Back then, the lack of televisions in the mainstream meant that viewers gathered in friends’ living rooms, churches and other public places to watch the coronation, creating a shared broadcast experience and a shared sense of history.
Now, the divide between social media and television in the immediate aftermath of the Queen’s death has highlighted how new media is changing culture. On social media, the Queen has been frequently discussed and, in many cases, denounced for Britain’s history in colonialism and its handling of royal scandals. Television, meanwhile, largely stuck to a script of fondly remembering and celebrating its 70-year reign, especially within the first 24 hours. The social media narrative has challenged and perhaps even changed the one that originally appeared on television.
However, despite the revolutionary disruption and fragmentation of media that the internet has already caused, television remains the main narrator of national life in countries such as the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
“Yes, the Queen’s coronation was the moment that made the British realize that the television was a staple of modern life … and the glue for post-war British culture,” said Thomas Doherty, a media and culture historian at Brandeis University.
While acknowledging the vast changes in the media landscape between 1953 and today, he nevertheless added: “I think the final mission and eulogies will have a huge audience—the drama, the spectacle, the ritual…a universally shared experience that television is thriving.”
The prediction of a huge television audience for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral seems a safe bet, at least in the UK where the line to see her casket at Westminster Hall stretched five miles on Friday morning with mourners temporarily turned away. By Friday afternoon, UK government live queue monitoring showed mourners would have to wait at least 22 hours to see Queen Elizabeth in state.
US audience forecasts are a trickier matter, thanks in part to the five-hour time difference between the UK and America’s Eastern Time Zone. CNN, for example, will begin broadcasting live television coverage at 5 a.m. ET Monday, which is at 10 a.m. in Britain.
The BBC will broadcast the events starting when Westminster Hall opens at 8am. UK time. His coverage will include funeral and funeral services. It will be the first time cameras have been allowed inside a monarch’s funeral. The BBC’s coverage will be both on TV and on its website where it will be available worldwide.
The time difference between US and UK viewers as well as weekday schedules could result in more Americans watching the funeral later in the day on the internet and social media videos than on live television. Robert Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University, believes the time difference is enough to affect the size of Monday’s audience.
“The time difference will make a big difference and yes, people will take advantage of the time shift, which started with clever video owners in 1981 for the Charles-Diana wedding and is much easier now,” Thompson said.
Although Thompson expects a “very large” audience, he doesn’t see it proportionately rivaling the 1953 coronation.
“I don’t think this funeral can penetrate the world’s attention the way the coronation in 1953 did — or even the wedding in 1981. There may be more spectators, but there are also more people. The identity and position of the monarchy is very different than it was less than a decade after the Second World War, and the menu of things people could pay attention to was much, much smaller then.”
How the Queen ushered in the TV age
During the Queen’s inauguration in 1953, the Americans could only get full coverage with a delay. NBC and CBS News, the two leading television news divisions of the time, filmed the events in Britain and then flew the footage across the Atlantic for airing on the networks, according to the June 10, 1953 issue of the trade publication Variety. And yet coverage of the coronation drew an audience of 85 million viewers in the US, according to the BBC. A notable aspect of how the American networks packaged their coverage involved the inclusion of commercials. This had a profound effect on the way television developed in Britain versus America, according to Doherty. “When the coronation films were shown on American television, the networks naturally sold advertising,” Doherty said. “And the British were upset that cigarette adverts were in disrespect near Her Majesty. This helped to reinforce their view that television should continue to be subsidized by the government and paid for by television taxes and dissuaded them from considering the advertising model for TV like ours.” While both Thompson and Doherty appreciate the growing power of digital media and acknowledge that television’s days as the primary storyteller are winding down, neither believes Monday’s funeral will mark the end of the television era. “I don’t think the removal of the Queen will signal the media’s swansong,” Doherty said. “If something like 9/11 happened again, we’d all be turning to our televisions – drawn in by the simultaneity and universality of collective experience and the hypnotic power of the bigger picture.” Thompson agreed: “I don’t think the funeral will be the last big world event of the TV era,” he said. “But, unfortunately, the major global televised events of the future will probably be disasters: an assassination, a terrorist attack, an intentional or accidental nuclear event, a massive natural disaster, a pandemic, a coup in a major North American republic—something everyone should watch.”
