NBC has scaled back its planned coverage of the Royal Wedding in order to avoid potential “viewer fatigue”, an interesting change of strategy given the success & interest of The Today Show’s wedding-focused blog, “The Windsor Knot”. Though the official Royal Wedding site captured the greatest share of relevant search traffic last week, MSN and The Today Show were not far behind. US media outlets CBS News and ABC News were also among top beneficiaries of Royal Wedding searches last week.

Additionally, a number of news and media sites from the United Kingdom have been top recipients of related search traffic. Following Prince William and Kate Middleton’s engagement announcement in November 2010, top UK news outlets achieved their greatest market share of visits in the US for 2010.
Though more serious news stories (e.g. the Japanese earthquakes and tsunami) were the key reasons for growth in traffic to these UK news sites in March 2011, their success in capturing organic search clicks from Royal Wedding-related terms indicates that they are well-positioned to be top beneficiaries of US web-users Royal interest.

Thanks to Margot Bonner, Analyst with Custom Data & Analytics and resident “Royal Wedding” expert for the analysis behind today’s blog post.