100 Greatest British Television Programmes

100 Greatest British Television Programmes was a list compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute, 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 - with exceptions such as the coverage of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - excluded on the basis that it would be impossible to determine what made them important programmes, the coverage or the news itself. Sports were 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 Britain.

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

2 Cathy Come Home (The Wednesday Play)

3 Doctor Who

4 The Naked Civil Servant

5 Monty Python's Flying Circus

6 Blue Peter

7 Boys from the Blackstuff

8 Parkinson

9 Yes, Minister / Yes, Prime Minister

10 Brideshead Revisited

11 Abigail's Party (Play for Today)

12 I, Claudius

13 Dad's Army

14 The Morecambe & Wise Show;

15 Edge of Darkness

16 Blackadder Goes Forth

17 Absolutely Fabulous

18 The Wrong Trousers

19 The World at War

20 The Singing Detective

21 Pennies From Heaven

22 The Jewel in the Crown

23 Who Wants to be a Millionaire

24 Hancock's Half Hour

25 Our Friends in the North

26 28 Up

27 The War Game (The Wednesday Play)

28 The Magic Roundabout

29 That Was The Week That Was

30 An Englishman Abroad

31 The Royle Family

32 Life On Earth

33 The Old Grey Whistle Test

34 University Challenge

35 Porridge

36 Blue Remembered Hills (Play for Today)

37 Mastermind

38 I'm Alan Partridge

39 Cracker

40 Coronation Street

41 Top of the Pops

42 Inspector Morse

43 Grange Hill

44 Steptoe and Son

45 Only Fools and Horses

46 Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (series 1)

47 Tiswas

48 Elgar (Monitor)

49 Nuts in May (Play for Today)

50 Father Ted

51 The Avengers

52 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

53 The Forsyte Saga

54 Hillsborough

55 (Without Walls Special)

56 Bar Mitzvah Boy (Play for Today)

57 Edna, The Inebriate Woman (Play for Today)

58 Live Aid for Africa

59 World In Action

60 Thunderbirds

61 Talking Heads / Talking Heads 2

62 Ready Steady Go

63 Z-Cars

64 Culloden

65 Ascent of Man

66 A Very British Coup

68 Prime Suspect

69 The Likely Lads / What Ever Happened to the Likely Lads

70 Have I Got News for You

71 The Snowman

72 Walking With Dinosaurs

73 Nineteen Eighty-Four

74 The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

75 Quatermass and the Pit

76 Between The Lines

77 Blind Date

78 Talking to a Stranger (Theatre 625)

79 The Borrowers

80 One Foot in the Grave

81 Later with Jools Holland

82 Tutti Frutti

83 The Knowledge

84 House of Cards

85 This is Your Life

86 The Tube

87 The Death of Yugoslavia

88 Till Death Us Do Part

89 A Very Peculiar Practice

90 Michael Moore's TV Nation

91 This Life

92 Death on the Rock (This Week)

93 The Nazis - A Warning From History

94 Drop the Dead Donkey

95 Arena

96 The Railway Children

97 Teletubbies

98 Spitting Image

99 Pride and Prejudice

100 Made In Britain

External Link

The BFI TV 100 at the BFI website