The royal wedding TV ratings are in, and according to the stats, nearly 30 million Americans watched the event live early Saturday morning, which is about 6 million more than the number that tuned in to see the televised ceremony of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011, Deadline reported.
In their defense, that particular wedding was aired across 11 networks while Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's was seen on 15, but there is no denying there was a certain allure to the weekend's royal nuptials.
Across the U.S., thousands were voluntarily sacrificing the opportunity to sleep in so that they could watch the royal wedding, which took place at Windsor Castle's St. George's Chapel, either from the comfort of their own homes or at wedding watch parties.
From 7 a.m. many networks were already offering live coverage of the royal wedding and 29.2 million viewers in the U.S. tuned in to watch on ABC, BBC America, CBS, CNN, CNNe, E!, Fox News Channel, HLN, MSNBC, NBC, PBS, Telemundo, TLC and Univision.
In comparison, around 22.7 million viewers sat glued to the TV to watch Prince William's wedding between 6 a.m. to 7:15 AM Eastern time, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In 1981 an estimated 14.2 million households watched Prince Charles marry Princess Diana and in 2005 his nuptials to Camilla Parker Bowles drew just 3.3 million households.
On the other hand, Prince Harry and Markle's wedding attracted 23.7 million households, a notable rise to Prince William and Kate's 18.6 million, Deadline noted.
The couple also garnered 6.9 million interactions overall across Facebook and Twitter.
The royal wedding was a far more relaxed affair than previous events and included an extensive celebrity guest list, which according to Metro included the likes of David and Victoria Beckham and Oprah Winfrey.
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