Royals

CNN will have dedicated coverage of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee next week. On Sunday from 11am-1pmET Piers Morgan and Brooke Baldwin will anchor the channel’s coverage of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, which will see a flotilla of boats travel down the river.

On Tuesday, June 5 from 9-11amET, CNN will cover the Royal Carriage Procession, which sees the Royals travel from Westminster to Buckingham Palace via horse-drawn carriage.

Becky Anderson, Richard Quest, Zain Verjee and CNN’s Royal Correspondent Max Foster will all contribute to the Jubilee programing.

As we reported earlier, ABC Newssecured the U.S. TV rights for the Jubilee concert, and also has the only U.S. interview with Princes William and Harry in advance of the Jubilee. ABC News broadcasts will originate from London next week.

CNN will also televise four Royal-related documentaries, and will have a digital component, more on those after the jump.

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In advance of her interview with Princes William and Harry, and ABC’s coverage of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebration, ABC’s Katie Couric had a chance to meet the women of the hour herself, Queen Elizabeth II.

Diane Sawyer spoke to Couric on “ABC World News,” where she relayed the experience of meeting the Royal.

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ABC News is going big with coverage of Queen Elizabeth II‘s “Diamond Jubilee” this Spring. There will be two primetime specials in late May and early June, with “Good Morning America” originating from London that week.

For the first primetime special, Katie Couric will have an “exclusive” interview with Prince William and Prince Harry, who will talk about their grandmother The Queen. The 2-hour special will air Tuesday, May 29 at 9pmET/8pmCT

In addition, ABC has acquired the U.S. rights to “Concert For the Queen: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration,” which will include performances by Paul McCartney, Elton John and Tom Jones, among others. Couric will host that event as well in primetime on Tuesday, June 5.

Kind of a weird coincidence that ABC has an exclusive interview with the Princes, and also paid for the rights to the concert, right?

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Viewers of the BBC News in Scotland received quite a surprise today. The regular weather anchor took a break, and instead the forecast was delivered a by a special guest: The Prince of Wales himself, Prince Charles.

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Prince Charles was visiting the TV station as part of a tour during Holyrood Week. BBC Scotland was celebrating 60 years of broadcasting, and the Prince was game to help celebrate on-air.

As for “Good Morning America’”s Sam Champion and “Today’”s Al Roker: watch out guys, you may have some competition from across the pond.

A pair of U.K. tabloids report that a handful of U.S. networks are in a battle to secure the first stateside TV interview with Pippa Middleton, the sister of Princess Kate, and sister-in-law of Prince William.

Middleton is about to start promoting a new book about party planning, so the race is on. While the tabloids all hint that a payout is in the works, another option that networks will put on the table is that of reach.

NBC could offer an interview on “Today,” an appearance on “Ellen” and perhaps a primetime appearance. ABC could offer a primetime hour, as well as a slot on “Good Morning America,” etc. For what it is worth, an ABC insider says that the idea of Walters pushing for a 6-figure payout is “absurd.”

The Daily Mirror reports:
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While ABC and NBC battled it out head-to-head in primetime Friday night covering both the royal wedding and southern storms during expanded “20/20″ and “Dateline” broadcasts, CBS News’s 8pm special “The Royal Wedding: Modern Majesty” was the night’s #1 program in A18-49 viewers and tied CBS’ “Blue Bloods” as the night’s #1 program in A25-54 viewers. The show, hosted by outgoing CBS News anchor Katie Couric also won the hour in Total Viewers (8.79 million) and delivered the time period’s best A25-54 rating since January. The special was produced by Susan Zirinsky and her “48 Hours” team.

As we reported earlier, nearly 23 million people tuned into the Royal Wedding Friday morning. Most of those viewers were on the three broadcast networks, which combined drew close to 20 million viewers.

NBC’s “Today” led the way with 9.6 million people, its best ratings in 11 years. ABC’s “Good Morning America” was not that far behind with 8.6 million people, its best ratings in nearly 20 years.

CBS’ “Early Show” placed third.

As for the cable networks:

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Nearly 23 million people watched the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton Friday morning. The grand total was 22.766 million people, who watched on 11 networks from 6:00-7:15 AM ET.

By comparison, roughly 17 million people watched the 1981 nuptials between Prince Charles and Princess Diana on the big three broadcasters.

The networks covering the event included the “big three” broadcast networks, the three major cable news channels, as well as E!, TLC, BBC America and the Hispanic networks Univision and Telemundo.

We will post the individual breakouts for the broadcast and cable networks when we get them.

The broadcast networks devoted a significant chunk of time last night to news programs. CBS produced an hour on the Royal Wedding at 8pm, while NBC and ABC went head-to-head with two hour specials from 9-11pm. The first hour of “Dateline” was anchored by Brian Williams and was devoted almost entirely to the storms in the south, while ABC’s 2-hour “20/20″ was devoted almost entirely to the Royal Wedding.

“20/20″ drew 6.7 million total viewers and a 1.6 rating/5 share in A18-49. The Barbara Walters-hosted special drew 1.8 million more viewers than “Dateline” and by +33% in the A18-49 demo.

“20/20′s” second hour, which included a report from Jim Avila in storm-ravaged Alabama, saw its audience grow in Total Viewers and was #1 at 10pm in the A18-49 demo.

Some of the coverage of the coverage of this morning’s Royal Wedding. We’ll add more stories as they come in.

• Associated Press, David Bauder: [Katie] Couric wore a striking pink jacket for what is likely her last major news event at CBS (she’s stepping down as anchor in the coming weeks). She looked comfortable in a setting that reflected her time on morning television at the “Today” show and allowed her to flash some irreverence.

• Daily News, Richard Huff: The coverage rivaled the best of Super Bowl Sunday, when networks fill hours with fluff leading up to the game itself. Here, the game was the wedding, and this cute young couple was the Super Bowl.

• TIME, James Poniewozik: On American TV news, for six-odd hours straight, it was a very British morning and a very happy one. Call that a case of unbalanced priorities or a well-deserved momentary escape from our troubles; but from the standpoint of the actual headlines of destruction at home (not to mention plenty of places abroad), that was a fairytale indeed.
• The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley: ABC’s coverage evoked other royal memories as well. The network put Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters side by side in what looked like an anchor-booth version of the old Princess Diana and Camilla Parker-Bowles standoff. The two ABC stars co-anchored the event with the flinty smiles and clashing sensibilities of two women sharing the same man, or in this case rival super anchors sharing the same stage at what is sure to be one of the most highly rated ceremonies in television histor

Howard Kurtz will have more on the Royal Wedding coverage Sunday morning on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

(PHOTO: ABC NEWS)