Did you know that there have been times when billions of people have turned on their TV sets to watch the same program at the same time?
Most of us are used to TV shows being popular – we’ve all seen the likes of Love Island and X Factor trend on Twitter when something exciting happens, but it is still hard to fathom that on occasion billions of people throughout the world have tuned in to watch the same thing. Luckily, the researchers at Betway Casino analysed the data for us when they looked into the 10 events that stopped the world.
Perhaps one of the nicest things to consider is the different cultures and parts of the world that will be watching and how they’ll be tuning in – what will their go-to snacks be? What is the room where their TV set is like? It’s really an interesting thought! If you still can’t get your head around potentially billions of people watching the same thing then online slots provider Betway have put together a list of some of the most popular events of all time – so, which events have the biggest television audiences of all time?
Live 8 – July 2005
To date, the Live 8 concerts are still considered to have attracted the biggest television audience of all time. Live 8 was a series of concerts that took place on the 2nd July 2005. With a number of well-known acts taking part in events in cities such as Rome, Berlin, Paris and London it was expected that there would be plenty of people interested in watching. However, what wasn’t expected was that 31% of the population would choose to watch the concerts as they were being broadcast – meaning that 2 billion people were watching at the same time.
LONDON - JULY 2:. (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images)Live Aid – July 1985
20 years prior to this the two Live Aid concerts took place in London and Philadelphia. It was a life-changing event for many and one that is still talked about to this day. Back then, the event organised by Midge Ure and Bob Geldof was so popular that 39% of the population choose to watch it as it was broadcast throughout 150 different countries. This meant that 1.9 billion people were watching the likes of David Bowie, The Who and Queen give phenomenal live performances.
Harry and Meghan Get Married – May 2018
An event loved for different reasons, people were talking about the wedding between Harry and Meghan long before it took place. The nation loved Harry’s mother, the late Princess Diana and so were keen for Harry to have his fairy-tale wedding day. As such, when they tied the knot on the 19th of May 2018 1.9 billion people watched the Windsor Castle ceremony from home; willing them to have a day as wonderful as they remember his mum having.
These events didn’t just attract the biggest TV audiences of all time, but they are events that thousands of people attended and that people still talk about to this day. What remains to be seen is what the next big international event to gain people's attention will be.
