Two billion global audience for Royal Wedding

Around two billion people are estimated to have tuned in to Friday's coverage of the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. Viewers from every time zone tuned in to the nuptials, which were screened on 14 channels in the USA alone. And overnight estimates suggest that in Britain coverage on the terrestrial channels attracted a combined audience of 24.5m - with 18.7m of those watching the BBC's coverage of the event. Figures for those watching the coverage on Sky News were not available. The build-up to the ceremony on a special edition of BBC Breakfast was watched by 9.4m, while figures during the coverage of the ceremony itself peaked at 8.9m as the Duchess of Cambridge entered Westminster Abbey and the public got to see her wedding dress for the first time. The figures put the programme among the top ten of programmes ever watched, although the 1966 World Cup final and Princess Diana's funeral had bigger audiences. Meanwhile only 0.6 per cent of the viewing public were tuned in to the other terrestrial channels during the wedding. Official viewing figures from the US will be released later on Saturday.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.