A Brief History
On September 6, 1997, two to two and a half billion people worldwide were glued to their TV sets watching the funeral of Princess Diana, a similar number of TV viewers that watched the 2009 funeral of pop rocker Michael Jackson.
Digging Deeper
Did you realize funerals were much bigger television events than Super Bowls? In fact, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II of the UK ranks Number 1 on the list of most watched TV events with a staggering 5.1 billion viewers worldwide!
The opening ceremonies of the 1996 and 2008 Summer Olympics drew 3.6 and 3 billion viewers respectively. Boxer Muhammad Ali drew huge TV audiences, with two billion people watching him lose to Larry Holmes in 1980, two billion saw him beat Leon Spinks in 1978, and 1.4 billion saw his fight with wrestler Antonio Inoki in 1976.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2018 wedding was the most watched wedding with almost two billion viewers.
Note: As is often the case, numbers and estimates of viewers vary with the source. Several music concerts, other sporting events, the wedding of Charles and Diana, the 2023-2024 Sydney Australia fireworks show, and the rescue of Chilean miners claimed a billion or more viewers each. What about the 1969 Moon Landing? That only got 600 million TV viewers!
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What is the biggest TV event you have seen?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Gibbs, David. ROYAL FUNERAL: THE AMAZING THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II. Independently published, 2022.
West, Randy. TV Inside-Out – Flukes, Flakes, Feuds and Felonies: The backstage blunders, bloopers and blasphemy of celebrities in search of success. BearManor Media, 2022.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by PaddyBriggs of Diana’s coffin being borne through the streets of London on its way to Westminster Abbey, has been released into the public domain worldwide by its author at the English Wikipedia project.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
