Royal Family (film)

Royal Family
Title screen
Written byAntony Jay
Directed byRichard Cawston
Starring
Narrated byMichael Flanders
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
Production
ProducerRichard Cawston
Running time110 mins[1][2]
Production companiesBBC, ITV
Original release
NetworkBBC1, BBC2, ITV
Release21 June 1969 (1969-06-21)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

Royal Family (also known as The Royal Family)[3] is a British television documentary about the family of Queen Elizabeth II. It originally aired on BBC 1 and ITV in June 1969. The film attracted over 38 million viewers in the United Kingdom and was sold around the world and seen by an estimated 350 million people.[4] The Queen later had the documentary banned;[5][6] it has not been shown on British TV since 1977[7] and access to view the film was heavily restricted.[8] In early 2021 it was leaked and published on the internet.[5][6] The film remains available to view on the video-sharing platform YouTube[9] and the digital library website Internet Archive.[10]

  1. ^ "Royal Family (1969)". IMDB.
  2. ^ Chris Ship (29 January 2021). "Why the 1969 Royal Family film was hurriedly taken down from YouTube". ITV News. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  3. ^ "The Royal Family (1969)". BFI. Archived from the original on 4 May 2018. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  4. ^ "Royal Family first transmitted". History of the BBC. BBC. Archived from the original on 30 November 2019.
  5. ^ a b Ward, Victoria; Mendick, Robert (28 January 2021). "Royal documentary banned by the Queen is leaked 50 years later". The Telegraph. London: Telegraph Media Group. Archived from the original on 28 January 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  6. ^ a b Moore, Matthew (29 January 2021). "Royal documentary banned by Queen is leaked on YouTube". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 29 January 2021. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  7. ^ "Festival 77: 1969 Royal Family". Radio Times (2805). BBC Genome: 43. 11 August 1977. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference independent was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Royal Family (1969)". YouTube. 8 September 2022.
  10. ^ Royal Family (1969) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive