Prince Charles' Annual Report: Twitter Followers Rise, Entertainment Spending Declines

Prince Charles' spending for the fiscal year that ended in March included £298,000 ($465,316) in expenditures on "official entertaining and receptions," a slight decline from the £323,000 ($504,350) he had spent in the previous year.

our editor recommends

Royal Wedding Movie Enlists Writer Nancy Meyers (Exclusive)

BBC's Jubilee Concert Draws Biggest U.K. TV Audience of Year to Date

That was one of many figures in the 40-page annual financial and activity report published by the Royal's estate.

The Prince of Wales also reportedly paid £35,000 ($54,000) out of his pocket for his new daughter-in-law's clothing for royal and charity events, but the annual financial report released Friday didn't break out that expense. Some details on those figures had been leaked, but experts have said that Middleton, known as the Duchess of Cambridge, likely has total fashion expenditures that are much higher than the leaked figures.

It is believed that the cost for her clothes are part of the budget item "official duties and charitable activities," which Friday's annual report said amounted to £9.83million ($15.41 million), up from £9.44 million ($14.80 million).

While last year's Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was mentioned in Friday's report as a popular event last April, details of Prince Charles' spending - or the spending from the Queen and Middleton's parents - on the wedding weren't disclosed either. They would fall under the category of "unofficial expenditures," according to observers. That budget item rose from £2.54 million ($3.98 million) to £2.61 million ($4.09 million). U.K. press reports had estimated the wedding spending by the families in the low hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Friday's report also touted the social media chops of the British Royals. "The online highlight of the year was The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding at Westminster Abbey," it said about the wedding of Prince William and Middleton. It reiterated a previously disclosed figure that the wedding "generated 72 million live streams for the live broadcast on YouTube’s Royal Channel (a world record) and 37.7 million page views for the official web site."

Prince Charles' web site www.princeofwales.gov.uk attracted 13.5 million page impressions in the latest year, up from 7.9 million in the previous year, according to the report.

The Royal Channel on YouTube, which is part-managed with Buckingham Palace, has "just over 110,000 subscribers," down from "just over 120,000 subscribers" last year. Its 465 videos have been viewed more than 36 million times, the latest report said.

The Twitter followers of Prince Charles' household now amounts to 166,500, up from 148,000 last year, the report said.

The total income and funding of Prince Charles' estate for the latest year rose 4 percent from £19.76 million ($30.84 million) to £20.48 million ($31.95 million), while his official spending rose 5 percent to £12.03 million ($18.78 million).

That left a slightly higher surplus of £8.46 million ($13.21 million). After taxes, non-official expenditures and other factors, the net cash surplus amounted to a only minimally higher £234,000 ($365,420) for the latest year.

Prince Charles and partner Camilla between them undertook 804 joint and solo official engagements in the U.K. and abroad over the year covered, according to the report. They hosted almost 9,500 people at events at royal residences and traveled almost 48,000 miles as part of official business on behalf of the country. Their travel cost amounted to £1.32 million ($2.07 million).

The report also disclosed that the operation of the Office of Prince William, Middleton and Prince Harry cost £2.92 million ($4.57 million).

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com

Twitter: @georgszalai