How has TV affected perceptions of the royal family?

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Elizabeth II was the queen of television, but it was a double-edged sword. "Royals are only private in the womb," said her [music] governess when she was a princess, Marion Crawford.

[00:00:11]This was a striking comment [music] considering she said it in the 1930s.

[00:00:16]When the BBC documentary The Royal Family [music] was transmitted in 1969, it was watched by nearly 23 million viewers in the UK with a global estimated audience of 350 million. Some say more than watched the men landing on the moon. It showed, as well as the Queen attending engagements, [music] her buying an ice cream for Prince Edward, and the royal family enjoying a barbecue and eating breakfast.

[00:00:42]But by the 1970s, the documentary had been locked away.

[00:00:45]>> [music] >> It had let in too much light on the subjects.

[00:00:49]Elizabeth and the royal family found that, unlike portrait painting, >> [music] >> the royal image communicated through TV and today streaming and social media could not and cannot always be controlled.

[00:01:02]This has been perhaps no more thoroughly proven than by the stark image broadcast around the world in early 2026 of Elizabeth's third child, Andrew, driven away from a police station. And this may be one of the enduring images of royal reputation in the 2020s.