Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Monaco wedding

It now seems unlikely that the wedding of Prince Albert of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock will be televised live in the United States.  CNN will have reports throughout the day on July 2, which is the date of the religious wedding, but decided not to purchase the broadcast rights for the wedding.

NBC has a long term contract with Wimbledon.  The Ladies' Final is on July 3. 

The American news organizations don't have the spare cash to splurge on another live royal wedding, as news budgets have been stretched by events in North Africa, the Middle East, the earthquak/tsunami in Japan, the tornados in the United States, and the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.    There will be far less interest in the wedding of the Prince of Monaco.  He is half-American and the son of Grace Kelly, but that connection won't be enough to warrant the networks to purchase the broadcast rights for a wedding where the language will be in French.

I also doubt that the BBC will televise the wedding.  The British networks did not purchase the broadcast rights for Crown Princess Victoria's wedding.  BBC America, which purchases programming from the BBC and other sources, won't be showing the wedding.   The BBC World News 24 news channel (which is shown on only three cable companies in the US, including mine),  will have reports but I do not think they will take the feed for full coverage.


I have contacted France 24, the 24 hour French-langage news channel, and asked about the wedding. When I receive a response, I will post the information.  France 24 is available on numerous cable companies in the United States.

2 comments:

Jane Barr said...

Hmm, surely we can find it streaming online somewhere, right?

Marlene Eilers Koenig said...

It may be streamed on the official wedding site - but it will be up to the host broadcaster to open the stream worldwide