BBC 100: Top 10 "Most Loved" BBC Shows

[JAS84]

So Doctor Who is the most popular current BBC show? I expect to see some bragging about that in Doctor Who Magazine in March then (too late for February, that issue's already gone to press and is out next week).

[commseng]

I have to agree that any poll conducted like this one is only a snapshot of what the public can recall in 2022.
To be meaningful you'd have to get statisticians involved. I assume that it would involve taking the top ten programmes on each of the 100 years to be more meaningful. It would also have to include radio shows of course, which for all the 100 years celebration of BBC TV, rather omits the radio (and local radio at that) beginnings.

[onetrickypony]

Had The One Show been running this across the past month, or was it across the BBC as a whole? If just One Show, then it's more representative of its audience than anything wider.

The fairest way is to just do each decade with the top rated programmes.

[Brekkie]

The 1930s certainly being overlooked.

I think it says it all that it is basically impossible to narrow down how good BBC programming is to 50 examples without some glaring omissions.

[Neil Jones]

Had The One Show been running this across the past month, or was it across the BBC as a whole? If just One Show, then it's more representative of its audience than anything wider.

The fairest way is to just do each decade with the top rated programmes.

The pie can be sliced millions of different ways each with their own pros, cons, quirks and whatever else.
You will always get a different outcome if you ask different set of people. There is no "fair" way. One person's "pile of crap" is somebody else's bees knees.

And in any event a lot of programmes just get more exposure so they are remembered better. OFAH is regularly repeated (if not on the BBC then on Gold), whereas nobody remembers something more obscure like, I dunno, a lot of the original BBC Choice output for example in the days before it relaunched as BBC Three.

[commseng]

The oldest programme in the top 20 is Blue Peter (1958) I think?
If you asked people in 2012 what their favourites were, Line of Duty and Call the Midwife wouldn't have done so well!

[Blubatt]

I'm guessing part of the reason the short list of 50 programmes was compiled by a panel was to ensure all the ones listed were still deemed appropriate. Else with the aid of certain social media groups the top 10 might have awkwardly ended up including the likes of Jim'll Fix It, and The Black & White Minstrels.

How many people would fondly remember The Black and White Minstrel Show?

[Neil Jones]

I'm guessing part of the reason the short list of 50 programmes was compiled by a panel was to ensure all the ones listed were still deemed appropriate. Else with the aid of certain social media groups the top 10 might have awkwardly ended up including the likes of Jim'll Fix It, and The Black & White Minstrels.

How many people would fondly remember The Black and White Minstrel Show?

Might have been very popular at the time (it ran for 20 years) but it was a relative oddity at the time and it seems to survived only on ratings and little else:

In the 1960s, it was getting audiences of 16 million. Its stage-show spin-offs were breaking box-office records. At one point, it was even something of a critical success: in 1961, it won the prestigious Golden Rose of Montreux.

...

For the best part of twenty years it didn’t seem to occur to anyone in a position of authority at the BBC that the series really was offensive to more than just a few “killjoys”. This failure to even see any racism was a measure of the BBC’s real problem: the archival record of its behind-the-scenes thinking during this period is far from flattering.

[JAS84]

The oldest programme in the top 20 is Blue Peter (1958) I think?

It's the second oldest show in the entire 50 show shortlist I think - behind Dixon of Dock Green which started in 1955.

[Brekkie]

Z Cars seemed a noteable exception from the early years aswell, along with shows for younger children whether Play School or The Teletubbies.

[soupie]

I’d have actually included Breakfast into that list too to be fair. The Mighty Boosh and (the brilliant) Small Axe have zero reason to be in a list of ‘most loved’ though

[Brekkie]

Breakfast is an odd one as they can never quite decide whether what's on air now is a continuation of Breakfast Time, Breakfast News etc. dependent on what anniversary they want to mark. Personally I consider it to have started in 2000 when it took the "Breakfast" brand - and in that context I'd probably say Breakfast Time is the bigger show considering it pretty much set the mould for breakfast television.

[JAS84]

Z Cars seemed a noteable exception from the early years aswell, along with shows for younger children whether Play School or The Teletubbies.

Yeah, Z-Cars is from 1962, so another show older than Doctor Who - but not older than Blue Peter, hence why I didn't mention it in my earlier post.