So as you won’t have managed to miss, news hit last Monday that Prince Harry and his American squeeze Meghan Markle will be tying the knot in May 2018 at St. George’s Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle. Naturally, the UK and international press reacted by dedicating a good proportion of their content to the event, which is still around six months away, and as any public relations agency should, we scoured the headlines to see what’s what.
Here’s how the big titles broke things down…
The Sun
A full 25 pages in the print edition, plus a pull-out poster for royalists to have and keep for as long as the dog-ears hold off.
Front page headline: ‘She’s the one!’
The Daily Mail
Ever partisan (see our MD Rick Guttridge’s recent analysis of the publication, here), The Mail offered a sizeable 24-page supplement detailing everything from how the couple got together to what may or may not be involved come the big day.
Front page headline: ‘The stars were all aligned… this beautiful woman just fell into my life.’
The Mirror
Special souvenir pull-out.
Front page headline: ‘She just tripped & fell into my life…’
The Telegraph
16 pages in the standard paper, plus a souvenir supplement.
Front page headline: ‘The corgis took to her straight away.’
Metro
First 11 pages of the print edition.
Front page headline: ‘One’s One.’
Daily Express
Somewhat surprising given the paper’s reputation as a bastion of Royal reporting, the Express’ coverage was actually the shortest, running at a mere seven pages in the print title.
Front page headline: ‘The look of love.’
TV Engagement
While the above shows that, in newspaper terms, the Royals are still seen as big sellers amongst readers, over on television things didn’t go down quite as well when huge portions of entire programmes were handed over to the news.
The Radio Times ran a story on Tuesday, a day after headlines hit, which stated ‘Viewers already bored of royal wedding coverage on breakfast TV‘. Major culprits included ITV Good Morning Britain, which drafted in Meghan Markle’s half-sister, and Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s former Royal Butler, to give their thoughts on the story; BBC Breakfast which also covered heavily; and ITV This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, who left viewers ‘FURIOUS’ (according to a subsequent story in the Express) because they wouldn’t leave the subject alone for longer than five minutes or so.
Here’s what famed Royal skeptic and BBC News presenter Simon Todd thought about the whole scenario…
Rejoice.
— Simon McCoy (@BBCSimonMcCoy) 27 November 2017
…which was slightly less scathing than his report on the Royal Baby back in October.
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