Soap Wedding Beats Real Thing in British Ratings

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Prince Charles’ wedding to Camilla caused so little a stir in Britain that a soap-opera wedding topped it in the ratings. A marriage between two characters on the TV show “Coronation Street” proved a bigger hit with British viewers than Saturday’s royal wedding, broadcasters said Monday.

An audience of some 12.1 million tuned in Friday to watch Ken Barlow and Deirdre Rachid tie the knot on the long-standing show, the ITV1 channel said. The average audience for the royal wedding was around 9.7 million, ITV1 and Sky News said, giving combined figures that also included the BBC.

“Coronation Street,” which centers on the lives of ordinary people in northern England, has run on British TV for 45 years and regularly tops the ratings.

Although Charles and Camilla’s wedding was an also-ran compared with “Coronation Street,” it managed better than coverage of the Grand National horse race Saturday.

Credit: Yahoo/AP