100 Greatest British Television Programmes

Information about 100 Greatest British Television Programmes

100 Greatest British Television Programmes was a list compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute (BFI), chosen by a poll of industry professionals, to determine what were the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened.

Initially, a 'big list' of 650 programmes was drawn up by BFI personnel, and this provisional list was then distributed to a range of television industry professionals in the UK, who were each given 30 votes. The listing was split into six categories: Single Dramas, Drama Series and Serials, Comedy and Variety, Factual, Children's / Youth, and Lifestyle & Light Entertainment. Each voter was required to cast a minimum of three votes in every category. News stories were mostly excluded — with exceptions such as the coverage of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales — on the basis that it would be impossible to determine whether it was the coverage or the news itself that made them important. Sport was excluded for similar reasons, and also because many events such as the 1966 World Cup, while important to those in England, would not matter to those in other areas of the United Kingdom.

Some programmes were represented on the list as an entire series, while for some series such as the anthology The Wednesday Play and current affairs show This Week, individual episodes were singled out. Early television programmes no longer existing in the archives were excluded from consideration.

Although obviously not including any programmes made in 2000 or later, the list is useful as an indication of what were generally regarded as the most successful British programmes of the 20th century.

The full list ran as follows:
  1. Fawlty Towers BBC2 1975-1979
  2. Cathy Come Home (The Wednesday Play) BBC1 1966
  3. Doctor Who BBC1 1963-1989, 1996, 2005-
  4. The Naked Civil Servant ITV 1975
  5. Monty Python's Flying Circus BBC2 1969-1974
  6. Blue Peter BBC1 1958-
  7. Boys from the Blackstuff BBC2 1982
  8. Parkinson BBC1/ITV 1971-1982, 1998-
  9. Yes Minister / Yes, Prime Minister BBC2 1980-1988
  10. Brideshead Revisited ITV 1981
  11. Abigail's Party (Play for Today) BBC1 1977
  12. I, Claudius BBC2 1976
  13. Dad's Army BBC1 1968-1977
  14. The Morecambe & Wise Show ITV/BBC1 1961-1983
  15. Edge of Darkness BBC2 1985
  16. Blackadder Goes Forth BBC1 1989
  17. Absolutely Fabulous BBC2/BBC1 1992-1996, 2001-2004
  18. The Wrong Trousers BBC2 1993
  19. The World at War ITV 1973-1974
  20. The Singing Detective BBC1 1986
  21. Pennies From Heaven BBC1 1978
  22. The Jewel in the Crown ITV 1984
  23. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? ITV 1998-
  24. Hancock's Half Hour BBC1 1956-1961
  25. Our Friends in the North BBC2 1996
  26. 28 Up ITV 1985
  27. The War Game (The Wednesday Play) BBC1 1965 (transmitted 1985)
  28. The Magic Roundabout BBC1 1965-1977
  29. That Was The Week That Was BBC1 1962-1963
  30. An Englishman Abroad BBC1 1983
  31. The Royle Family BBC1 1998-2000, 2006
  32. Life On Earth BBC2 1979
  33. The Old Grey Whistle Test BBC2 1971-1987
  34. University Challenge ITV/BBC2 1961-1987, 1994-
  35. Porridge BBC1 1974-1977
  36. Blue Remembered Hills (Play for Today) BBC1 1979
  37. Mastermind BBC1/BBC2 1972-1997, 2003-
  38. I'm Alan Partridge BBC2 1994-1997, 2002
  39. Cracker ITV 1993-1996, 2006
  40. Coronation Street ITV 1960-
  41. Top of the Pops BBC2/BBC1 1964-2006
  42. Inspector Morse ITV 1987-2000
  43. Grange Hill BBC1 1978-
  44. Steptoe and Son BBC1 1962-1965, 1970-1974
  45. Only Fools and Horses BBC1 1981-1996, 2001-2003
  46. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (series 1) ITV 1983-1986
  47. Tiswas ITV 1974-1982
  48. Elgar BBC 1962
  49. Nuts in May (Play for Today) BBC1 1976
  50. Father Ted Channel 4 1995-1998
  51. The Avengers ITV 1961-1969
  52. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy BBC2 1979
  53. The Forsyte Saga BBC2 1967
  54. Hillsborough ITV 1996
  55. Dennis Potter: The Last Interview (Without Walls Special) Channel 4 1994
  56. Bar Mitzvah Boy (Play for Today) BBC1 1976
  57. Edna, the Inebriate Woman (Play for Today) BBC1 1971
  58. Live Aid for Africa BBC1 1985
  59. World In Action ITV 1963-1998
  60. Thunderbirds ITV 1965-1966
  61. Talking Heads/Talking Heads 2 BBC2 1987, 1998
  62. Ready Steady Go! ITV 1963-1966
  63. Z-Cars BBC1 1962-1978
  64. Culloden BBC1 1964
  65. The Ascent of Man BBC2 1973
  66. A Very British Coup Channel 4 1988
  67. BBC2 1969
  68. Prime Suspect ITV 1991-1996, 2003-2006
  69. The Likely Lads / Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? BBC2/BBC1 1964-1966, 1973-1974
  70. Have I Got News for You BBC2/BBC1 1990-
  71. The Snowman Channel 4 1982
  72. Walking with Dinosaurs BBC1 1999
  73. Nineteen Eighty-Four BBC1 1954
  74. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin BBC1 1976-1979
  75. Quatermass and the Pit BBC1 1958-1959
  76. Between The Lines BBC1 1992-1994
  77. Blind Date ITV 1985-2003
  78. Talking to a Stranger (Theatre 625) BBC2 1966
  79. The Borrowers BBC1 1992
  80. One Foot in the Grave BBC1 1990-2000
  81. Later with Jools Holland BBC2 1992-
  82. Tutti Frutti BBC2 1987
  83. The Knowledge ITV 1979
  84. House of Cards BBC1 1990-1995
  85. This is Your Life BBC1/ITV 1955-1964, 1969-2003
  86. The Tube Channel 4 1982-1987
  87. The Death of Yugoslavia BBC2 1995
  88. Till Death Us Do Part BBC1 1966-1975
  89. A Very Peculiar Practice BBC1 1986-1992
  90. Michael Moore's TV Nation BBC2 1995
  91. This Life BBC2 1996-1997
  92. Death on the Rock (This Week) ITV 1988
  93. The Nazis - A Warning From History BBC2 1997
  94. Drop the Dead Donkey Channel 4 1990-1998
  95. Arena BBC2 1975-
  96. The Railway Children BBC1 1968
  97. Teletubbies BBC2 1997-2001
  98. Spitting Image ITV 1984-1996
  99. Pride and Prejudice BBC1 1995
  100. Made in Britain ITV 1982

See also

External links

20th century - 21st century
1970s  1980s  1990s  - 2000s -  2010s  2020s  2030s
1997 1998 1999 - 2000 - 2001 2002 2003

2000 by topic:
News by month
Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun
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The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:
encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and

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Motto
"Dieu et mon droit" [2]   (French)
"God and my right"
Anthem
"God Save the Queen" [3]
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Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances;[2] n̩e Spencer; 1 July 1961 Р31 August 1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. Her two sons, Princes William and Harry, are second and third in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and 15 other
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Teams 16   (from 74 entrants)
Host England
Matches played   32
Goals scored 89   (average 0 per match)
Attendance 1,635,000   (average 0 per match)
Top scorer(s) Eusébio
9 goals

The
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Motto
Dieu et mon droit   (French)
"God and my right"
Anthem
No official anthem specific to England — the anthem of the United Kingdom is "God Save the Queen".
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The Wednesday Play was a British television drama anthology series, which ran on BBC1 from 1964 to 1970. Every week a different play, usually written directly for television although adaptations from other sources were not uncommon, would be presented.
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This Week was the name of a weekly current affairs series screened on the ITV network in the United Kingdom, produced for the network by Thames Television. Its most famous edition was Death on the Rock
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20th century - 21st century
1970s  1980s  1990s  - 2000s -  2010s  2020s  2030s
1997 1998 1999 - 2000 - 2001 2002 2003

2000 by topic:
News by month
Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun
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twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar. Some historians consider the era from about 1914 to 1991 to be the Short Twentieth Century.
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Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Only twelve episodes were produced, but the series has had a lasting and powerful influence on later shows.
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Cathy Come Home is a British television play by Jeremy Sandford, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Ken Loach. Filmed in a gritty, realistic drama documentary style, it was first broadcast on November 16 1966 on BBC1.
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The Wednesday Play was a British television drama anthology series, which ran on BBC1 from 1964 to 1970. Every week a different play, usually written directly for television although adaptations from other sources were not uncommon, would be presented.
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Various Doctors
(currently David Tennant)
Various companions
Opening theme Doctor Who theme music
Ending theme Doctor Who theme music (reprise)
Country of origin  United Kingdom
No.
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The Naked Civil Servant is the first volume of autobiography by the gay icon Quentin Crisp and a television drama based on the book. The book started life as a radio interview with Crisp in 1964 conducted by his friend and fellow eccentric, Philip O'Connor, which was heard
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Monty Python’s Flying Circus (also known as Flying Circus, MPFC or, during the final series, just Monty Python) is a BBC sketch comedy programme from the Monty Python comedy team, and the group’s initial claim to fame.
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Blue Peter logo, a stylised galleon based on an original design by Tony Hart.
Created by John Hunter Blair
Presented by Konnie Huq
Zöe Salmon
Gethin Jones
Andy Akinwolere
Country of origin  United Kingdom
No.
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Boys from The Blackstuff is a British television drama series of five episodes, originally transmitted from October 10 to November 7 1982 on BBC2.

The serial was written by Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale, as a sequel to a television play,
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Michael Parkinson CBE (born 28 March 1935) is an English broadcaster and journalist. He is most famous for presenting his eponymous interview programme, Parkinson.
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Yes Minister is a satirical British sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn that was first transmitted by BBC television and radio between 1980 and 1984, split over three seven-episode series. The sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, ran from 1986 to 1988.
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Brideshead Revisited is a 1981 television miniseries based on a novel by Evelyn Waugh of the same name. The book was adapted by the producer Derek Granger and Martin Thompson after the initial script by John Mortimer was rejected.
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Abigail's Party is a play for stage and television written in 1977 by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a well-observed satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970s.
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Play for Today was a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. Over three hundred original plays, most between an hour and ninety minutes in length, were transmitted during the fourteen-year period the series
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I, Claudius was a 1976 BBC Television adaptation of Robert Graves's I, Claudius and Claudius the God. Written by Jack Pulman, it proved one of the corporation's most successful drama serials of all time.
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Dad’s Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard in the Second World War, written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977.
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Morecambe and Wise were a famous British comic double act comprising Eric Morecambe OBE and Ernie Wise OBE. The act lasted four decades until Morecambe's death in 1984. Widely considered to be the most successful double act in Britain for generations.
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Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Edge of Darkness is a British television drama serial, produced by BBC Television in association with Lionheart Television International and originally broadcast in six fifty-five minute
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Blackadder Goes Forth was the fourth and final series of the BBC situation comedy Blackadder, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 28 September to 2 November 1989.
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Absolutely Fabulous is a British sitcom written by and starring Jennifer Saunders and co-starring Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks. It was broadcast on the BBC from 1992 to 2005, and is popularly referred to as Ab Fab.
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IMDb profile

The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 animated film directed by Nick Park at Aardman Animations in Bristol, featuring his characters Wallace and Gromit.
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