THE Royal Family insist they don't watch The Crown – but their Commonwealth subjects certainly do, as our exclusive figures reveal…
THE members of the Royal Family claim they don't watch The Crown – but their Commonwealth subjects certainly do.
Streaming service Netflix, which is notoriously secretive about its ratings, never published global ratings for the show, which ended last month.
But listening figures from the Mail's Crown-based podcast – which delved into every episode of the latest series – have provided an intriguing account of where the TV drama is likely to have proven to be the biggest hit.
Meg Bellamy stars as Kate Middleton in the student fashion show that says Prince William has really noticed his future wife. The final series of The Crown covered the period from Diana's death to Prince William's time at St Andrews University
Prince William, played by Ed McVey. The Crown seems to have made a strong impression in the Commonwealth countries
The first kiss between Kate and William as dramatized in the Netflix series
Courtiers have said members of the royal family don't watch The Crown – unlike their fans in Commonwealth countries
While Britain came out on top in tuning into the Crown: Fact or Fiction with around 40 percent of the audience share, the Commonwealth countries put in an unexpectedly strong performance.
Australia, for example, accounted for almost 17 percent of listeners.
The king, who is head of state, will visit in October. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Australian government this month postponed controversial plans to hold a referendum on replacing King Charles as head of state.
Just over four percent of downloads took place in Canada and 3.6 percent in New Zealand, where Charles is also head of state.
The other two countries to make the top six in terms of downloads were the United States, with 20.37 percent, and Ireland, with 4.65 percent.
Courtiers have repeatedly said that members of the royal family don't watch The Crown — except for Prince Harry, who revealed in an interview last year that he does his own fact-checking while watching it.
The final series, released in the autumn, recreated the years between Diana's tragic death and William and Kate's university romance.
Separate chart figures show a similar picture, with the podcast being number one on the Apple Podcasts TV and Film charts in six Commonwealth countries: Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Malta and Mauritius.
Other Commonwealth countries tuning in include Tanzania and Singapore, where the podcast reached positions two and three respectively on the same chart.
These statistics do not reveal the ages of listeners, but the latest Ofcom report shows that podcasts are particularly preferred by younger people, with a growing audience among listeners aged 25 to 44 – a key audience for the monarchy.
Outside the Commonwealth, the podcast was popular in some unexpected places.
Award-winning Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown
The three queens appear in a spooky scene from the final series of the drama. From left to right: Olivia Coleman, Imelda Staunton and Claire Foy
Charles and Camilla are played by Olivia Williams and Dominic West
It tops the Apple Podcast TV and film charts in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the King visited Cop28 in Dubai in November, as well as in Estonia and Honduras.
It also reached number two on the Apple Podcast TV and Film chart in Iceland, Luxembourg, Nepal and Romania; number three in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Lithuania; number four in Greece, Slovakia and Norway and number five in Qatar and Indonesia.
Meanwhile, it also charted in the top ten of the same chart in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Austria, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.