British Royal Wedding Coverage to Produce Charity Income

LONDON —  First there was the decision for a private wedding rather than a state event; then there were those royal commemorative stamps showing the queen’s youngest son, Prince Edward, and his bride-to-be, Sophie Rhys-Jones, looking decidedly casual in black polo sweaters a la Diana. Now the couple have broken another royal tradition and negotiated to share in the profits from the televising of their wedding on Saturday. The money will be funneled into a charitable trust.

For Edward Windsor, as he likes to be known in the entertainment business, selling the rights to his wedding may be the most successful deal of his five-year television career. Though he had originally wanted to use his own company, Ardent Productions, to produce less formal wedding coverage and to control the event, pressure from the palace led to a deal with the traditional broadcaster of such events, the BBC.

Malcolm Cockren, Ardent chairman, explained the original reasoning for having Edward’s company producing the event: “Edward was in discussion with the palace about trying to see if there was a way of filming it in a more personal way. He was very, very anxious to have it filmed in a different fashion and in a way he had some control over, and by so doing he would be able to maximize the amount of revenue to the newly formed charitable trust.”

In the end the palace vetoed Ardent being involved in the filming in case it looked unseemly that the prince’s own company was making money from the event, and the BBC was signed up as host broadcaster and distributor of the wedding. The profits made from selling the rights to the wedding worldwide and from selling clips and videos of the event titled “The Royal Wedding: Edward and Sophie,” which will retail for $19.98, will be returned to Edward and Sophie, with all of the money going to their approved charities. In the past, the BBC has filmed the royal weddings of Edward’s siblings--Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and Princess Anne--which were state events, and there has been no payment for coverage of events or sharing of profits from overseas sales.

Edward and Sophie are not the most glamorous royal couple this century, and their lack of charisma combined with the absence of processions through London streets, international dignitaries and other pomp associated with royal weddings has meant interest in the U.S. has been limited to cable broadcasters. Fox News, MSNBC, TLC and the BBC-Discovery Channel BBC America will all be playing live or delayed coverage of the wedding beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday. The major networks will rely on a 10-minute highlights package available free to news outlets.

Cockren said the muted U.S. interest was not a surprise. “[Edward] would have expected that; he prefers the name Edward Windsor to Prince Edward, and you can’t have it both ways. You either run your life as a prince and have a state wedding [or not], and had it been a state occasion the networks would have been highly interested.”

Most of the sales will probably come from former colonies like Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India, though BBC Worldwide has also signed deals with France, Germany, Italy, Spain and most other major territories. BBC Worldwide would not predict revenues from the event, which other distributors expect will be well under $1 million. BBC Worldwide did predict, rather vaguely, a global audience of “hundreds of millions.”

Though the fees from television coverage will be a nice little earner for the couple’s charity interests, it seems another priority for the royal lovebirds has been editorial control over the event. Rhys-Jones, who runs her own PR company, and Edward may both work in the media, but they only completed media arrangements for the event two weeks ago. For the first time no reporters will be in the church, one still photographer will shoot pool photographs inside the church, and a share of profits from the sale of all other stills from the 16 photographers positioned outside the church will be returned to the prince’s charities.

Ardent Productions, which employs a permanent staff of 10 working from Edward’s private home in Surrey, near Windsor Castle, has primarily produced documentaries seen on TLC, A&E; and PBS. When Edward started his television production company five years ago, he was adamant that he would not capitalize on his connections. Nevertheless, Ardent’s most well-known productions, such as “Crown and Country,” “Windsor Restored” and “Edward on Edward,” have largely been sold on the appeal of Edward as presenter and on his unrivaled access to royal properties and subjects.

Cockren says Ardent is now hoping to expand into more drama production (it produced “The Inspector Pitt Mysteries” for A&E;) and to coverage of blue-blood sports like polo and rowing. However, Cockren conceded, the royal theme of Ardent’s productions will likely continue.