100 Greatest British Television Programmes
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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. 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:
- Fawlty Towers
- Cathy Come Home (The Wednesday Play)
- Doctor Who
- The Naked Civil Servant
- Monty Python's Flying Circus
- Blue Peter
- Boys from the Blackstuff
- Parkinson
- Yes, Minister / Yes, Prime Minister
- Brideshead Revisited
- Abigail's Party (Play for Today)
- I, Claudius
- Dad's Army
- The Morecambe & Wise Show
- Edge of Darkness
- Blackadder Goes Forth
- Absolutely Fabulous
- The Wrong Trousers
- The World at War
- The Singing Detective
- Pennies From Heaven
- The Jewel in the Crown
- Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
- Hancock's Half Hour
- Our Friends in the North
- 28 Up
- The War Game (The Wednesday Play)
- The Magic Roundabout
- That Was The Week That Was
- An Englishman Abroad
- The Royle Family
- Life On Earth
- The Old Grey Whistle Test
- University Challenge
- Porridge
- Blue Remembered Hills (Play for Today)
- Mastermind
- I'm Alan Partridge
- Cracker
- Coronation Street
- Top of the Pops
- Inspector Morse
- Grange Hill
- Steptoe and Son
- Only Fools and Horses
- Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (series 1)
- Tiswas
- Elgar (Monitor)
- Nuts in May (Play for Today)
- Father Ted
- The Avengers
- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
- The Forsyte Saga
- Hillsborough
- Dennis Potter: The Last Interview (Without Walls Special)
- Bar Mitzvah Boy (Play for Today)
- Edna, The Inebriate Woman (Play for Today)
- Live Aid for Africa
- World In Action
- Thunderbirds
- Talking Heads/Talking Heads 2
- Ready Steady Go!
- Z-Cars
- Culloden
- The Ascent of Man
- A Very British Coup
- Civilisation
- Prime Suspect
- The Likely Lads / Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
- Have I Got News for You
- The Snowman
- Walking with Dinosaurs
- Nineteen Eighty-Four
- The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
- Quatermass and the Pit
- Between The Lines
- Blind Date
- Talking to a Stranger (Theatre 625)
- The Borrowers
- One Foot in the Grave
- Later with Jools Holland
- Tutti Frutti
- The Knowledge
- House of Cards
- This is Your Life
- The Tube
- The Death of Yugoslavia
- Till Death Us Do Part
- A Very Peculiar Practice
- Michael Moore's TV Nation
- This Life
- Death on the Rock (This Week)
- The Nazis - A Warning From History
- Drop the Dead Donkey
- Arena
- The Railway Children
- Teletubbies
- Spitting Image
- Pride and Prejudice
- Made In Britain
External links
- The BFI TV 100 at the BFI website (http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/tv/100/index.html)
- BBC News coverage (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/911085.stm)