We might see The Crown as a spot of light entertainment.  The Royal Family, on the other hand, seem to see it as a PR problem. 

Just in the last couple of days since season four landed, there have been a number of stories popping up in the British media, slamming the show.

Prince Charles’ friends have criticised it for apparently wrongly portraying him as being awful to Diana, various columnists have had a go at the apparent inaccuracies of the family’s history, and then others have slammed Prince Harry for taking money from Netflix, which is the company “monetising his family's suffering and especially his mother's anguish”.

Apparently the Royal Family is so worried about it that palace insiders are briefing media against the show. 

So what are they worried about? 

Well, for a start, this is the first season of the show really dealing with current events.  Stuff that many of us lived through and can remember. It starts with Lord Mountbatten’s assassination in 1979 and ends with the ousting of Maggie Thatcher in 1990. 

Then, it’s not flattering.  Especially not for Charles who is apparently depicted as callous and self-serving and truly mean to Diana. 

And finally, it’s really, really popular. 25 million households, not people, are expected to watch this season.  Over 80 million households have already tuned in for the first three seasons.

That’s massive.  Compare that to the readership of say the Daily Mail in the UK, which 1.2 million people.  This has the potential to really impact the impressions people around the world – and in the UK – have of the Royal Family, especially if they fall into the trap of thinking this show is accurate 

But Netflix isn’t doing anything wrong. The royals are fair game. They are in the public and they are there, in part, because of the story they sell the British people.  That story they sell isn’t always totally accurate, it paints them in a flattering light, which is the point of PR. 

So they can hardly complain when Netflix does the same and they don’t like it. 

And by the looks of things, they really don’t like it.