Netflix is going to need some ice for this sick burn that the BBC just handed them over their extravagant spending costs.

The target of the swipe was specifically Netflix's series ‘The Crown,’ the most expensive TV show ever made.

Reports have it that somewhere between £97m and £130m was spent on ‘The Crown’s two seasons, its third season having recently commenced filming. Show creator Peter Morgan has claimed that these estimates have been greatly exaggerated, but still, it’s obvious from just looking at the thing that a lot of money went into it.

On the day it publishes its annual report, and therefore hopes to justify the licence fee (we know all about that…), the BBC posted a bold tweet comparing the cost of ‘The Crown’ to a large sample of their own shows.

 

According to the post, £97 million was spent making seasons one and two of ‘The Crown’, resulting in 20 hours of content, which was viewed by 14% of adults (a likely inaccurate figure, given Netflix are infamous for not releasing audience figures).

Meanwhile, the BBC claims to have spent the same amount of money to produce 18 different drama series – including ‘Poldark’, ‘Call the Midwife’, ‘Our Girl’, ‘Peaky Blinders’, and ‘Sherlock’ among others – producing approximately 85 hours of content viewed by 72% of adults.

Mind you, two of the BBC’s notoriously expensive shows, ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘The Night Manager’, are absent from the post.

The BBC also hit headlines yesterday when it revealed the salaries of its highest paid stars.