RIP HM Queen Elizabeth II
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skatfan
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Loling at all the energy over who watched which funeral service that were more than 25 years apart. Really anybody cares whether the numbers are comparable or not? I guess the guy who fled London to avoid the hoopla and was mad his return flight got delayed does.
I’m intrigued By the royal family from a soap opera side, but honestly Americans lost their minds about all the coverage. Pakistan has a terrible flood and Puerto Rico doesn’t have electricity or potable water.
I’m intrigued By the royal family from a soap opera side, but honestly Americans lost their minds about all the coverage. Pakistan has a terrible flood and Puerto Rico doesn’t have electricity or potable water.
allezfred
Mean Spirited
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Not that it really matters but I would be interested to see where the statistics of 63% come from if you could find a link.There are more smartphones than people on the planet (I think by a factor of 2x now), and estimates are that at least half of the world's population has a smartphone. The funeral took place in the world's most central time zone, plus it lasted all day.
I don't find it entirely unbelievable that 63% of the world's population watched at least a few minutes of the Queen's funeral, especially given that the Commonwealth represents 33% of the world's population.
I think he's just saying that there are more electronic devices in the world than there are people. Depending on how the numbers are recorded, it's not implausible that 5 billion "people" across the world watched it. 5b is 63-64% of the world - essentially to just say 5 billion is a silly manufactured number, but not an entirely implausible one.
D
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I was one of many people who watched on a smartphone. Actually I watched on someone else's smartphone. And I stayed in London for seven of the 10+ days of hoopla .It's an estimate from BBC Radio that was tweeted by many (including Prince William). They have not explained how they calculated it. There are other estimates of 4.1 billion from TV analysts. They have also not explained how they calculated it. The same is true for the 2.5 billion estimate for Princess Diana's funeral.
Would the 5.1 billion or 4.1 billion pass a fact check? IMO no.
Is it plausible? In theory. Most likely it's inflated. It is, however, more plausible than the claims of 2.5 billion for Diana's funeral, given the prevalence of mobile devices and internet today v. 1997.
Can it be used to make directionally accurate comparisons to other TV events? IMO yes. I think it's very likely that least 1.6-2x as many people worldwide, and possibly more, watched QE2's funeral than watched Diana's funeral.
once_upon
Do all the good. All the time.
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Not sure what the point of whose funeral was watched more than whose funeral is.
The Queen and Diana were both loved by the world and both had detractors. Social media and circumstances have changed. Many feel the monarchies are outdated, need to be dissolved for a variety of reasons.
It seemed to many the actual stopping of the world news/event reporting was excessive.
But really - measuring the worth of a person based up the number of views on social media, when we really can't compare apples to apples is weird.
The Queen and Diana were both loved by the world and both had detractors. Social media and circumstances have changed. Many feel the monarchies are outdated, need to be dissolved for a variety of reasons.
It seemed to many the actual stopping of the world news/event reporting was excessive.
But really - measuring the worth of a person based up the number of views on social media, when we really can't compare apples to apples is weird.
Susan1
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Question here so I don't have to read the "new" royal thread -
Why do they still say Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton. The second Charles married Diana, I never heard them refer to her as Diana Spencer again. It was always Princess Di or Diana. Charles was already a prince. They have always said Prince William or Harry and....., whichever the wife's full regular people name.
Why do they still say Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton. The second Charles married Diana, I never heard them refer to her as Diana Spencer again. It was always Princess Di or Diana. Charles was already a prince. They have always said Prince William or Harry and....., whichever the wife's full regular people name.
JJH
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The simplest answer is the popular/tabloid press are lazy, manipulative and don't follow the rules. My understanding is that Princess Diana was never her correct title. She was Diana, Princess of Wales. She was incredibly popular. Therefore, the press adopted the title used by the public who adored her.
Similarly, Kate Middleton should be referred to as Catherine, Princess of Wales. I expect that the press will eventually start to call her Princess Catherine. Her popularity has soared after initially being treated roughly by the tabloids. (Waity Katie etc) Catherine is also now the Duchess of Cornwall in addition to the Duchess of Cambridge.
Meghan should be referred to as the Duchess of Sussex. The tabloids and popular press absolutely despise her (Although they love the amount of people they can draw to their sites by printing one inflamatory article after another)
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Their first names are not part of their official titles at all. When Diana was married to Charles, she was HRH The Princess of Wales, no first name. Diana, Princess of Wales, was the compromise title they came up with for her after they divorced (key difference, she was still a princess of Wales, but not the Princess of Wales). Everyone called her Princess Diana, media and public alike, but that was never her proper title (Princess Firstname is only for princesses who are born royal, not those who marry in). Kate is now HRH The Princess of Wales, no first name. Meghan is The Duchess of Sussex, no first name. The media still uses their pre-marriage names because they’re lazy, they don’t understand how the titles work (or see them as stodgy and overly formal, while “Kate” is recognizable and relatable), or they’re optimizing search engine results, since people still Google “Kate Middleton.” Often you’ll see articles that use both “Kate Middleton” and “the Princess of Wales” because they know people search for her under both names.
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Karen-W
YMCA is such a catchy tune!
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Actually, Diana's correct title, while she was married to Charles, was HRH The Princess of Wales. After she and Charles divorced, she lost the HRH and took on the style of the divorced wife of a peer - Diana, Princess of Wales. Same thing with Sarah Ferguson - while she and Andrew were married, she was HRH The Duchess of York. Since their divorce, she is, officially, Sarah, Duchess of York.
When she and William married, Kate became HRH The Duchess of Cambridge, and then for one day, after the Queen died, she was HRH The Duchess of Cornwall & Cambridge, before Charles declared William to be Prince of Wales, and at that point, 2 weeks ago, she became HRH The Princess of Wales. Also, while in Scotland, they do not use the Wales title, but instead are HRH The Duke and Duchess of Rothesay. And, yes, there have already been articles calling her Princess Catherine.
Meghan, when she is in the UK or performing official royal duties, would be titled as HRH The Duchess of Sussex. The agreement when she and Harry stepped away from being working royals, was that they would not use the HRH and style themselves like divorced spouses - so, she is Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and he is Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.
I do agree, though, that the popular/tabloid press are lazy. About the only married-in royal who isn't referred to by her pre-marriage name is Sophie, though I'm sure they used to call her Sophie Rhys-Jones in the early days rather than The Countess of Wessex. There are still (or were before the Queen's death) clickbait articles that used Camilla Parker-Bowles instead of The Duchess of Cornwall. Mind, it's mostly just the headlines. In the articles themselves, most use the correct titles, so it's a way of generating page views.
Susan1
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article that popped up on my yahoo today -
Why Kate Middleton is using Princess Diana's former royal title, but Camilla, Queen Consort, didn't
Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, is the first person to use the title since Princess Diana. Camilla never used it, even though she was entitled to.
"Why Kate Middleton is using Princess Diana's former royal title,"
Kate Middleton.... but.... Princess Diana. Sheesh.Archaic as all get out. A bunch of royal titles for people who don't do anything.
Sylvia
Flight #5342: I Will Remember You
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Tweeted on Sept. 24: https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1573732488869986306
Sept. 27 (today):
New Royalty thread:
Sept. 27 (today):
New Royalty thread:
Royalty thread #15: A New Era
There's a lot of discussion about the British royals in the RIP Queen Elizabeth thread and the Harry/Meghan thread; this is meant as a general royalty thread :) In the Netherlands, the Princess of Orange started University (colleague who used to work there: "And not at Leiden!!")...
www.fsuniverse.net
screech
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I think part of it is that Diana's title was Princess from the moment of marriage. Kate's wasn't. And now with media/press how it is and how it reaches the entire world, we've had more than a decade of NOT calling her princess. It won't be an overnight thing to get used to the title.
Though IIRC, she could have been called 'Princess William, Duchess of Cambridge' as is tradition. Meghan would be 'Princess Harry, Duchess of Sussex'.
Though IIRC, she could have been called 'Princess William, Duchess of Cambridge' as is tradition. Meghan would be 'Princess Harry, Duchess of Sussex'.
Karen-W
YMCA is such a catchy tune!
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The death certificate has been released - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ate-released-Records-reveal-died-old-age.html
Gives the time of death as 3:10pm GMT, so I think we can put to rest the suggestions that she died much earlier in the day. Sad that it was while Andrew, Edward, Sophie, William and Harry were all still enroute to Balmoral.
And the PM wasn't informed until nearly an hour and a half after she had passed away.
Gives the time of death as 3:10pm GMT, so I think we can put to rest the suggestions that she died much earlier in the day. Sad that it was while Andrew, Edward, Sophie, William and Harry were all still enroute to Balmoral.
And the PM wasn't informed until nearly an hour and a half after she had passed away.
clairecloutier
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I think the reason the media still uses the names Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle is not primarily laziness but rather marketing. These are the names by which these women first became known. And they have stuck. That's what people think of them as, and Google them as, rather than by their royal titles. In Kate's case (and yes I could be reaching here), I feel there is an element of people liking to think of her as an upper-middle-class girl (the Middleton name only reinforces this) who made good by marrying a prince. Bit of a Cinderella element, and her birth name makes her seem approachable. With Meghan, there's a similar element going on, I think, but using her birth name instead of her royal title is also a way for haters to diss her.
