They were more than 10 million at Lady Di’s funeral in 1997.
The funeral ceremony of Queen Elizabeth II of England brought together 7.5 million viewers on average Monday between noon and 1:00 p.m. on all the French channels where it was broadcast, according to figures from Médiamétrie made public on Tuesday.
This corresponds to a 66.7% audience share between 11:58 a.m. and 1:02 p.m. on TF1, France 2 and the news channels which broadcast the ceremony live at Westminster Abbey.
By way of comparison, the funeral of the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, had attracted 7 million viewers (53.4% audience share) on April 17, 2021 between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. (common time slot for all channels that had broadcast the ceremony, TF1, France 2, BFM TV, CNEWS, franceinfo and LCI).
The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, on April 29, 2011, was watched by an average of 9 million French viewers (17.14% of PDA) between 9:25 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. on TF1, France 2, BFM TV and CNEWS.
11.6 million viewers at Johnny Halliday’s funeral
Still with regard to the British royal family, the funeral of Lady Diana, on September 6, 1997, had been watched by 10.1 million viewers on average between 8:50 a.m. and 1:20 p.m., and only on TF1 and France 2, the news channels n did not yet exist at the time.
The record in France for this type of event remains the funeral of Johnny Hallyday, on December 9, 2017: they had attracted an average of 11.6 million viewers (76.1% audience share) between 9:40 a.m. and 3:25 p.m. on TF1 , France 2, BFM TV, CNEWS, franceinfo and LCI.