British royal baby dominates world media - like it or not

LONDON - From live TV coverage of a hospital door to a gaggle of royal baby experts, the world's media was in a frenzy on Monday over the arrival of the future heir to the British throne, offering  moment-by-moment coverage if very little actual news.

For three weeks photographers from across the globe have been camped outside St. Mary's Hospital in west London waiting for the arrival of Prince William and his wife Kate's first child, who will be third in line to the throne.

As Kate, 31, headed to hospital around dawn on Monday, TV stations and news websites from the United States to Australia pulled out articles and picture galleries about every possible aspect of the royal baby from name to gender to lineage.

Arianne Chernock, an expert on the history of monarchy at Boston University, said royal births had always attracted a lot of attention. Prince William's birth in 1982 is one of the top 10 highest People magazine cover stories.

"What is different this time is that the media has been transformed in the past decade and the existence of operations like Twitter has magnified this tendency for curiosity," she told Reuters.

The lead-up to the birth, dubbed the "Great Kate Wait", has produced reams of stories on every aspect of the royal event of the year. Newspapers ran advice to Kate to speed up the arrival with a hot curry or nipple stimulation.

Several British newspaper websites were running live coverage of the main door to the private Lindo wing where Kate was admitted to give birth, with William at her side.

However the photographers missed Kate arriving before 0500 GMT on Monday as the couple used an unmarked car and side door.