Queen’s ceremony in 1953 – roughly three-quarters of the population at the time.

Ahead of the event, 300 million worldwide were tipped to be tuning in to watch King Charles III’s big day. 

Domestic figures are now in, and they show a peak audience of just 20 million in the UK – fewer than both the King’s mother’s funeral, and her own Coronation all those years ago.

READ MORE: US viewers ‘switch off’ Coronation after ‘too many mentions of Harry’

The Coronation audience

Despite months of preparation and the day going off without a hitch – barring one misbehaved horse briefly backing into spectators on The Mall – Britain’s leading broadcasters still stumbled in their hours of live coverage.

Repeated audio glitches stoked the ire of BBC viewers, Sky was slammed for its reporting of “Not My King” protests and ITV audiences were treated to a dose of accidental midday profanity. Without doubt foreign stations experienced slip-ups of their own, but millions stayed tuned regardless.

As it stood, some 29 million viewers in the UK watched Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral on September 19, 2022. Global audience figures for the longest-reigning monarch of the age were thought to have surpassed four billion, although this figure has never been confirmed.

Official viewing figures for King Charles III’s ceremony have now been released, and show a peak television audience of just 20 million. The vast majority, some 15.5 million, watched on the BBC, while 3.6 million tuned in on ITV and around 800,000 through Sky, according to the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board.

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UK viewing records

The Queen’s funeral was the most-watched royal event in UK TV history since that of Diana, Princess of Wales, back in 1997. Taking place just over 25 years ago, her funeral drew in a peak audience of 32.1 million people.

An estimated 19.3 million tuned in via BBC One and 11.7 million on ITV at home, while global audiences figures are said to have reached 2.5 billion.

The royal weddings of her children attracted slightly smaller numbers. When her eldest, Prince William, married Kate Middleton also in Westminster Abbey, 26.3 million Brits were watching.

Prince Harry’s wedding to American actress Meghan Markle seven years later captivated just 18 million pairs of eyes in the UK. Many more, however, followed the proceedings across the pond.

Global viewing records

Globally, the most-watched event in TV history is the Atlanta Olympics opening ceremony of 1996, which drew in 3.6 billion viewers. Until the Queen’s funeral, not a single event came close to matching those ratings.

Worldwide the Sussexes’ wedding was watched by 1.9 billion. In comparison, the 2018 World Cup Final between France and Croatia drew in 1.1 billion viewers and Muhammad Ali’s memorial service an estimated one billion in 2016.

Despite its magnitude and relevance, the Apollo 11 moon landing was only watched by 652 million people – though in 1969, fewer people had television sets in their homes than today.

In the run up to US broadcaster CBS’s coverage, a senior producer claimed it would be “the world’s greatest single broadcast” in television history.

In a triumph of technical innovation for its day, the event was broadcast live all over the world except in China and the Soviet Union. All three UK television channels at the time, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV provided extensive coverage, most of the footage of which has unfortunately since been wiped or lost.

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