In case you haven’t noticed, a royal wedding is upon us.
There is no escape.
Not even at PBS.
Americans love the British royal family.
The first job I ever had with an American news organization was in the summer of 1986. I was a college graduate looking to work in television, and I was hired locally by NBC News in London (my home).
The assignment? PA/Runner for NBC Today and its live coverage of the royal wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
I was surprised that the wedding of not the heir, but the spare (Prince Andrew), would warrant special live coverage from an estimable and important American program.
Breakfast television was still a nascent genre in the U.K., but Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel were bona fide big deals in America. They were anchors (on BBC Breakfast Time we had presenters) of the longest running morning show in American television.
Americans cared about royal weddings I surmised. It was a fun assignment and an important early step in my career in journalism.
Sadly, that royal marriage didn’t last, but American fascination with the British royal family endures, on American newsstands, on commercial television and perhaps nowhere more so than on the airwaves of PBS.
Just browse the offers on PBS Passport and you’ll see there is something for everyone who calls themselves an Anglophile, or who has any historical interest in the British monarchy, and what they wear and the places they’ve lived. Secrets of the Tower of London; The Queen’s Garden; Tales from the Royal Wardrobe, you get the idea.
If you are one of those Anglophiles, or royal fans, PBS is going to make your May.
Last month, PBS announced strip programming for their coverage of the forthcoming nuptials of Prince Harry and American Meghan Markle. For five nights starting Monday, May 14 PBS will air Royal Wedding Watch leading up to the live broadcast of the BBC coverage of the wedding on Saturday morning, May 19.
That’s a lot of coverage.
“We thought we’d have a little fun.”
That’s what Shawn Halford, PBS’s senior director of programming, told me when I asked him about this decision.
Halford says he still regrets that PBS did not give Prince William and Kate Middleton any coverage for their wedding.
So what accounts for this zero to 60 escalation from nothing to something some might call excessive?
“It’s because we have this co-production with BBC Studios,” which didn’t exist then, Halford says, and this partnership has allowed for “a very cost-effective way to get very high quality content with some of the best producers in the world – natural history, history science – and then this, is building on that in a completely different way.”
Halford is also confident that viewers will tune in. “There’s a huge amount of interest for our viewers because they’re Anglophiles and ... the fact that it’s an American marrying into the royal family, there’s been intense interest.”
I’m from Britain, I grew up with the royals, I’ve covered royal stories throughout my career, I programmed coverage of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, but even for me, five nights seems a little bit too much.
I shared that concern with Halford, given everything going on in the country and the world, is a five day run-up to the wedding really what we need?
Halford is undeterred: “Five nights allows us to delve into things deeply and also it winds up being cost effective given our co-production arrangement. But…this is one of the ways we can do something fun, a little lighter, while continuing to produce Frontlines on a weekly basis, continue into deep subjects on Independent Lens, with Nova. There’s room on PBS for a total variety of stuff.”
Halford continuously raised the cost effectiveness of this partnership for PBS, which translated I think means it’s an experiment that isn’t expensive so why not try it.
OK, Megan Markle is adorable and people seem to have a soft spot for the royal bad boy Prince Harry, who is doing something that hasn’t been done since his great great uncle King Edward the VIII lost his job for it – marrying an American divorcée (and Ms. Markle also happens to be African American, a first). Besides, who doesn’t love a spring wedding?
Royal Wedding Watch will be “like a morning show in the evening” Halford says, hosted by American Meredith Vieira (a Today show alum) and Matt Baker from the BBC. It will include segments that will air both on the BBC and on PBS and will come live from London with contributors from the BBC.
OK, like a morning show, a Today show alum and broadcasting from London. Shawn, I’m going to give it a go.
And, viewers, if the recent record ratings of Masterpiece's "Victoria" are anything to go by, you are going to, too.
Posted on May 3, 2018 at 12:59 p.m.
