A majority of news
consumers (78%) say they have not been paying much attention to the media
run-up to the royal wedding Friday. That interest will likely grow somewhat for
the actual "I do's," but remain a distinct minority.
That is according to the
Project for Excellence in Journalism's (PEJ) News Interest Index for April
21-25.
A majority (64% of respondents) said there had been too much coverage of the
wedding preliminaries.
Despite that
finding, PEJ said it expects the actual Friday wedding (April 29) to
attract a "sizeable" U.S. audience, particularly among older women.
About a third of women 50 and over said they planned to watch. The overall
figure was only 19%, however, and that will be divided over a host of nets
planning to cover the event, including all the major broadcast nets and many
cable news outlets.
Asked how closely they
were following news about the wedding of Prince William and fiancée Kate
Middleton, only 8% said very closely and 13% fairly closely, while 25% said not
too closely and 63% said not at all closely.
The news interest survey
was of 1,001 adults 18-plus contacted by phone--landline and cell.
