For every Briton who will tune in to watch today's royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton, one will not.
That was the finding of a recent Ipsos MORI poll for Reuters which underlines how, for all the international media hoopla surrounding the big occasion, the appeal of a rare show of royal pomp and pageantry is far from universal.
The centre of London will be effectively shut down today as the route of the royal wedding is closed off, hundreds of thousands of well-wishers line the streets and fill parks and security is tightened for the big occasion.
Many Londoners have left the city for the weekend, taking advantage of an extra day's holiday today which, combined with Easter and May Day means that three days off translates into an 11-day break.
The travel industry association ABTA estimates that around two million Britons travelled abroad for the Easter weekend and 1.5 million have gone overseas in the week leading up to the royal wedding.
Comparisons with previous years are difficult, given the extra day's holiday this year and the fact that Easter was unusually late. People were taking advantage of the time off as much as wanting to escape the wedding, travel experts explained.
While even the strongest opponents of the monarchy doubt the event will prove a flop, the statistics underline how mixed the picture is.
The poll for Reuters showed that 23 per cent of British adults questioned would definitely not watch the royal wedding, more than the 22 per cent who said they definitely would.
Ten percent were very unlikely to tune in and 10 per cent fairly unlikely, taking the total of naysayers to 43 per cent.
Joan Smith, a columnist and supporter of the anti-monarchy Republican group, said the media had been overwhelmingly positive in its coverage of the wedding to the extent that people had the story "rammed down our throats."
She also took issue with a government minister who said that two billion people were likely to tune in on the day to catch a glimpse of the event.
"You could actually say three or four billion, or whatever you wanted," Smith said.