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All I can think of is my late English grandmother Mary had something to do with waking me up at 6:02 this morning, just in time to turn on the TV to see Catherine Middleton walk down the aisle to marry Prince William.
After all, I vowed not to care about the wedding.
It was my way of protesting the networks attempt to force the wedding down American throats and make big bucks off advertising with what amounted to a month-long pregame show.
It got to the point that you wondered if the networks would find a sponsor for the big Kiss this morning.
Since I didn’t watch any of the pre-wedding Royal coverage, I didn’t realize the couple wasn’t going to kiss for more than an hour after they were pronounced man and wife.
Just about the time that I wondered why the couple hadn’t kissed, ABC’s Robin Roberts told me it was scheduled at 7:25 a.m. on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
A short time later, Katie Couric or someone on CBS said it wasn’t going to happen until 8:25 a.m. or so and added that the couple had practiced the kiss so the perfect picture could be taken.
CBS was right. The Kiss happened around 8:25 a.m.
If you want to call it a Kiss. They must not have practiced enough. The Brit commentator on CBS called it a peck.
“I hate to be ungrateful, but that’s it?” asked Couric.
It apparently wasn’t. A few minutes later, they kissed again.
“For the first time in history, there were two kisses,” said ABC’s Barbara Walters.
As you can see, I did a lot of dial switching. I started off watching ABC but switched when Channel 7 briefly lost the picture. Then I changed channels as soon as I got bored with the coverage on the network I was watching.
So here are some of my thoughts. Just don’t ask me where I heard them while watching in bed without a notebook.
* Someone claimed to lip read Prince William’s comment to Kate as he first looked at his bride: “Beautiful, beautiful.” He got that right. Her entire family – mother, sister, father, brother — looked beautiful.
* Kate looked a lot happier and natural than William.
* Every British guy who spoke at the wedding had a great speaking voice. They all could have second careers on TV.
* Some British commentator discussing how Kate would handle the unrelenting media said “Kate is cool, (Princess) Diana wasn’t cool.” Ouch. That’s not cool.
* I wish the networks had identified some faces in the crowd at Westminster Abbey. The only person that I recognized outside of the Royals was Elton John.
* At one point, CBS’ Katie Couric (see above) noted that the world has become so much more casual that it is a good thing once in a while to watch “some pomp and circumstance.” No argument here on Casual Friday.
* Reluctantly, I also suppose it’s also a good thing for the world to share a positive experience since that happens so rarely these days.
* Over at NBC, the guest Brit commentators noted that there had been some ambivalence about the wedding, but added a Royal wedding is a massive big deal.
* At around 8 a.m., NBC’s Matt Lauer jokingly likened the crowds lining the street to see the Royal couple to crowds at the British Open.
“I think It is slightly more important than the game of golf,” cracked the British commentator working with Lauer.
Sorry, Grandma. It was beautiful and it was uplifting. But I’m still not so sure the British commentator is right.
* Not surprisingly, the Buffalo Sabres’ 5-2 loss Tuesday to Philadelphia in Game 7 of their playoff series didn’t get a rating as high as expected.
The game averaged a strong 20.4 rating. But that was significantly lower than Game 6 on Channel 2 despite being a deciding game.
The rating hit a high of 24.1 in the first period and stayed strong into the second period. But by the third period, the rating slipped to as low as 16.4 as fans apparently lost hope that the Sabres could stage a miracle comeback.
I imagine the combined local rating for the network coverage of The Wedding will be considerably higher than the rating for the Sabres.
Alan Pergament was the television critic for The Buffalo News for 28 years. He currently is an adjunct professor at Buffalo State College and Medaille College, teaching courses in communications. He also writes a monthly column on the media for Buffalo Spree magazine.
What will Inside Edition do without the royal wedding and Charlie Sheen??????
Couple of things…
The “British Open” comment was in fact a observant comment. The British Open has a tradition of ending with the crowd being control by police in the same way they did along The Mall today. The crowd fill in behind a police cordon that gradually leads them in an orderly manner.
Regrading identifying people in the abbey. Some USA networks did better than others prior to Catherine’s arrival. MSNBC’s Bashir (a Brit) did identify several people prior to the start of the service. Once the service started all networks essentially took the BBC feed. BBC only identified the names of Hymns via graphics, not the names of people in the abbey. Most of the people in the abbey were unknown to North American audiences. i.e. The Serbian Royal Family , King of Tonga, Governors General from the Commonwealth (54 countries) , Rugby players, etc. The only people USA audiences might have known were David Beckham, Posh Spice, Rowan Atkinson (“Mr Bean” or Blackadder”), John Major, Elton John and spouse, David Cameron British PM, Ian Thorpe (Australian swimmer) . Ben Fogle winner of “Castaway” the British version of Survivor and NBC Today Show correspondent, , singer Joss Stone, and Guy Ritchie (ex hubby of Madonna)
Maybe some of the ambivalence about the wedding is because British tax payers aren’t looking forward to picking up the tab for this little billion dollar shindig during these tough economic times.