Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker, it was directed by Otto Bathurst and first aired on Channel 4 on 4 December 2011.

"The National Anthem" had several inspirations, the idea originally conceived by Brooker years previous, with broadcaster Terry Wogan in place of a prime minister.

Mostly positive professional reviews found the episode to be a good opener for the series, plausible in its storyline and well-acted, though some critics dissented.

The episode was later compared to Piggate, an anecdote published in the 2015 biography Call Me Dave, which alleged that British prime minister of the time, David Cameron, had placed a "private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig's head as an initiation rite at university.

[1] British prime minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear) is woken at night to learn that Princess Susannah (Lydia Wilson), a beloved royal, has been kidnapped.

Callett plans for Callow's head to be digitally composited on porn star Rod Senseless (Jay Simpson), a difficult task given the kidnapper's technical specifications for the broadcast.

After a person at the studio tweets an image of Senseless, the kidnapper sends a news channel a severed finger and a video of Susannah writhing in pain as punishment.

Cairns is informed that Princess Susannah was released unharmed in London on the Millennium Bridge 30 minutes before the broadcast, a fact she keeps secret from Callow.

[5] Series creator Charlie Brooker had previously conceived of a short story where the broadcaster Terry Wogan would have to have "full sexual intercourse with a sow" on television in order to secure the release of a kidnapped princess, later mentioning the idea in a 2002 column for The Guardian.

Like his previous work Dead Set, a 2008 horror series about zombies, he decided to "take something preposterous but make the tone very straight".

[7] Brooker also took inspiration from a controversy where Gordon Brown called a member of the public "a bigot" after speaking with her, and also a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic where he believed recalling that "a police chief is required to have sex with a hog".

During the casting process, executive producer Annabel Jones was keen to hire non-comedy actors so that a humorous tone could be avoided.

[7] During UK pre-publicity, the central concept of a pig was deliberately unmentioned; the Channel 4 trailers, which were briefly run on ITV and in cinemas, also avoided mentioning this.

A billboard featuring Callow about to have intercourse with the pig was shown in Kings Cross, New South Wales, in May 2013, but soon removed, with a spokesperson for the channel apologising and plans to show the image in print and online suspended.

[12] Michael Ahr of Den of Geek commented that the internet serves as a "weapon of attack" in the episode,[15] whilst Jim Goodwin of Bleeding Cool noted that "anonymously vented opinions can not only fuel but also help form the actions of government".

[13] Similarly, Corey Atad of Esquire found that the episode examines how mainstream news and social media can both "bring out some of the very worst in collective human instincts".

[10] In September 2015, four years after "The National Anthem" was first broadcast, the Daily Mail published allegations that David Cameron—the British prime minister at the time—had placed a "private part of his anatomy" into the mouth of a dead pig as an initiation rite at university.

[1] Black Mirror trended on Twitter following the Daily Mail article's publication,[19] and some people used the hashtag #snoutrage, which appears onscreen during the episode, to refer to the incident.

"[1] Airing on Channel 4 on 4 December 2011 at 9 p.m., the episode garnered 2.07 million viewers, according to seven-day figures from the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB).

[23] However, out of television broadcasts in 2011, "The National Anthem" received the eighth-most complaints to Ofcom, a total of 145 ranging from the use of profanity to the themes of bestiality, kidnapping, suicide, terrorism and torture.

The website's critics consensus reads: "This inaugural tale of political machinations and elite perversions works as a scalding satire and a nightmare of burgeoning technology gone awry, making it a perfect sampler for viewers seeking to step through the looking glass.

[12][17] Sims commented that "every twist seems organic" and "every decision rational", leading the audience to overlook "the insanity of the premise or any minor plothole".

[13] Goodwin further praised Tom Goodman-Hill in his role of "the morally malleable face of political spin" and Anna Wilson-Jones as Callow's wife, for bringing "grounded emotional connection" to the episode.