Home > 100 Greatest British Television Programmes

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:

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 BlackstuffBoys from the Blackstuff is a British television drama serial of five episodes, originally transmitted from October 10 to November 7 1982 on BBC TWO. The serial was written by Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale, and was a sequel to a television play c
8. ParkinsonMichael Parkinson CBE (born March 28 1935) is an English journalist and television presenter. He is most famous for presenting his eponymous interview programme, Parkinson''. Parkinson, or "Parky" as he is familiarly known, was born in Cudworth, near Barn
9. Yes, MinisterYes, Minister and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister are British sitcoms about the struggle between James "Jim" Hacker (played by Paul Eddington), the government minister of the (fictional) department of Administrative Affairs (and later as Prime Minister) an / Yes, Prime Minister
10. Brideshead RevisitedBrideshead Revisited is a novel by Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It has become well-known to modern audiences as a result of the ITV drama serialisation of 1981, produced by Granada Television. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Pro
11. Abigail's PartyAbigail's Party is a 1977 play for stage and television created by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a painfully well-observed satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970s. ( Play for TodayPlay for Today was a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC One from 1970 to 1984. Over three hundred original plays, mostly of between an hour and ninety minutes in length, were transmitted during the fourte)
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. Dennis Potter: The Last Interview ( 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. The Ascent of Man
66. A Very British Coup
67. Civilisation
68. Prime Suspect
69. The Likely Lads / Whatever 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