UK minister says 2 billion to watch royal wedding

Posted by Unknown Saturday, April 09, 2011

Welsh Guards perform their changing of guards ceremony at Buckingham Palace. They are to be the Guard of Honour for the members of the royal family during the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29. - AP Photo

LONDON: A British minister said on Wednesday that more than a quarter of the world’s population was expected to watch television broadcasts of this month’s royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton.


Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman said a figure of two billion people was provided by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt during a briefing at a cabinet meeting where he also said preparations for the April 29 nuptials were going well.

“The Culture Secretary … said (the wedding) is likely to be a major global event viewed by around two billion people around the world,” the spokesman said.

Some 750 million people are said to have watched William’s father, heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles get married to the late Princess Diana in 1981, while some reports suggested that as many as 2.5 billion watched Diana’s funeral in 1997.

There are some 6.9 billion people in the world, according to figures on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau.

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