‘TODAY’ Tops ABC and CBS for Saturday’s Royal Wedding Coverage
‘TODAY’ is #1 Across the Board on Friday with Entire Anchor Team Live from Windsor
NBC News’ TODAY wins the ratings crown across the board for Royal Wedding coverage. During Saturday’s coverage of the lead-up to the ceremony and the nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (6-9am ET), when all networks went head-to-head, NBC delivered the number-one broadcast in all measurements, including total viewers and the key A25-54 and A18-49 demos, according to Nielsen Media Research. NBC averaged 6.417 million viewers, beating ABC’s 6.348 million and CBS’ 4.786 million. NBC also dominated them all with 2.314 million viewers in A25-54, posting a 17% advantage over ABC and 66% advantage over CBS. In A18-49, NBC averaged 1.761 million viewers, posting an 18% advantage over ABC and 65% advantage over CBS.
TODAY also won across the board on Friday in the lead-up to the Royal Wedding, topping ABC’s “Good Morning America” in total viewers and the key A24-54 and A18-49 demos. Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb co-anchored 7-9am live from an exclusive vantage point directly overlooking Windsor Castle, and were joined by Megyn Kelly, Kathie Lee Gifford, Al Roker and Sheinelle Jones. TODAY averaged 4.254 million viewers, with 1.458 million in the key A25-54 demo. TODAY had a 24% (+285,000) advantage over GMA in A25-54 and beat them by +109,000 in total viewers. At 9am, “Megyn Kelly TODAY” averaged 2.802 million in total viewers and at 10am, “TODAY with Kathie Lee and Hoda” averaged 2.361 million total viewers. All four hours of TODAY were up vs. the same day last year in total viewers.
Royal Wedding content across NBC News digital platforms saw more than 10 million views and the live stream saw more than 4.6 million views across all platforms.
Saturday’s Royal Wedding Coverage – per Nielsen Media Research:
| Network | Date | Program | P2+ (000) |
A18-49 (000) |
A18-49 Rtg |
A25-54 (000) |
A25-54 Rtg |
| NBC | 5/19/2018 | TODAY ROYAL WEDDING 6-9A | 6,417 | 1,761 | 1.37 | 2,314 | 1.92 |
| ABC | 5/19/2018 | ABC ROYAL WEDDING 6A-9A | 6,348 | 1,489 | 1.16 | 1,984 | 1.64 |
| CBS | 5/19/2018 | CBS ROYAL WEDDING 6A-9A | 4,786 | 1,068 | 0.83 | 1,392 | 1.15 |
| vs. ABC (000) | +69 | +272 | +0.21 | +330 | +0.27 | ||
| (%) | +1% | +18% | +17% | ||||
| vs. CBS (000) | +1,631 | +693 | +0.54 | +922 | +0.77 | ||
| (%) | +34% | +65% | +66% | ||||
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NBC News contact:
Dana Klinghoffer/347-556-9703
