Brian Merron, director at media evaluation firm Kantar Media, analyses UK media coverage of Kate Middleton in the six years prior to the Royal Wedding. He explains his findings to PRmoment

Charting the rise of a celebrity like Kate Middleton over a number of years in the headlines, news bulletins and, as the big day drew near, in souvenir supplements, has been fascinating. Although it could be argued that Kate Middleton did not seek fame, her celebrity status is now of more interest than former model Katie Price’s to the popular press. And even before the wedding, she outnumbered Prince William and her in-laws by volume of coverage.

Media coverage volume of Kate Middleton

Research supplied by Kantar Media

Kate Middleton met Prince William in 2001 at St Andrew’s University, but it wasn’t until 2005 that she became a focus of media attention. She was photographed skiing with Prince William at Klosters in January 2005 and since then she has been present in the UK press, but not always consistently.

After Middleton’s initial smattering of press coverage in 2005 her profile stepped up a gear when she and William temporarily broke up in 2007 and then subsequently got back together a few months later. It seems the media loves a break-up. She then retreated from view until the engagement announcement on 16 November 2010 when press coverage went into saturation mode.

A tale of two Kates
To show her rising celebrity status we analysed Middleton’s volume of press coverage compared with another famous Kate, Katie Price. In total we analysed 26,834 articles. 

While Katie Price is still one of the most talked about celebs in the UK press, she has been well and truly eclipsed by the meteoric rise of Kate Middleton.  Between 2005 and 2010, it was only in 2007, when Prince William and Kate Middleton split up temporarily, that Katie Price had less press coverage than Ms Middleton.  Katie Price had a massive spike in press coverage in 2009 and 2010 following her separation and divorce from Peter Andre and marriage to Alex Reid. Although Ms Price separated from Reid in early 2011 her press coverage has been eclipsed by the increase in interest in Kate Middleton.

The rise of Kate Middleton - The number of print media articles

Source: Kantar Media

Also notable prior to the wedding, Kate Middleton began to feature more than Prince William, her future husband, in the UK press. With eight more articles than her fiancé, Kate edged ahead of William and zoomed past other leading Royals in the coverage contest.

There were only 21 articles about Kate Middleton between 15 and 21 April 2010. This figure jumps to 483 between 15 and 21 April 2011.  Kate Middleton’s coverage peaked immediately following the engagement announcement on 16 November 2010 at 736 articles.

The Wales Family in the press (1 January to 21 April 2011)
1. Kate Middleton: 3,197 articles
2. Prince William: 3,189 articles
3. Prince Charles: 1,274 articles
4. Prince Harry: 864 articles

The Wales Family in UK print media (2005 until 21 April 2011)
1. Prince Charles: 24,491 articles
2. Prince William: 17,245 articles
3. Prince Harry: 11,714 articles
4. Kate Middleton: 9,760 articles

Internet buzz
Kate Middleton’s presence in the blogosphere in the immediate run up to the wedding ran in tandem with her media coverage, except when the William & Kate movie launched in the US and there was a much bigger spike in coverage in the blogosphere than in print and TV.

So while approximately 24 million of us watched the Royal Wedding on Friday 29 April, Kate Middleton’s position as a media star was already well-established. Will the media adhere to Prince William’s request to leave the couple alone to lead private lives over the next two years while he continues to work? Judging by the number of articles speculating where the couple will go on honeymoon, Middleton is already proving to be too tempting a circulation booster for most newspapers to ignore.

Methodology
Kantar Media analysed all UK national daily newspapers between 1 January 2005 and 21 April 2011 for all articles containing either mentions of Kate Middleton or Katie Price. In total 26,834 articles were analysed. Kantar Media also analysed all UK daily national print media to provide rankings of Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince Harry and Kate Middleton in the print media over the same period 1 January 2005 to 21 April 2011. Blogs and TV/print coverage were analysed between 29 March and 20 April 2011; Kantar Media analysed 5,546 blog posts about Kate Middleton and 7,453 print articles and broadcast items about the Kate Middleton.