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Big Book Update, North Korean Hackers, Coronation Street on ABC and Dallas (Mainly Dallas)
Firstly, big book news. And it’s important to note that both the news and the book are big. The book is the fully featured, 622-page, 10-by-7-inchAuntie’s Favourites, a full rundown of the 250 Most-Broadcast Programmes in the Entire History of BBC Television. This differs from the rundown previously published on this site, as it contains:
- 150 additional entries compared to the original’s hundred
- Covers every single broadcast up to 31 December 2025
- Every broadcast on BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC Choice and BBC Knowledge alongside the main BBC channels
- Added detail and complete rewrites on many of the original entries
- Newsnight is now in the list. But where?
- Definitive confirmation of the most-repeated sitcom in BBC Television history – it’s possibly not the one you’re expecting
- Precisely one bar chart
Also, critically, everything has been reviewed and properly proof-read. It’s the strangest thing. When going through the original proof edition of the book (pictured above, with a copy of the Holiday ‘77 vinyl record for scale), there were a lot of weird typos, put there, it seems logical to conclude, by North Korean hackers who had installed a virus on my PC in an attempt to discredit the book. A very clever virus that placed corresponding typos in the original blog entries, almost as if to make me look like a fool.

All those typographical tykes have now been chased away, meaning the book is finally available to buy on Amazon. In the UK, it’s just £19.99 for the lovely paperback edition or £5.99 for the DRM-free Kindle edition (so you should be able to throw it at anything that’ll handle an .epub file). If you’re in the USA, you’re looking at just $26.99 for the paperback or $7.99 for the ebook, while if you find yourself in Canada it’s $36.99 for the book in paper form or $10.99 for it in digi-bits. If you’re in Australia and you want to see whether Neighbours is still at number one in the rundown (spoilers: it isn’t), it’s the oddly specific price of $41.87 for a copy you can hug at night, or just $11.69 for a copy that lives on your phone (or Kindle, or Kobo or whatever).

It’s also available in other countries with an Amazon store and will be popping up on various other shopfronts (that don’t have the dread hand of Bezos on them) soon. I’ll post a further update once those have gone live.

(It’ll be brilliant if you can spread the word about the book. It’s a project that has taken years to complete, so it would be nice to see it in as many hands, bookcases and digital devices as possible.)

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Okay, let’s crack on with a sample entry from the book itself. It’s the programme in 225th place in the list and it’s one with a fun history. Let’s go to…

Dallas

1978-1995, broadcast 554 times

BBC1 (480 times, 1978-1995)
BBC2 (74 times, 1980-1987)

The majority of television programmes are ephemeral. They’re on, then they’re not, and you’re lucky if many people noticed them. But then there are television programmes that reach escape velocity and break free into the national zeitgeist, meaning everyone everywhere knows all about them whether they’d watched the damn thing or not. For most of the 1980s, as remembered by anyone who recalls all the references to ten-gallon hats, an entire season of a TV show turning out to have been a dream, or the joke where J.R. has a drink of water only for the liquid to pour out of bullet holes all over his body, Dallas was the latter. But here’s a thing: Dallas – that most American of American soap operas – may never have existed were it not for Coronation Street.

Let’s explain by whizzing back to the 1930s. Yes, the 1930s.

As you may well know, the phrase ‘soap opera’ came about when such serial drama programmes on the radio in 1930s America were commonly sponsored by soap and detergent manufacturers. When television started to grow in popularity in the 1940s, these soap operas would make the transition from radiogram to picturegram, starting with the boarding house-based These Are My Children (NBC, January-March 1949), with short fifteen-minute episodes airing on late weekday afternoons.

While These Are My Children didn’t prove to be an immediate smash with viewers, it provided a cheap and cheerful way to fill some of those daytime hours, and it was soon joined in the schedules by A Woman to Remember (DuMont, February-July 1949) and The First Hundred Years (CBS, December 1950-June 1952). However, the following year’s Hawkins Falls, Population 6200 (NBC, April 1951-July 1955) could be considered the first truly popular daytime soap – with just a slight caveat, given it’d actually started as an hour-long primetime comedy drama in June 1950, before regenerating into a fifteen-minute daytime soap the following year. From that point on, the floodgates were pretty much flung open by US TV schedulers, with (at least) 27 more daytime soaps bubbling up during the remainder of the decade. For the sake of your sanity and mine, I’m not going to list them all here.

Whatever American telly does, British TV soon starts sniffing around. Continuing drama serials in the UK had previously been the sole domain of radio, with The Archers airing for the first time on 29 May 1950 (as a pilot episode, going full-time on 1 January 1951), but when television attempted the genre, there weren’t really any daytime hours that needed filling – the short amount of pre-teatime broadcasting hours were reserved for children’s TV and news. And so, when some British TV soaps did appear, like The Grove Family (BBC-tv, April 1954-June 1957) or Emergency Ward 10 (ATV, February 1957-June 1967), they were mainly primetime prospects – ITV’s first attempt to put such a programme in a short afternoon slot – One Family (Associated-Rediffusion, April-May 1956) – all but proved British TV wasn’t really ready for such a series.

London ITV schedule, 25 April 1956 (Daily Mirror)

I’m not going to shock anyone here by pointing out that it was Coronation Street (Granada, December 1960 to the end of recorded time) that became soap’s first bona fide smash in the UK. While Emergency Ward 10 had hardly shied away from realism where warranted, Coronation Street became something that a large amount of the viewing public could truly relate to – ordinary working-class folk, in an ordinary working-class street, and a clear focus on lives rather than events. And Tony Warren’s series wasn’t just becoming big in Blighty – it was attracting the interest of television bigwigs in the USA, too.

Depending on which source you’re looking at, the success of Corrie led to one of the “ABC top brass” (as per LIFE magazine, 25 April 1969), “officials of 20^th Century Fox” (according to The Serials: Suspense and Drama by Instalment, Raymond William Stedman, 1977) or TV producer Paul Monash (going by Television Genres, The OU Course Team, 2003) to have the idea of making a primetime soap for the USA in 1963. The latter source claims Monash even considered broadcasting episodes of Coronation Street in the USA, but sensibly decided US audiences would have trouble understanding northern English accents. And so, with Coronation Street in mind, the TV rights were secured to Grace Metalious’ 1956 book Peyton Place – previously the subject of a successful 1957 film for Fox – and the series duly aired in 1964. Dealing with the lives and secrets of people in a small New England town, Peyton Place was a success – attracting tens of millions of viewers at its peak, and helping kickstart the careers of cast members Ryan O’Neal and Mia Farrow.

TV Guide, 20 November 1965

The Weatherfield influence on Peyton Place was certainly recognised in the USA – the 20 November 1965 edition of TV Guide carried a three-page feature on Coronation Street, alongside a nice big photo of Ena Sharples – snappily noting that for all of its qualities, “any American writer who seriously proposed [the Coronation Street characters] for a series would be strait-jacketed by the nearest Nielsen tabulator”. By translating what made Corrie work so well over here into something that worked over there, Monash had proved that American TV could make continuing dramas attractive to huge audiences. As such, from January 1965, some of the smaller ITV regions began broadcasting Peyton Place. In primetime slots, too.

Then, in 1978, Dallas arrived. But – in a way befitting the long, rambling nature of this entry – not as a primetime soap. Sigh. The original plan by producer Leonard Katzman and writer David Jacobs, when it came to their tale about a family of Dallas oil tycoons, was for it to be a miniseries. Each hour-long episode would, despite some ongoing storylines running throughout the series, be a self-contained narrative that would neatly tie together. And so, that’s how it initially aired – a short season of five episodes airing on CBS throughout April 1978, airing at 10pm on Sunday nights, opening with an episode where “the youngest son in an oil and cattle-rich family shocks the entire clan when he brings home as his bride the daughter of his father’s long-time enemy”.

Viewing figures were modest – Nielsen ratings for that initial series put it in joint-44^th place for the 1977-78 season, sharing a position with CBS sitcom Baby, I’m Back. The latter – a vehicle for Desmond “Sanford’s & Son” Wilson, who played a compulsive gambler trying to win his wife back – was duly cancelled. Dallas was given a second shot, with an extended run of 24 episodes set to air from September of the same year, with a greater emphasis on cliffhanger plotlines. It would initially air in a Saturday night slot, but soon moved to Friday nights where it would reign supreme.

Once Dallas had been effectively retooled as a grand comeback for the primetime US soap – because that’s what it had become by this point – it wouldn’t be too long before British viewers got to enjoy it. The first episode of the (mini-)series went out on 5 September 1978, in an 8.10pm Tuesday BBC1 evening slot, with the second US season immediately following the first – meaning episodes of Dallas’ second series aired in the UK just ten days after their US debut. Handily for the Beeb, the more self-contained nature of those early episodes afforded them an opportunity to skip the fourth episode, Winds of Vengeance, which contained a pretty uncomfortable plotline involving sexual assault.

Even then, while Dallas was a familiar presence on Tuesday evening BBC1 throughout 1978 and early 1979, the first two seasons hardly pulled in huge audiences. Even at the start of the third season in November 1979, at a time when ITV were just getting back into operation following almost three months off air due to industrial action, Dallas failed to make the weekly Jictar Top 20 ratings. That means it was officially attracting fewer viewers than Go with Noakes. In January 1980, it made the ratings chart for the first time, in 13th place with 15.1 million viewers. By 12 April of the same year, the viewer count had swelled to 16.7m viewers, making it the most-watched TV series in Britain, as the nation became gripped with the dastardly deeds of arch heel J.R. Ewing. His rampant villainy was coming to a head as the third season neared its conclusion, word reaching the British press that the season finale would see J.R. receive what’s coming to him (Clue: small, metal and is fired from a gun). If the penultimate episode of the season on 12 April topped the ratings, surely the following week’s season finale would attract even more viewers?

No, it wouldn’t. The BBC schedulers had their own bit of villainy up their sleeves – postponing the broadcast of the season finale for six weeks to maximise the attention it would get. It worked – on the week that episode went out (in May 1980), the only TV broadcast attracting a bigger audience was Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest beating SV Hamburg in the European Cup Final. The episode concluded with one of television’s most famous cliffhangers, the mystery of just who pulled the trigger that propelled hot lead towards Ewing. Bookmakers William Hill took more than £50,000 in bets on who the culprit would be, while Las Vegas lawmakers had to intervene to prevent the same happening in the USA. As the nation busied itself with Who Shot J.R. discourse, BBC2 broadcast “a special selection of programmes from the series” on six evenings each week from 7 July, allowing newcomers a chance to catch up before the new series aired in November 1980.

The identity of the would-be murderer was so closely guarded that the broadcast tape of the subsequent series opener was transferred from Heathrow to BBC Television Centre in a bulletproof van, flanked by a motorcycle escort. With the BBC airing the episode just three days after CBS in the States, there was little chance of the secret hitting the press, and the fourth season of Dallas opened with a UK audience figure of 20.25m. The producers of Dallas not being a bunch of mugs, the culprit wouldn’t be revealed in the first episode of the series – or second, or third. To further confound any crew member hoping to leak the big revelation to the press, multiple versions of scenes were shot, with only the ‘real’ reveal being sent out to broadcasters.

Daily Mail, 27 May 1980

When it came to the big day – the all-important S04E04 that would finally reveal Who Shot J.R. – BBC Television were taking no chances. The reveal was to air on US TV between 3am and 4am UK time on Saturday 22 November 1980. It would air on BBC1 at 9.10pm that same day (the day after the previous episode on BBC1). That would prevent national newspapers from having time to learn the big news and get it onto Britain’s breakfast tables, but there was an even more surprising culprit at large: BBC Radio. Much to the chagrin of their audiovisual counterparts, BBC Radio 2 interrupted their overnight music programme You and the Night and the Music moments after the reveal on CBS Television, offering thirty seconds of spoiler space before naming the shooter, with Two bigwig Geoff Owen stating “I don’t want to spoil the enjoyment of Dallas devotees”. Despite, you know, doing precisely that.

Daily Mirror, 21 November 1980

Of course – spoiler alert – the shooter herself was much less of a surprise than that Radio 2 exposé. J.R.’s scorned mistress Kristin owned the finger that pulled the trigger, her position as 4-1 second favourite with William Hill reportedly costing the bookmaker £160,000. More importantly, with that week’s two episodes of Dallas topping the ratings, more than 21 million tuned in for the unmasking. Dallas was very officially A Big Deal. Which would come to a head just over four years later.

Over the next few years, Dallas would remain a major draw for the BBC. Opening episodes of each season would usually top the viewing figure charts for BBC1, even if numbers weren’t quite at the peak of Who Shot J.R. fever. Even when new episodes weren’t at the top of the BARBs, they were pulling in respectable figures north of 14 million. But, on 17 January 1985 – with the BBC halfway through screening season eight of the series – news hit the nation of a boardroom coup that could’ve been wrestled from the Dallas writers’ room.

“ITV GRAB DALLAS” screamed the Daily Mirror. “ITV POACHES DALLAS” roared the Daily Mail. “BBC LOSES DALLAS IN SOAP OPERA WAR” tutted the Daily Telegraph. “SOAP OPERA SPILLS OFF THE SCREEN” intoned The Guardian. “DALLAS POACHED FROM THE BBC” spluttered The Times. In each case, this was front page news (though you can guess which of those afforded it space below the fold).

Guardian, 17 January 1985

Indeed, the show’s distributors Worldvision had raised the price-per-episode for the ninth season to a level the BBC weren’t willing to pay. But, while the Beeb – at the time waiting on a consultation about the future of the licence fee – baulked at the idea of paying £1.4m for a 26-episode run of popular television (plus a 10% annual rise, and a commitment to buy every future episode of the series), Thames were more than happy to. ITV’s London weekday franchise gleefully swooped in to meet the higher fee, a fee that seems quaint in an era where Disney-fuelled Doctor Who episodes reportedly cost £10m a pop.

To modern eyes, such a gazumping doesn’t seem much of a surprise – it’s nothing that didn’t happen when Friends, 24, Lost and the like got snapped up by Sky. But back in the 1980s, a gentleman’s agreement had been in place between the BBC and ITV franchises not to partake in such unseemly bidding wars – mainly to avoid the price of imported shows getting overinflated. To highlight how unpopular a move it was, some of the other ITV franchises (most notably big guns Granada, Central and Yorkshire) criticised the deal, went as far as to announce they would refuse to air Dallas in their own regions when Thames planned to start showing it that autumn. After all, it was one thing waving a fat cheque at Morecambe & Wise or Mike Yarwood to make original programmes for ITV, but this was unseemly. Thames tried to argue that the inflated price of a Dallas episode was still around a quarter the cost of making a new episode of Minder, though nobody in particular was listening.

It didn’t take long for Thames to get a carpeting from the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Thames MD (and former Controller of BBC1) Bryan Cowgill was called in for ‘talks’ at the IBA, though the outcome of those talks differs between the autobiographies of Cowgill (Mr Action Replay, Sports Masters International 2006) and John Whitney, director-general of the IBA (To Serve the People, John Libbey Publishing 2013). Whitney’s telling of the meeting suggests a one-way telling-off, with Cowgill being ‘reminded’ that the IBA can block Dallas from being broadcast if it fell afoul of broadcasting policy guidelines. Cowgill’s telling of the story has it that Worldvision had flatly refused to continue speaking to the Beeb “in light of the treatment they received from the BBC”. Cowgill, a former Head of Sport at the BBC, countered Whitney’s argument that snatching the Beeb’s top US import “just isn’t cricket” with his opinion that he knew a good deal more about cricket than Whitney.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

To compound matters, BBC1 controller Michael Grade announced that the Beeb’s existing Dallas episode reserves would be yanked off the schedules and held in storage until Thames started broadcasting their season nine episodes, at which point BBC1 would run season eight episodes against them. Or, as Grade said at the time “we have 17 episodes of Dallas left to show in the current series, and Thames can’t put on the next series until they’ve finished. But who knows how long it might take us to finish screening them?”, probably whilst twirling a stick-on moustache.

It was one hell of a power move, and further stoked the media narrative over the row (“These [BBC] executives betray themselves. In reacting thus to the loss of an elderly, mediocre soap opera they demonstrate how, despite assurances to the contrary, BBC television has sunk so low as to be indistinguishable from ITV” – The Daily Telegraph, predictably). And so, on 6 February 1985^[1], it seemed the last episode of Dallas to be seen on the BBC for a good long time went to air. The Daily Mirror’s TV listings billed it as “the saga sinks slowly in the West for a while. It’ll be back in the autumn on the BBC – AND on some ITV stations too!”.

A week later, the slot was filled by the first episode from a new series of The Two Ronnies (“Sandra Dickinson guest-stars in a parody of Sunset Boulevard”). That’s pretty Premier League as filler programmes go. Bryan Cowgill refused to be cowed by Grade’s hardball, stating that “I’ve got it and I’m keeping it – it’s my baby. I’m in business to win. If that upsets other people, it’s hard luck.” But could there be any way of it returning to the Beeb, given many ITV franchises were also miffed by his tactics? “The only way we could return it to the BBC is if they bought it off us for the same price we paid for it.”

The impasse lasted until 18 February, when the BBC announced the return of Dallas to BBC1 from 27 March, with managing director Bill Cotton revealing the Corporation was “taken aback by the strength of viewer reaction”. The news itself had been revealed as part of another new era for the BBC – the first weekday episode of Wogan featuring a (soon ditched) audience participation segment where Tel revealed the news to a grateful nation, with the following day seeing the debut of new BBC soap EastEnders. However, the wave of audience demand may not have been the sole reason behind the Beeb backing down – the BBC’s announcement coincided with an announcement from Guild Home Video that the remaining Dallas season eight episodes placed on ice by Grade would be rushed out on VHS, with tapes containing three new episodes arriving at fortnightly intervals.

“Talk to the audience? Oh, God, this is always death.”

Brighter news was on the horizon for BBC bosses in June. Many ITV franchise holders were still frosty about the whole debacle and unlikely to broadcast any episodes. As a result, the prospect of paying over the odds for what would now be a “regional variation” in the TV listings led the management and legal team of Thames to visit New York for a meeting with programme distributors Worldvision. Their reluctant goal was to sheepishly sell Dallas back to the Beeb at a reduced fee and forget all about the Thames offer. In a move that surprised few, the large American company announced it would rather keep the larger amount of money.

In an attempt to resolve the matter, Thames sent letters to all other ITV franchise holders inviting them to state categorically whether they’d be willing to transmit Dallas or not – and if not, why not. As per John Whitney’s memoirs, Thames chairman Hugh Dundas claimed this was a ploy to get a bunch of negative responses that could be waved under Worldvision’s nose, as part of a negotiation to give the rights back to the BBC. Whitney’s suspicion was that it may have been a ploy to demonstrate how other ITV regions had softened on their original stance, and that there was now a certain amount of unspoken enthusiasm for putting the ratings smash on ITV. Tellingly, the recipients of the letters included London weekend franchise holders LWT, heavily suggesting the goal was purely collecting as many ‘no’ votes as possible.

With all manner of bickering between Thames, the IBA and other ITV franchise holders continuing into the summer, Bryan Cowgill left Thames in July 1985. The mechanics of his departure differ between the Cowgill Version Timeline and the Whitney Version Timeline (“I didn’t wish to spend one more day of my life in the company of such hypocrisy and petty authority … I tendered my resignation” versus “I was telephoned by Hugh Dundas to say that the Board had decided Bryan Cowgill should go”), but either way Cowgill left with a £400,000 handshake. Why, that’s enough to buy 7.4 episodes of Dallas. In his post-job presser, Cowgill railed against the IBA (“I’ve been screwed by them – but I will have them.”), singling out IBA Director General John Whitney and chairman Lord Thomson as the individuals behind his defenestration (“if it goes back, those two damned idiots will have handed it back”). At least according to Thames chairman Hugh Dundas, Cowgill failed to do himself any favours by carrying out the entire deal without notifying the Thames board. It certainly didn’t help that the ‘agreeing-to-pay-a-steadily-rising-price-for-as-long-as-Dallas-is-made’ clause remained in the Thames version of the contract.

Daily Mirror, 14 July 1985

As it was, Dundas felt compelled to take to the pages of trade newspaper Television Today to address commonly quipped concerns about the whole affair. He shot down suggestions that the future of the Thames franchise might be put in jeopardy by the Dallas affair – it wasn’t, though that reckoning was only a few years away. The most telling part came at the end of Dundas’ piece – “the board had to choose between digging in and holding onto the programmes, or trying to negotiate their disposal. The latter course was adopted and has been pursued ever since”. The fact was that, in the BARB ratings released just after Cowgill’s departure, broadcasts of Dallas were now just 50,000 viewers ahead of Crossroads in the ratings. This declining audience may very well have had an impact on this stance. The ball was back in the BBC’s court, and with nobody else competing for the rights to the series, the next season of the soap could continue where viewers had come to expect it.

The agreement to hand it back to the Beeb finally came in August 1985. The climbdown from Thames was notable – with Worldvision refusing to budge on the increased price, Thames agreed to pay an undisclosed lump sum to the BBC, allowing the Corporation to re-purchase the series. Where Thames had agreed a fee of $60,000 per episode, the settlement meant the BBC were paying the figure they’d originally offered to retain the series, with Thames picking up the slack – a sum of either $10,000 (according to Whitney) or $12,500 per episode (according to Cowgill). And so, the whole affair would be resolved in time for the publication of the autumn schedules in early September. Wouldn’t it?

Nope. The whole sorry affair rumbled on well into the autumn, leaving a conspicuous Dallas-sized hole in the TV schedules while US viewers were enjoying a ninth season of Ewing antics. In October, the matter was even raised in the House of Commons, with Junior Minister of Trade and Industry Michael Howard being asked to outline the steps Her Majesty’s Government had taken to sort out the whole sorry oil slick. The Office of Fair Trading even got involved, contacting Worldvision to try and break the impasse.

Then – finally – in December came a breakthrough: Thames lawyers had finally agreed the small print with the BBC. February 1986 saw the announcement that the matter had finally been resolved, with the new series set to begin on BBC1 on Wednesday 5 March. Bryan Cowgill took time out from his new role as Deputy Chairman of the Mirror Group to comment “I am glad the OFT has confirmed the existence of a no-poaching agreement.” Meow. The belated return to Britain’s screens saw viewing figures for Dallas remain buoyant – season nine attracted 14m viewers, only slightly down from the figure for the end of the previous season (14.95m), though it would soon become evident that even with brand-new episodes – and real-life boardroom battling aside – the British public were starting to lose interest in the Ewings.

Audience figures soon started to dip further, with more down-to-earth drama serials like EastEnders and Neighbours becoming the main draw for BBC1. By 1989’s twelfth season, first-run episodes of Dallas on primetime BBC1 – previously the most-watched show on British television – struggled to appear at the scrag-end of the channel’s top thirty programmes. When it did appear, it would be gathering audiences between seven and nine million – not much of an achievement when several million more viewers were tuning into well-worn repeats of The Good Life and Columbo (or, if you’re feeling especially uncharitable, episodes of Davro’s Sketch Pad on ITV). But with the BBC locked into a contract tying them to the series for as long as it was being made, they had to keep showing it.

Davro’s Sketch Pad: Bigger than Dallas

By the time the final series (of original flavour Dallas, at least) rolled around in May 1991, it was no longer a primetime proposition for the BBC. From this point on, new episodes would air at 3pm on Sunday afternoon, the once-mighty colossus now hanging around to pick up viewers from the EastEnders omnibus. Thankfully for the BBC, ratings had also dipped notably in the USA, from a high point of 33.4m viewers and being US TV’s most-watched show during the (first) outing of a bullet-riddled J.R., down to a low of 12.9m in the final season, failing to make the top sixty programmes. And that – a repeat run of the series on daytime TV in the mid-90s aside – was that.

Or, was it all a dream?

[1] Blott on the Landscape started on BBC2 that same evening, which I’m saying should be regarded as Britain’s answer to Dallas.

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There we go! Remember, for this and 249 more entries (not all as long as this one, I feel duty-bound to add) buy a copy of Auntie’s Favourites now.

Or later, if it’s more convenient.
15th November 2026
Auntie’s Favourites: A New Book, BBC-tv’s 90th Birthday and Picture Page
After the longest of times, this is complete:

All being well, it’ll be available to buy in a couple of days as an ebook and shortly after that as a real, physical book you can hug at night. I’ll publish more details when each is available, along with details of the foolishly reasonable pricing.

What is it? Well, a few years ago this blog (re)launched with a rundown of the hundred television programmes that have been broadcast on the main BBC channels most frequently since that first official television broadcast on 2 November 1936. This book extends the remit (to also cover BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC Choice and BBC Knowledge), the scope (to 250 programmes in total) and the detail (barring any last minute tweaks, it’s a shade under 250,000 words across 626 pages). And this time, I’ve included Newsnight.

So, why post an update now? Well, it’s very nearly 2 November 2026, which means it’s just about the 90th anniversary of the launch of the BBC Television Service. My original goal was to have the book on sale by then, but found it hard to put the pen down, adding in about a dozen extra pages instead of submitting it in good time for that self-imposed deadline.

So, in lieu of that, here’s an entry from the book. And a pretty appropriate one – a programme that will also be enjoying its 90th anniversary on the second day of November. At joint-208th place in the list, here’s:

Picture Page

1936-1952, broadcast 590 times

BBC-tv (1936-1952)

Radio Times Television Supplement, 8 Jan 1937

Ah, The One Show. The idea of having a daily magazine programme featuring interviews with anyone famous (and willing) enough to visit the studio, along with features, reports and performances, is hardly new. For one thing, Pebble Mill had been doing the same thing for ages. And, as you’ll have guessed by this entry being for neither The One Show or Pebble Mill, so did this programme. And, at least as far as television is concerned, it did just that before anyone else. Mainly because Picture Page came along on the very first day of tele-visual broadcasting – the fourth programme ever broadcast on the BBC Television Service after it officially launched, in fact.

Such were the limitations of the Baird system; it was hardly the most arresting programme for those nascent televiewers. The broadcasting system in use for that first week of TV demanded the use of Emitron cameras mounted on top of iron pedestals, meaning that the first official episode of Picture Page (on Monday 2 November 1936, which gave an official debut to Joan Miller “who links the show introducing each person by plugging in a telephone switchboard after a few preliminary words of description”) consisted of two basic shots – while the Baird cameras could pan, that was about the limit of their range. There was no chance of moving the camera around otherwise, meaning everything was filmed from pretty much the same angle.

However, test transmissions had shown how things could be quite different. The rival EMI system had been used for a test transmission on 8 October 1936 – featuring a sort-of-pilot edition of Picture Page – was able to employ three cameras that could be moved much more easily, allowing for different shots from various angles. The test transmission was impressive enough for the Daily Telegraph to trumpet the programme “a brilliant success, [setting] up fresh standards in television entertainment and presentation” which “approached cinema standards of efficiency”. In short, bye-bye Baird.

The programme itself was however a perfect candidate for the new medium. No scenery, just Joan Miller at an ersatz switchboard, and a selection of guests that could slot into the programme’s remit of providing “a magazine of topical and general interest”. It was personalities that made the programme, and even if that generally promised little progress from radio precursor In Town Tonight, there’d at least be the occasional promise of a performing pooch or circus act to tickle those visual senses.

The first edition of Picture Page opened with a young bugler from HMS Warspite standing against a Union Flag background while the signature tune – The Jack Hylton Band’s recording of Red, White and Blue – played. Cut to a picture book bearing the show’s title, which opened to show flipping pages, before a cut to Joan Miller seated at her telephone switchboard. Miller’s shtick throughout the initial episodes was to pretend she was speaking to a theoretical caller, taking a request to speak to a passing star. Cue a bit of business along the lines of “You want to see who? Miss Kay Stammers? Miss Stammers is coming into the studio now” before the conversational baton was passed to the seated tennis player.

Joan Miller, ‘The Switchboard Girl’, 1936-1952, via BBC.co.uk (Or, if you prefer, ‘a scene from the original BBC TV fakery scandal’)

With the concept of recording content for later repeat viewing still many moons away, each edition had to be broadcast live. Meaning, from the following Monday onwards, each early afternoon and each late evening edition of Picture Page would be live. And, as was considered proper at the time, interviewer Leslie Mitchell would be donning a lounge suit for afternoon broadcasts, but would have changed into a dinner suit for each evening episode. After all, to quote 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy, “It’s after six. What is he, a farmer?”.

As everyone was still frantically getting their heads around this whole “Tele-vision” fad, there was a veritable conveyor belt of guests in each half-hour edition – as many as eight being introduced by Miller at the switchboard. Yet, the programme provided several tropes that would live on throughout television history:
- the first ever linking device – Miller’s switchboard was a device that linked interviewees with a smoothness many current hosts would wrestle their floor manager for
- the first ever TV catchphrase – “You’re through! You’re looking at…”
- and – given everything on air until its debut edition used merely descriptive titles (“3.0pm The Opening of the BBC Television Service”), television’s first ever identifiable brand
- heck, if you’re going to count the opening day’s billing of “Variety” at 3pm a description of a genre rather than a programme title (the listings at the time took both approaches), Picture Page is the world’s oldest scheduled television series
- in young Canadian actress Miller, television’s first true star
- going by a contemporary memo from the BBC’s Chief Engineer of Radio RTB Wynn – what could have been the first ever TV scandal: aviator Jim Mollison, a guest on the first edition, apparently “having had several”. It’s lucky only a few hundred people were watching.
With that very sense of “not many people have got TV sets yet” ringing around the subconsciousses of the Picture Page team (one presumes), there was a sense of freedom about putting the programme together that wouldn’t have been the case on the wireless.

Picture Page was routinely put together on the day of broadcast – very often in the hours leading up to broadcast – which made for a white-knuckle ride for those used to working in radio. Programme editor Cecil Madden used a series of ‘scouts’ who were tasked with procuring the attention of famous faces as soon as they arrived in London, no matter what field they operated in. They would then contact Madden, explain who they were able to get, and be given a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether they were a suitable pick for that day’s editions.

If a scout’s target was deemed suitable, a script for their segment was hurriedly put together, and scripts handed to interviewers Leslie Mitchell and Jasmine Bligh, each taking a ‘shift’ for a day’s programme. This came with its own challenges. With the notion of televised interviews being as young as the programme itself, there was no previous experience to draw upon. Radio interviews could employ scripts for both participants, but sitting and staring at a script would be a no-no for television. Instead, the interviewers would be given a few key points about each interviewee before going live which they’d duly memorise. But with their targets being largely new to the world of broadcasting, it would be up to Mitchell and Bligh to engender a feeling of naturalness and informality, to keep those guests at ease.

The limitations of the new format brought fresh challenges. In his 1981 autobiography Leslie Mitchell Reporting, Mitchell recalled how he’d need to keep a watchful eye on the oft-unreliable cameras in the studio, keeping the conversation flowing as he’d guide his subject towards what was often the studio’s remaining functioning camera. The use of rival (and incompatible) broadcast systems – with Baird and Marconi EMI systems alternating between afternoon and morning broadcasts – meant each episode would have different demands for lighting, clothing, cameras and make-up. Furthermore, the harsh lighting required in the early television age caused undue wear-and-tear on Mitchell’s clothing, requiring an advance on his salary to procure a suitable repository of clothing.

Leslie Mitchell, Joan Miller and an elephant

With two episodes going out each week, it didn’t take long for Picture Page to register a number of broadcasting landmarks, with the 200th edition on 15 December 1938 being marked by a great big birthday cake, the programme boasting of having welcomed “over 1,500 men, 660 women, the ghost of Alexandra Palace and a large number of animals of all kinds” by that landmark point. It was certainly easy to keep count, with each episode being billed in the Radio Times as “Picture Page ([n]th edition)”. That would continue right up until the last pre-war episode on 31 August 1939’s “262nd Edition”, broadcast the evening before the end of television broadcasting until 1946.

The resumption of the Television Service saw the return of Picture Page, albeit with a few changes. The programme had a new editor, Joan Gilbert, who’d worked with predecessor Cecil Madden’s Overseas Entertainment Unit during the war. Gilbert appointed a new ‘Picture Page Girl’, Patricia ‘Paddy’ Bath, the switchboard replaced by a reception desk and a board detailing forthcoming interviewees. Gilbert would present the programme herself, with Leslie Mitchell returning as main interviewer. With hostilities over, the Television Service was starting to expand, as broadcasts started to reach other parts of the UK, and the acquisition of Lime Grove studios provided more capacity than ever to produce programmes. And yet, Picture Page was still central to the BBC’s output – and as TV was starting to take off around the world, it was able to boast of being the oldest television programme in the world. Television announcer Gilbert was a canny choice as presenter – such was the regard for her links, one viewer felt compelled to write in saying how – following an evening where Gilbert appeared to be suffering from a cold – they’d placed a dose of cough mixture on top of their set in an attempt to help.

However, despite the programme’s continuing popularity – it was frequently singled out for praise by TV critics of the age – the fast-evolving TV business seemed to consider it something of a dinosaur. And so, on 12 March 1952, the final edition of the programme went to air. The decision came as something of a surprise to those working on the series. The BBC brass announced their decision to retire Picture Page just a couple of days before the final edition, a Beeb official positing that the series had been “going on too long and is getting stale”. As the standout star of the show, Joan Gilbert was awarded a standalone interview series – Joan Gilbert at Home, which ran for just seven weeks, with contemporary reports suggesting the all-important debut suffered from a short turnaround time – it aired just a week after the surprise cancellation of Picture Page. A lack of prep time was perhaps evident when Gilbert – usually no slouch at conducting interviews – asked distinguished screen actor Ralph Lynn if his forthcoming film Wild Horses would be his first movie appearance. He’d been appearing in films for over twenty years by that point. A more successful sequel, roving fortnightly topical talk show Joan Gilbert’s Diary, ran from 1953 to 1954. As for Picture Page’s chief inquisitor, Leslie Mitchell would go on to join founding ITV franchise Associated-Rediffusion as senior announcer and Head of “Talks”.

Leslie Mitchell chatting to Bob Hope for AR-TV

More of this kind of thing very soon. Happy 90th birthday, television!
1st November 2026
The 20 Least Accurate Greatest Hits Albums Ever
A few days ago, there was a thread doing the rounds on BlueSky asking for nominations on the greatest Greatest Hits album of all time. As could reasonably be expected, that basically just became a list of people’s favourite acts, with many responses not even being Greatest Hits or even Best Of albums, just regular albums. Oh, BlueSky. Still a billion times better than X, obviously.

That got me thinking. It’s easy to think of a potential greatest Greatest Hits album, but what would be the worst? Or, to be more specific (given musical taste is subjective), what’s the least accurate ‘Greatest Hits’ album ever issued in the UK? An album called Greatest Hits that doesn’t contain any actual hit records. Now, that’s what I call a pointless data analysis challenge.

[With thanks to https://pixelframe.design for the Now Album Artwork Generator]

THE GROUND RULES

Okay. How are we going to do this? Well, firstly – it has to be a compilation album with the words “Greatest” and “Hits” somewhere in the title. You can keep your “The Best of” and your “Singles Collection” records, they don’t apply here.

There are lots of artists who’ve had careers full of great songs without ever troubling the Top 75, and they’re not making any boasts otherwise in the titles of their compilations. We’re only after acts that promise something they can’t deliver.

Next: the album has to have been issued in the UK. No point crowing about a Greatest Hits album by a band that never pretended to seek success in the UK.

Okay, so where does that get us? Well, a search of Discogs for “Greatest Hits” alone results in a total of “99.9K+ results“, so we definitely need to thin that out a little. Restricting the search to UK releases only brings it down to 6,997 results. That’s quite a bit better. Cutting it down further, to releases considered long player records by a single artist (so, removing a lot of Stars on 45-style medleys and EPs, plus albums credited as Various Artists) brings it down still further. We’re now down to 3,144 results. Lastly, let’s only include one Greatest Hits record per act – a lot of older acts have had multiple, but it’s the artists we’re looking at rather than individual albums.

That leaves a total of 710 artists to have released Greatest Hits albums in the UK. That’s a number I can work with.

THE METHOD

But how are we going to define a hit? Well, that’s where someone else’s legwork comes in. Thankfully, Kaggle user Jack Hollister has compiled a sheet containing details of every UK singles chart from 1952 to 2024. Inconveniently, each week is on an individual tab, but we can use Excel’s Power Query to get them all into a single list. And Discogs has a public API anyone can use to extract results, so a Python script can pull out details of those 3,144 results and save them to a nice CSV file.

Now it’s just a matter of marrying the two lists. Except! No, it isn’t. The Official Charts site (from where that Kaggle data seems to be sourced) has a habit of tidying up artist names. So, you’ll see “&” instead of “and”, while band names with a ‘The’ suffix will generally – but not always – see that definite article cropped out of the band name. Which is why The Queen Is Dead is credited to a band called Smiths on there. So, there’ll need to be quite a lot of data cleanse needed for this to work. Gah.

Once all that’s done, another thing becomes clear. The phrase “greatest hits” is being used quite incorrectly in many cases, it seems. It wouldn’t really be fair to Chopin’s Greatest Hits in such a list when Frédéric Chopin died 103 years before the first UK chart was published. On top of that, there are a lot of albums called things like Country & Western’s Greatest Hits where a lot of popular songs are being covered by a group of session musicians, but not the original artists. Not going to count those, either.

And lastly – my favourite – acts who have put out albums called Greatest Hits in the full knowledge that they’re too niche to have actually had any hits anywhere. Such as Baby Bird’s Greatest Hits (a compilation of songs from Stephen Jones’ early limited-run lo-fi albums for the US market), Throbbing Gristle’s Greatest Hits (no further explanation needed) or The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits, a compilation of songs by outsider artist Susan Dietrich which is great and should be checked out by everyone.

The Space Lady

All of which means we need…

ONE MORE GROUND RULE

To get included in this list, an act needs to have had at least one single reach the Top 100 Singles Chart in the UK. Having to do that is a bit annoying, but otherwise this would just be a list of the 252 artists, many of which shouldn’t really count anyway.

Okay, on with the list! Each of these have had just one charting single in the UK (thereby making ‘Greatest Hits‘ an immediate misnomer), so these are sorted by the highest-to-lowest peak chart position. Where there’s a draw in peak chart position, the artist with the greater number of weeks on the chart will be deemed more successful.

In short, it’s the twenty most tenuous definitions of “Greatest Hits” in UK chart history.

THE LIST!
1. Joe Simon – Joe Simon’s Greatest Hits (1972)
  The hit single: Step by Step
  Peak position: 14 (8 July 1973- 14 July 1973)
  Weeks on chart: 10
Right at the starting line, here’s a compilation that foolishly jumps the gun in the UK, with soul singer Joe Simon‘s first Greatest Hits compilation arriving a year before his UK singles chart debut. It wouldn’t be until his third Greatest Hits album (yes, third) in 1982 (By Popular Demand: Joe Simon’s Greatest Hits Volume 2) that his sole UK hit single would grace such a disc.
1. The Dells – The Dells Greatest Hits (1969)
  The hit single: I Can Sing A Rainbow – Love Is Blue
  Peak position: 15 (3 August 1969- 9 August 1969)
  Weeks on chart: 9
Oof, what an excellent album cover. Everything seems to be lined up nicely here for funk/soul outfit The Dells. Their Greatest Hits record arriving in August 1969, with I Can Sing A Rainbow – Love Is Blue arriving at the same time. And yet, that song wasn’t on that compilation. In fairness, at the time of release it hadn’t been a hit yet. It doesn’t do to be presumptuous. It did make it to their subsequent Greatest Hits Volume 2, however.

Also worth noting that in 1972, the band released “The Dells Sing Dionne Warwicke’s* Greatest Hits“. Bit cheeky. Get your own hits!

(*As she was briefly known at the time, with differing sources claiming it being a spelling error being kept for marketing reasons, or on the advice of Warwick’s astrologer friend Linda Goodman, who incorrectly believed it would bring about greater success.)
1. Steppenwolf – 16 Greatest Hits (1973)
  The hit single: Born To Be Wild
  Peak position: 18 (21 February 1999- 27 February 1999)
  Weeks on chart: 16
Catnip for any reply guys armed with “But They Were An Album Band!”, here’s Steppenwolf and the only song of theirs that normal people could name. There were a bunch of singles released by the band in North America (though only three of them made the Billboard Top 20, so a title suggesting it was hard to narrow them down to sixteen is a bit of a stretch), hence this compilation. In the UK, it wasn’t until a 1999 reissue that Born To Be Wild made it to the Top 20 – the original issue only got as far as number 30, though did hang around long enough to go platinum.
1. The Nice – Greatest Hits (1977)
  The hit single: America
  Peak position: 21 (18 September 1968- 24 September 1968)
  Weeks on chart: 15
With a band name like The Nice, you kind of want them to be a Death Metal band. At least I do. As it goes, this prog rock outfit (sample song title on the compilation: The Diamond Hard Blue Apples Of The Moon) scored a chart hit with America, a song adapted from West Side Story. Not the last time we’ll see a reference to that on this list.
1. Edith Piaf – Portrait of Piaf – 25 Of Her Greatest Hits (1973)
  The hit single: Milord
  Peak position: 24 (22 December 1960- 28 December 1960)
  Weeks on chart: 15
I mean, I’m sure Edith Piaf regrets nothing. But the simple fact is that the song you’d probably expect to see as the sole chart single here isn’t the one you’d expect. There wasn’t even a charting reissue after the Stephen Fry Heineken Export advert that made good use of the song. Or from when The All-New Alexei Sayle Show did a parody of it. Instead, it’s Milord, a song used to open Piaf’s original Greatest Hits set (with, fittingly, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien as the closer.
1. Stonewall Jackson – Greatest Hits (1965)
  The hit single: Waterloo
  Peak position: 24 (17 July 1959- 23 July 1959)
  Weeks on chart: 2
One to file under “Had Lots of Hits in the US Country Chart”, though only one that made the full Billboard chart over there. That was Waterloo, the same record that briefly charted in the UK in July 1959, and which is present and correct on this compilation. In total, there were a total of 11 different Greatest Hits compilations bearing Stonewall Jackson‘s name, one of which was on the – yes! – K-Tel Records label. Though don’t go looking for that version in charity shops, it was a download-only album from 2022.
1. Buddy Greco – Buddy Greco’s Greatest Hits (1984)
  The hit single: The Lady Is A Tramp
  Peak position: 26 (21 July 1960- 27 July 1960)
  Weeks on chart: 8
Amongst all the artists on this list, jazz singer and pianist Armando Joseph “Buddy” Greco is one that arguably enjoyed the closest association with Britain. He first visited the UK in 1949, and would later swap life in Palm Springs for a new home in Essex. Greco enjoyed a longstanding association with the UK – in 2008, as part of a tour with wife Lezlie Anders he performed alongside the BBC Big Band and at Ronnie Scott’s. A couple of years later, he led the BBC Concert Orchestra in a tribute to Frank Sinatra for Radio 2, and on New Year’s Eve 2011 he performed in BBC2’s annual nothing-else-on-fest Hoonenanny, singing Fly Me to the Moon.

And yet, it’s fair to say he wasn’t really a singles act. The only time one of this songs troubled UK chart compilers was in 1960, with The Lady is a Tramp.
1. The Kingsmen – Louie Louie / Greatest Hits (1986)
  The hit single: Louie Louie
  Peak position: 26 (13 February 1964- 19 February 1964)
  Weeks on chart: 7
Most famous for a song that fans of 24 Hour Party People (the film) will associate with Dave Gorman as a Jon the Postman bellowing it out on stage after the Sex Pistols gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, here’s Oregon’s finest with a compilation that freely admits what the main draw is. Had several more hits in their native USA, but in Old Blimey there was just the one.
1. Ramsey Lewis – Solid Ivory: His Greatest Hits (1976)
  The hit single: Wade In The Water
  Peak position: 31 (30 April 1972- 6 May 1972)
  Weeks on chart: 8
More soul-jazz here, and some very nice album art. The album itself mostly contains reinterpretations of songs originally performed by other people, including a quartet of Beatles classics, but it was Ramsey Lewis‘ self-penned Wade in the Water that reached the UK Top 40 in 1972. That’s present and correct here, and it’s certainly worth visiting this album (or one of the eight other Greatest Hit compilations bearing his name) for that, but do sure to also check his version of Minnie Ripperton’s Les Fleurs, which is a treat.
1. Blood, Sweat and Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears Greatest Hits (1972)
  The hit single: You’ve Made Me So Very Happy
  Peak position: 35 (21 May 1969- 27 May 1969)
  Weeks on chart: 4
A lot of jazz-adjacent entries, aren’t there? As with most other entries here, a band best known in the United States, where they enjoyed a trio of Billboard number two singles in 1969, but only a minor hit in the UK. It’s a catchy one though, one that could easily work if cropped to thirty seconds and used as the theme to an uplifting 1976 NBC sitcom about a woman making her way in New York City.
1. Leonard Cohen – Greatest Hits (1975)
  The hit single: Hallelujah
  Peak position: 36 (21 December 2008- 27 December 2008)
  Weeks on chart: 2
Bit of a swerve here, with old Lenny Cohen very much an album artist rather than a singles one – even in the USA, there was only a brief dusting of single releases from him. His most recognisable song would surely be the one featured here, but mainly in guises where it’s performed by others. including John Cale, Rufus Wainwright and k.d. lang – but mainly X Factor winner Alexandra Burke and Jeff Buckley.

With the song picked by the programme to be performed by finalists JLS and Burke, it was rush-released in December 2008 in time to seize the Christmas number one slot. Fans of the version recorded by the late Jeff Buckley weren’t keen on this idea (it didn’t help that Burke herself had initially complained that the song “didn’t do anything” for her), and a campaign has launched to get his version to number one instead.

Ultimately, Alexandra Burke’s version reached the top spot, becoming the best-selling single of 2008. Buckley’s version made number two in the chart. Meanwhile, a smaller campaign to get Cohen’s original version into the chart resulted in it taking a place at number 36. All in all, it meant that that UK Top 40 on 21 December 2008 had three versions of the exact same song in it – one that wasn’t even about Christmas.

It’s also worth noting that Hallelujah didn’t feature on this Greatest Hits album for Cohen’s, mainly (okay, entirely) because he was yet to write it.
1. Ruby and the Romantics – Greatest Hits Album (1966)
  The hit single: Our Day Will Come
  Peak position: 38 (18 April 1963- 24 April 1963)
  Weeks on chart: 6
Over in the USA, Ruby and the Romantics are well regarded, with the band being amongst the first inductees to the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame. By far their biggest hit over there was the Grammy-winning Our Day Will Come, which reached number one in the Billboard chart. Over in the UK, it’s a song that didn’t have anywhere near as big an impression, with it hovering between numbers 38 and 39 in the charts for a month.
1. BJ Thomas – 20 Great Hits (1981)
  The hit single: Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
  Peak position: 38 (15 February 1970- 21 February 1970)
  Weeks on chart: 4
Of all the artists on this list, Beej (as I’m going to call him) possibly has the longest continuing recording career, running from 1966 and debut single I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (originally recorded by Hank Williams in 1949) all the way through to 2017’s We Are Houston, recorded with the Music Row Choir. In all that time, it was the Burt Bacharach and Hal David-penned Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head that proved to be his biggest hit, helped by being used in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The song was a smash in various countries around the world, making it to the top of the charts in the USA, Canada and Norway, also picking up an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1970. In the UK, B J Thomas‘ version only just scraped into the top forty in February 1970, when a version of the song recorded by Sacha Distel was already on its way up the charts, peaking at number 10. At the same time, a version by Bobbie Gentry was also available as a single, meaning three versions of the same song were in the charts at the same time, and it didn’t even have anything to do with The bloody X Factor.

=6. Major Lance – Major Lance’s Greatest Hits Recorded Live At The Torch (1973)
The hit single: Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um
Peak position: 40 (20 February 1964- 26 February 1964)
Weeks on chart: 2

=6. The Brothers Four – Greatest Hits (1966)
The hit single: Greenfields
Peak position: 40 (7 July 1960- 13 July 1960)
Weeks on chart: 2

Really, into the reeds of the Top Forty now and two acts are tied in sixth place. Firstly, there’s Major Lance, who scored a hit with the first version to be released of Curtis Mayfield‘s. Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um (his other song titles are more nuanced) hit number five in the Billboard chart, while Lance’s records were frequently in the US R&B Charts between 1963 and 1975. It’s track four on his original Greatest Hits album.

The Brothers Four had a huge hit on their eight hands with Greenfields, which wasn’t bad considering it was their debut single. It made the top two in the USA and Canada, and hit the top spot in Norway. In the UK, the Brothers Four version entered the charts on the same week as a version of the same song by The Beverley Sisters. While the latter would soon reach number 29, the Brothers’ version wouldn’t get any higher than 40. Sisters one, Brothers nil. Unsurprisingly, it’s side one and track one on their original 1966 Greatest Hits album.
1. Leonard Bernstein – Bernstein’s Greatest Hits (1972)
  The hit single: America – World Cup Theme 1994
  Peak position: 44 (26 June 1994- 2 July 1994)
  Weeks on chart: 4
A bit of an outlier here, as Leonard Bernstein is a composer and a conductor, usually associated with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. But, he’s credited on Discogs for this compilation, and on the Official Charts Company website for this single, and rules are rules. Even when I’ve made them up.

Despite a career stretching back a long way – his earliest credited album appearance is dated as 1940 – it would be 1994 when he made his sole credited appearance in the UK singles chart. BBC Sport had scored a major hit single with their chosen theme for their coverage of the 1990 World Cup, Luciano Pavarotti‘s recording of Nessum Dorma from the opera Turandot. That spent three weeks at number two in the UK Charts as England roared to the semi-finals and Gazza hacked his way to infamy.

With the 1994 World Cup taking place in the USA, BBC Sport tried to repeat that achievement by using Bernstein’s America, from West Side Story. The magic couldn’t be bottled twice, and the song – not helped by the tournament largely taking place late at night in British Summer Time and without any involvement by the home nations – failed to make the Top Forty.
1. Jimmy Reed – 12 Greatest Hits (1987)
  The hit single: Shame Shame Shame
  Peak position: 45 (17 September 1964- 23 September 1964)
  Weeks on chart: 2
Electric bluesman Jimmy Reed was as influential as they come during his imperial phase, with Elvis Presley, Hank Williams Jr, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the Rolling Stones all going on to record versions of his songs. Reed himself was a fixture on the US R&B Chart from 1955 through 1961, but in the UK his sole chart placing wouldn’t come until 1964, entering at number 47 on 10 September, rising to 45 the following week, then falling out of the chart completely. Indeed, Shame Shame Shame.
1. Jimmy Smith – Jimmy Smith’s Greatest Hits (1966)
  The hit single: Got My Mojo Working
  Peak position: 48 (28 April 1966- 4 May 1966)
  Weeks on chart: 3
Influential jazz organist Jimmy Smith takes third place on the list. Despite much of his work being alongside other artists such as Quincy Jones, Joey DeFrancesco and King Curtis, plus playing Hammond organ on Michael Jackson’s Bad, he generated an impressive amount of work under his own name. Much of his work was solely released in the US, but Verve Records did release a selection of his tracks as singles in the UK between 1963 and 1967. Of these, only Got My Mojo Working made it into the chart listings, with a high of number 58.
1. Dan Fogelberg – Greatest Hits (1982)
  The hit single: Longer
  Peak position: 59 (16 March 1980- 22 March 1980)
  Weeks on chart: 4
Rocking a look that you’d need to be a songwriter to really get away with (and even then, only within a limited timeframe) on the front cover, Dan Fogelberg was best known in the USA for soft rock hits Same Old Lang Syne (1980), Leader of the Band (1981), Run for the Roses (1982) and the entry here, Longer (1979 US, 1980 UK). Musically, a quintuple threat (vocals, guitar, bass, piano, keyboards), he enjoyed a good run of Billboard hits from 1975’s Part of the Plan (no 31) through to 1984’s The Language of Love (no 13), but in the UK a few weeks in the lower reaches of the Top 75 would be as good as it got.
1. Blue Magic – Blue Magic’s Greatest Hits (1986)
  The hit single: Romeo and Juliet
  Peak position: 89 (2 April 1989- 8 April 1989)
  Weeks on chart: 2
Here we go – officially the Greatest Hits album that was issued in the UK with the most tenuous definition of the word ‘Hit’ possible. And, just to make the link even more wafer-thin, their sole chart entry came about three years after Philadelphia soul vocal group Blue Magic issued this compilation, meaning the only single of theirs that ever made the UK charts isn’t on it. Their singles had been getting issued in the UK on Atlantic Records since 1973’s Look Me Up, but it wasn’t until Romeo and Juliet was issued by Def Jam Recordings in 1989 that they sneaked into the UK chart, courtesy of Eric Sadler and Hank Shocklee‘s Vocal Remix.

–

And there we go.

WAIT, YOU PROMISED REDNEX!

Ah, that was my little folly. While I went into this expecting to see more novelty acts trying to spin an unexpected hit into a revisionist glittering career, that wasn’t what was uncovered. But instead, we found some great songs that deserve a little more time in the spotlight.

AH, FAIR ENOUGH. BUT WHAT ABOUT REDNEX?

They didn’t even make the long list. Rednex’ Greatest Hits and Remixes was only issued in Germany. It was my little folly. There are four versions of Cotton Eye Joe on it. Four.

–

UPDATE! Here’s a Spotify playlist containing all the charting singles outlined above. Apart from Blue Magic’s Roman and Juliet, as it’s not there – their most popular song has been used instead. Enjoy!

(With thanks to Justin Bryant and Jules Gray for providing a couple of corrections to parts of this blog.)
26th August 2026
The Eighty-Three Roads To Wembley: Part Three

Hooray, my computer’s fixed! Bah, it’s no longer remotely timely writing about the FA Cup. Let’s get to the end of the 1960s anyway, after which I’ll come back to this series when it’s a bit more relevant, tentatively adding in one update for each round of next season’s FA Cup. But at least in this update I get to start keeping a count of how often the FA Cup Final airs on the same day as an episode of Doctor Who, which I’m sure will see the SEO scores for the blog rise sharply. Anyway, time to hop in a sports car driven by Simon Dee, we’re off to…

ERA FIVE The BBC-1 Years

2 May 1964: West Ham United 3 Preston North End 2

BBC1
11:30 to 17:15 Grandstand

A five goal thriller ends with Bobby Moore being handed the trophy by the Earl of Harewood, but before then Grandstand viewers are treated to diversions of golf from Wentworth, Boxing from a non-specific location in ‘America’ and Ice Hockey from Brighton.

Anyone tuning into BBC-1 an hour before the start of Grandstand can find themselves treated to The Fabric of the Atom at 10.35 (“An introduction to Quantum Mechanics”), where Professor Philip Morrison looks at matter waves. The Radio Times pleasingly points out that the programme featured “special equipment loaned by Professor Harry Meiners Troy, USA”. We’re a long way from Saturday Superstore, aren’t we? That was followed at 11.05 by Parliamo Italiano, where “Giulia takes over the packing for their holiday”, and Public Service Announcements at 11.25.

Some killer content follows the football, Grandstand being followed at 5.15 by The Telegoons (“Lurgi Strikes Britain”), and at 5.30 it’s Dr Who, a programme still new enough for the Daily Mirror TV guide to append it with “(science fiction series)”. Tonight’s episode: The Snows of Terror.

CUP FINAL DAY DR WHO COUNT: One.

ATV
13:24 to 17:15 Big Afternoon Out

Over on ITV, we’re still some time away from a World of Sport, so enjoy another Big Afternoon Out at the very specific time of 1.24pm, with Professional Wrestling from Wembley Town Hall offering a grapplin’ support act for the big match.

There’s nothing more exciting than a 1.15pm News Bulletin before the sporting action, but there’s a good line-up after it. Robert Shaw stars in The Buccaneers at 5.15 (episode: “The Decoy”), but that’s followed by Thank Your Lucky Stars at 5.50, with The Shadows and Roy Orbison. If you’re sticking around until 8.25pm, you can look forward to some Sid ‘n’ Dick era Morecambe and Wise.

1 May 1965: Liverpool 2 Leeds United 1

BBC1
11:30 to 17:25 Grandstand

An all-Northern cup final for 1965, with Bill Shankley’s reds taking the title. Before that, alongside golf from Sandwich, racing from Ascot Heath, swimming from Portsmouth and rugby union from Twickers, there’s a screening of Sir Stanley Matthews’ testimonial match from Stoke, highlights of which are on YouTube. Appropriately enough, given Matthews’ own XI (featuring names such as Stan Mortenson, Nat Lofthouse, Tom Finney, Danny Blanchflower and Jimmy Hill) was taking on a World XI (including Lev Yashin, Aldredo di Stefano, Frerenc Puskas, Eusebio), the match was beamed around Europe via Eurovision, and on radio around the world.

Before Grandstand, it was time for BBC Educational Broadcasts to shine in a time before the Open University, erm, opened. The Changing World (“an introduction to geology”) started things off at 10.15am, followed by Komm Mit!, the twenty-seventh of thirty lessons in German for beginners at 10.45am.

Following the presentation of the cup (by The Queen, no less) it was time for Juke Box Jury at 5.25pm, with panellists including Dave Clark and Dora Bryan. That was followed by a new adventure in space and time at 5.50pm, with Dr Who in The Dimensions of Time.

CUP FINAL DAY DR WHO COUNT: Two.

ATV
12:50 to 17:15 World of Sport

Over on the light channel, the Big Afternoon Out had been replaced by World of Sport, but little else had changed. Indeed, that coverage of the sporting world only stretched from Wembley Stadium to Wembley Town Hall for live wrestling.

Anyone not feeling in the mood for geology or German on BBC-1 would have to make do with walking the dog if they were looking for alternative entertainment before World of Sport, with only a News update preceding the action at 12.45. The sporting action was followed at 5.15pm by The Forest Rangers (episode: The Dog) and more Thank Your Lucky Stars at 5.50pm, where Cilla Black, The Merseybeats, Sounds Incorporated and Julie Grant topped the bill.

14 May 1966: Everton 3 Sheffield Wednesday 2

BBC1
11:15 to 17:25 Grandstand

A big year for domestic football, as a British team wearing red go on to lift the Jules Rimet trophy later in the summer. Sadly though, it’s not Wales. But that’s many weeks away. A low-scoring defensive cup final looks to be on the menu, as Everton reach the final without having conceded a goal en route to Wembley, and buoyed by the presence of a certain J Lennon and P McCartney amongst the 100,000 spectators, their name is surely on the cup.

Except! It’s Wednesday the roar into a two-goal lead, only for Everton to roar back to take the cup in a thrilling 3-2 win. In the Radio Times, Kenneth Wolstenholme writes about the Cup now coming with a passport to Europe, with a place in the Cup Winners’ Cup, where “each home gate can mean another £20,000 in the bank”.

For the audience at home, the build-up to the big kick-off is supported by the MCC taking on the West Indies at Lord’s and racing from Ayr.

Viewers tuning early for a feast of football can enjoy some brain soup for starters, with the splendidly-titled Laws of Disorder (“An introduction to chemical change and thermodynamics by Professor George Porter FRS”) at 10.15 and Master Builders (“Ten lectures on evolution and change in architectural ideas. 4: The Villa”) at 10.45. Anyone sticking around after the cup presentation by Princess Margaret can look forward to Juke Box Jury at 5.20, with David Jacobs in the big chair and Helen Shapiro, Jimmy Witherspoon, Janice Whiteman and Frank de Vol on jury duty. Then, after the News at 5.45, it’s time for Dr Who at 5.55, today’s story being Donald Cotton’s Johnny Ringo (“The most dreaded killer in all the West, Johnny Ringo, rides into town”).

CUP FINAL DAY DR WHO COUNT: Three

ATV
13:00 to 17:15 Word of Sport

Over on the ATV, there’s the usual serving of Professional Wrestling and some Racing Results to supplement the soccer in World of Sport, but at least there’s also some big brain knowledge to grapple with beforehand, with Say it in Russian at 11.50am, Les Trois Coups at 12.15 and The Anatomy of First Aid at 12.35. On the other side of the world (of Sport), there are some more Adventures of Robin Hood at 5.15. Elsewhere in the country, viewers in the Midlands and North instead get to enjoy a bonanza of Bob Monkhouse with Mad Movies, while viewers in Wales and Anglia get to see The Flintstones instead.

20 May 1967: Tottenham Hotspur 2 Chelsea 1

BBC1
11:25 to 17:25 Grandstand

We’re just six weeks away from colour television hitting the UK, meaning this inaugural all-London FA Cup Final is the last to be screened exclusively in monochrome. Jimmy Robertson and Frank Saul put Spurs into a two-goal lead that Chelsea fail to match, meaning the trophy is taken back to Tottenham for the fifth time.

The big match on Grandstand sees David Coleman presenting the now-standard tasters of The Wembley Scene, How They Got There and Meet the Teams, but for footballphobes there’s also the MCC versus India at Lord’s (or Glamorgan vs Gloucestershire for viewers in Wales) and Great Britain versus the USA in golf’s Walker Cup.

Back to the football though, and the Radio Times have brought in the big guns to provide a preview of the match, with the write-up on Tottenham provided by novelist, playwright, creator of Dixon of Dock Green and socialist firebrand Lord Ted Willis (“Spurs: a team which has given me more thrills and pleasure over the years than almost anything else in my life”). For Chelsea, the summary was penned by actor, director and maniac who brought those dinosaurs back to life, Richard Attenborough (“In the spring of 1942 I first took a girlfriend to a spot called Stamford Bridge. My intentions proved absolutely honourable: without hesitation I married both the girl and Chelsea and no divorces have ever been contemplated”). Lovely stuff.

Before the match, you’ve got a nice mix of content, with In Your Own Words at 10am, which vows to help you become more confident in your speech (“1. The Language of Social Occasions”), Management Techniques at 10.30 (“2. Control by Budgeting”) and Gardening Club at 11am, with Percy Thrower live at the Gardening Club Garden in Edgbaston. Suddenly the Mitchell and Webb joke about each programme on the BBC having it’s own garden feels a little more real.

Following the match, 5.25pm has a Juke Box Jury line-up for the ages: Kenny Everett and Leslie Crowther joined by Julie Felix and (replacing Shirley Anne Field, as billed in the Radio Times) Kiki Dee. Then, on the other side of 5.50pm The News, at 6pm it’s Dr Who (Patrick Troughton, that’s Who) tackling the first part of The Evil of the Daleks.

CUP FINAL DAY DR WHO COUNT: Four

ATV
12:30 to 17:15 World of Sport

A helping of horse racing to accompany the wrestling alongside the cup final over on Your Weekend ITV (if you lived in London, of course). The action was preceded by En Route at 11.25, First Steps in Physics at 11.45 and The Food You Eat at 12.05. Elsewhere, viewers in both Midlands and the South-West of England opened the day with The ABC of Do-It-Yourself.

Following the final whistle, viewers in London got a repeat episode of Adventures of Robin Hood at 5.15, with most other regions getting aquatic action from Adventures of the Seaspray instead.

ERA SIX The Early Colour Years

18 May 1968: West Bromwich Albion 1 Everton 0

BBC1
11:15 to 17:25 Grandstand

Here we go, a whole new landmark in football broadcasting. Not that you’d appreciate that if you were watching on BBC1, with the full colour spectrum on TV being the sole preserve of (a) poshos with brand new colour sets and (b) BBC2. If it’s any consolation, they’d need to be watching the bulk of the build-up in black and white, with The Wembley Scene, People at the Match and Meet the Teams all part of the regular Cup Final Grandstand line-up. And if you’d like a break from all that, you’ve got The MCC versus ‘The Australians’ (as the RT listing had it) from Lord’s for a full two hours near the start of this edition, along with boxing from Manchester.

If you wanted to warm your brain up a bit beforehand, tune in at 9.30am for Komm Mit!, stick around at 10am for Bonjour Francoise and at 10.30am for Teaching Adults. Or stick around at the end of Grandstand to leap straight into Dr Who at a scheduled 5.25pm, with part four of The Wheel of Space (*The Cybermen step up their attack and the Doctor and Jamie are in deadly peril”). That was to be followed by 5.50pm News, at 6pm by Genome content warning favourite The Dick van Dyke Show and – providing we’re truly in the imperial phase of 60s television – Dee Time at 6.25pm.

However! Jeff Astle’s winner for West Brom only arrived once the match had gone into extra time, pushing subsequent programming back by around 25 minutes. Thanks to the ever-splendid Paul Hayes for pointing out that the Doctor Who PasB details on the BBC website reveal the News remained at 5.50pm, and that episode of Who aired a tadge after 6pm. (It would make sense that the edition of The DvanD Show scheduled for that 6pm slot was postponed for a week, meaning everything else ran on time, but that’s speculation on my part.)

CUP FINAL DAY DR WHO COUNT: Five

BBC2
14:30 to 17:00 1968 FA Cup Final

With colourvision not arriving on the main channels for another 18 months, it was up to BBC2 to broadcast that first ever colour coverage in glorious 625-line RGB.

ATV
12:30 to 17:15 World of Sport

The final chance for the ATV London weekend franchise to broadcast a Cup Final, and (happily for me) the first time there’s a detailed itinerary in the newspaper TV listings. It’s pretty much a facsimile of the Grandstand feature set, of course, with “How the Teams Got There” the WoS counter to Grandstand’s “How They Got There”, “Meet the Players” the alternative to “Meet the Teams”. Still, not long before we get the Light Entertainment infantry deployed on the light channel’s cup final coverage.

Tune in early for 11.15 Face of the Earth, 11.40 Accueil and at noon for Working Weather. Stick around after the trophy lift for Sword of Freedom at 5.15 and Time for Blackburn at 5.45.

26 April 1969: Manchester City 1 Leicester City 0

Hoo, boy. Things are about to get a bit fisty. And not in the way you might expect. The players were perfectly well behaved during the match, as were the managers (aside from Man City manager Joe Mercer complaining that the Wembley pitch “used to be a bowling green, now it’s a cabbage patch”). The fans were well behaved, too. In the days following the final, the supporters of both teams were praised in the Commons for their good conduct during the final.

So, then. What was the big deal? TO PAGE 163 OF JIMMY HILL’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY!

You could’ve guessed he’d be pulling this pose on the cover, couldn’t you?

This relates to Hill’s time working for a shiny new LWT franchise, ready to make a big name for themselves. The final was on their patch, and this was one of their first chances to really show the BBC they had some serious competition in the capital. Over to you, Jimmy:

“Notwithstanding domestic confrontations at LWT, occasionally war broke out in full with the supposed real enemy, the BBC. I say supposed because at times, in endeavouring and often failing to reach an agreed competitive policy, we could be excused for believing we had more in common with the BBC than with other ITV companies. However, there was a distinct lack of any loving feeling at Wembley for the 1969 Cup final between Manchester City and Leicester City. The final was covered by both channels. The players behaved well but, claiming they had an exclusive contract for interviews, BBC staff attempted to break up an ITV interview with Mike Summerbee. An ITV outside broadcast manager, David Yallop, lost a tooth in the sudden switch from football to the noble art of lack of self-defence, and was obviously so disorientated by the whole experience he moved on to become a highly successful author.

Fortunately for us the war subsided, but not the competition and since that incident the Wembley authorities have made sure that agreed lines of rights and demarcations are upheld.”

(The Jimmy Hill Story, by Jimmy Hill)

Oof, eh? For more details on this broadcasting brouhaha, and the subsequent carpeting by the FA, read this excellent Sports Journalists Association article from 2019.

BBC1
11:25 to 17:15 Cup Final Grandstand

After that, a bit of a comedown, but anyway. The last Cup Final of the decade, and where we’ll draw a line under proceedings for the time being. Another point of note here: the first official use of “Cup Final Grandstand” as the programme title in the Radio Times. That aside, the set menu for the day’s coverage on Grandstand was the same as previous years, with The Wembley Scene, People at the Match, How They Got There and Meet the Teams all present and correct. As was a supporting bill of Cricket (“The Duke of Norfolk’s XI vs The West Indies”) and Boxing (“Johnnie Famechon vs Giovanni Girgenti”).

Before the final, you had an opportunity to watch Spanish language tutorial Vamos A Ver! (9.30am), Italian language tutorial Si Dice Cosi (10am) and French language tutorial Suivez La Piste (10.30am), before the antics of disappointing superhero (sub please check) The Weather Man at 11am and Deputy Dawg at 11.05am.

Following the final whistle (and scrap over post-match interviewees) it was time for Dr Who at 5.15pm (The War Games: Part Two, by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke, “the trio are caught up in the turmoil of war”), the News at 5.40pm followed by Here’s Lucy at 5.50pm. But do stick around for The Dave Allen Show at 7.30pm, with guests Matt Monro, Ray Barrett and The George Mitchell Singers.

CUP FINAL DAY DR WHO COUNT: Six

BBC2
14:30 to 17:00 FA Cup Final (in colour!)

Of course, while all the fighting between BBC1 and ITV was going on, the team working for BBC2 all stood aside, looking aloof, smoking French cigarettes and wondering if they should bring back Jazz 625. One can only assume.

London Weekend
12:00 to 17:15 World of Sport

Over on ITV, a not-yet-rebranded as ‘Dickie’ Richard Davies presented a World of Sport line-up that took in Football Highlights of the Sixties, Footballer of the Year and The Way to Wembley. There was also Racing from Sandown and (predictably) Wrestling.

Before everything, erm, kicked off, you could enjoy your weekend Weetabix in front of RAC Road Report (10.10am), Discovering London (10.15), Deux Mondes (10.40), All About Riding (11am) and Joe 90 (11.30). The action was followed by Land of the Giants at 5.15pm, but up against Dave Allen at 7.30pm there’s Galton and Simpson Comedy episode Friends in High Places, starring Bob Monkhouse and Patricia Hayes.

And that’s why the video recorders needed to be invented.

Right, that’ll do for now. Back with something else – probably not about football – soon.

9th June 2026
The Eighty-Three Roads To Wembley: Part Two

A new player has joined the game.

Back with the next stage of our wander down Wembley Way (briefly taking in Westgate Street, Cardiff), but first a quick whip-pan back to the 1940s. In the last part, we looked at how the billing for the first televised post-war Cup Final was advertised as airing from 4.05pm to 4.45pm, the Radio Times promising that “the last part of the match” would be screened live.

Well. Since then, I’ve been contacted by Paul Hayes on BlueSky, who has some more background info on that broadcast, following his research into the life and career of Jimmy Jewell, for a BBC Radio documentary on the former Norwich manager. Jewell was a key figure in those early years of the televised cup, on both sides of the action. A World War I Air Force veteran turned former amateur footballer, Jewell became a Football League referee by 1932 and would be the man in black at the first televised Cup Final in 1938. It was Jewell who blew the whistle for the late penalty that led to Preston’s extra-time winner. The following year, Jewell became manager of Norwich City until the outbreak of war led to him rejoining the RAF.

On returning from active duty, he turned his hand to sport commentary – including providing commentary for that 1947 Cup Final between Charlton and Burnley.

Radio Times listings, 26 April 1947

That’s where Paul Hayes’ research comes in. He has been able to confirm, from BBC paperwork of the time, that a late decision was made to broadcast the match in full, with the opening telecine film whirring into life at 2.45pm. To save Jewell from an exhausting two solid hours of solo chatter, former Corinthian footballer Norman Creek was brought in as co-commentator, though Creek’s forthright description of the match as dull didn’t prove popular with the producer.

Tellingly, Jewell was instead joined by England manager Walter Winterbottom in the commentary position for the 1948 final.

For the 1951 Cup Final, billed in the Radio Times as running from 3.45pm to 5pm due to Football Association huffiness, that’s almost exactly what happened, as confirmed by the Programme as Broadcast (PasB) notes for the day. Almost exactly, as coverage ended just over six minutes before 5pm, meaning there was room for Interlude film ‘Angel Fish‘, before Whirligig whirred into motion just after five.

[UPDATE: Courtesy of Paul Hayes again, there’s more on Whirligig here. which was BBC TV’s first Saturday teatime children’s programme, and not – as I’d completely misremembered – 1950s US kids drama series Whirlybirds]

When it came to the 1952 final, which wasn’t broadcast live at all, the BBC’s Head of Outside Broadcasts Peter Dimmock did write to FA Bigwig Sir Stanley Rous asking for a change of heart a week before the match. Dimmock’s proposal was to keep the live broadcast under wraps until the morning of the match, or even not to publicise it at all – secretly broadcasting the biggest sporting occasion of the entire year. With the BBC’s Outside Broadcast base positioned just over from the Empire Stadium (as was), the Corporation were even prepared to secretly set up their camera positions at the last minute, to avoid giving the game away.

Peter Dimmock, looking every bit as gentlemanly as you’d expect.

Sadly, that ‘secret’ cup final coverage didn’t come to pass, meaning the 1951 final would be the last live cup final commentary from Jimmy Jewell, who died in Autumn 1952. Though at least his co-commentator for that 1951 final – one Kenneth Wolstenholme – does conjure up the image of a fitting (albeit theoretical) passing-the-baton moment.

Lastly, Paul has shared some PasB details for the 1938 and 1939 finals, confirming that The Three Bears did indeed precede the Cup Final in 1938 – airing at 2.13pm instead of the RT-billed 4.40pm, and noting that the coverage of the 1939 final began slightly ahead of the billed time 2.40pm, before wrapping up at the later-than-billed time of 4.45pm.

Absolutely lovely stuff, there. Many thanks to Paul for that information. His documentary on Jimmy Jewell – a special episode of Radio Norfolk’s Norwich City show The Scrimmage – is still available on BBC Sounds – and I can confirm is a very enjoyable way to spend 57 minutes. If only to learn how Jewell once managed to ruin Adolf Hitler’s day.

Okay, onto the next series of Cup Final Day schedules. Now available with our without commercials, as it’s the start of…

ERA THREE The Early ITV Years

So, double the schedule info from now on. Just to point out at the start – I’ll use the ITV London listings for each year, so don’t expect to see Tiswas appear too soon. This is information overload as it is, I don’t want to make life even more difficult for myself by throwing Westward, Grampian and Tyne-Tees into the mix (when they come into being). Anyway, off to:

5 May 1956: Manchester City 3 Birmingham City 1

The first Cup Final Day where newspaper listings had to specify which channel things were on, instead of just putting listings under the word ‘Television’. This being a time when London weekend television was ran by a region-hopping ATV, here’s how they fared.

BBC-tv
14:30 to 17:00 The Cup Final

Here’s a thought for you – remember The BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2007? Not the winner of the award itself, won by Italian-Welsh boxer Joe Calzaghe, but the furore over the event itself being sponsored for the first time. The deal with soft drink brand Robinsons led to the usual amount of Beeb-bashing in all the usual corners, the BBC Trust duly rapping those responsible on the knuckles and the event was never sponsored again.

Well, that didn’t seem to trouble anyone too much in the 1950s. “Community singing organised by the Daily Express” has been a fixture of the televised cup final coverage since it returned from the brief FA-enforced hiatus in 1953, and in 1956 it seemed especially egregious, with the tabloid sponsoring the Motor Racing immediately preceding the Cup Final at 1.45pm and being inserted into the half-time interval.

Radio Times television listings, 5May 1956

With that in mind, it’s probably lucky to programme airing immediately following the final at 5pm was children’s programme Jack in the Box and not Rupert the Bear or Lord Beaverbrook’s Half Hour.

ATV
14:30 to 16:50 F.A. Cup Final

Over on the Light Channel, quite ironically you wouldn’t get any such sponsorship hi-jinks due to the strict restrictions on advertising. Anyway, the channel’s inaugural Cup Final commentary was provided by Peter Lloyd, who’d previously worked alongside Jimmy Jewell to provide football commentary on the BBC since 1948, including the 1949 and 1950 Cup Finals. He was joined in the commentary box by England captain Billy Wright and former Manchester City stopper Frank Swift. Not a bad line-up for the first ever head-to-head Cup Final. Or, if you prefer, a bit impudent given the BBC are allowing them to broadcast the match and shove nine minutes of commercials around it.

Granted, the actual reason was that it was a listed event, meaning no channel was allowed to have exclusivity to it.

Daily Telegraph, Friday 4 May 1956

London viewers had no lead-in programme for the final, but Midlands viewers tuning into their own weekend franchise ABC were treated to the pleasantly titled Introducing Ourselves at 2.15pm. The match was followed by a Superman cartoon at 4.50pm, then – joining Peter Lloyd as big name defector from the BBC – Muffin the Mule at 5.05pm. Don’t forget to stick around for Bernard Delfont presents The Winifred Atwell Show at 8.15pm, because regular guests Morecambe and Wise are in it.

[UPDATE: Thanks again to Paul Hayes for noting Introducing Ourselves is most likely present because this was the first day that ABC was broadcasting to the North-West of England, having previously been broadcast only to the Midlands.]

4 May 1957: Aston Villa 2 Manchester United 1

BBC-tv
14:15 to 17:00 The Cup Final

With ITV companies declining the option of showing the match in 1957, it’s BBC all the way. The coverage was supplemented by highlights the previous night of an exhibition match between “Old England and Young England” at Highbury. The former: players over thirty who “have won their England cap” and a ragtag bunch of under-23s. This was the third such match since it had become a fixture in 1954, but the first to be won by Young England, who ran out 2-1 winners. A young chap with the surname ‘Clough’ was amongst their ranks that day. Wonder what became of him.

The final – where Villa won their first final since 1924 – was followed at 5pm The Lone Ranger.

ATV
Viewing tuning in for an alternative view on the final hopefully weren’t confused by Variety Showtime appearing at 3pm, followed by Face the Mike at 4.15pm.

3 May 1958: Bolton Wanderers 2 Manchester United 0

BBC-tv
14:15 to 16:50 The F.A. Cup Final

A match-up that generated mixed feelings for Kenneth Wolstenholme – born in Manchester, schooled in Bolton – but as he wrote in the Radio Times before the match, at least nobody could accuse him of being biased. “But who will win on Saturday? How should I know. I’m supporting both teams!”

Anyone tuning in before the match coverage started would just be treated to the test card, unless they found themselves in the transmission footprints of Wenvoe, Blaen-Plwyf, Holme Moss, or Sutton Coldfield transmitters. Those lucky few could tune in to Beunydd (“Bwrw golwg dros bynclau’r dydd mewn sgwrs a ffilm – a chyfle i gwrdd a rhai sy’n amlwg yn y newyddion”, or “take a look at the topics of the day in conversation and film – and a chance to meet some of the highlights in the news” if you prefer.)

Following the lifting of the FA Cup, fans of motor racing could catch up with the latest new from The International Daily Express Trophy Meeting at Silverstone.

ATV
14:30 to 16:55 F.A. Cup Final

The final returned to ITV in a year that proved to be a big one for football on the network. The following month would see the network broadcast live World Cup football for the first time, hosting seven live matches from Sweden. Then, in September, Scottish Television broadcast live football for the first time, with Hearts’ European Cup tie against Standard Liege.

ITV London’s match coverage was preceded at 2pm by The Fox, an NBC Robin Hood-alike filmed in Britain. The match was followed at 4.55 by advertising magazine Saturday Showcase.

ERA FOUR The Grandstand Years

2 May 1959: Nottingham Forest 2 Luton Town 1

BBC-tv
11:30 to 17:05 Grandstand

Ah, here we go. I’ve covered the history of Grandstand when it was revealed as The 13th Most-Broadcast BBC Series Ever, but here’s where it first appears on cup final day. This was a gamechanger – now all live sport being broadcast on cup final day was listed under the umbrella title, meaning it’s not necessarily football all the way. However, from the programme menu for 2 May 1959, it’s football at least most of the way, with a Cup Final Preview at the start of the programme, highlights of the previous year’s final at 1.30pm and filmed reports from the Luton and Forest camps. Aside from the football there’s live swimming (North v South of England) and – shortly before kick-off – a “Keep Fit Demonstration by members of the Keep Fit Association of England and Wales, directed by Eileen Fowler of BBC Television Women’s programmes.”

And so, the template for the next few decades is set – the variety of sports in an edition of Grandstand is slimmed down to make for as much cup final build-up as possible. This is basically the birth of Cup Final Day as we’d come to know it.

Elsewhere on the BBC-tv schedule, Grandstand is preceded at 11.0 by Beunydd in the relevant regions, and followed at 5.05pm by Wheels and Wings, a Canadian cartoon film about the “Romance of Transportation”.

ATV
14:50 to 16:55 Cup Final

Over on ITV, there are also the first budding signs of Cup Final Worlds of Sport to come, with motor racing coverage (at 12.20 and 2.20pm) interrupted at 1.20pm by an exhibition match between Frankie Vaughan’s Boys’ Clubs versus a team of TV Stars. That was followed by admag Saturday Showcase at 4.55pm and Robin Hood at 5.10pm.

7 May 1960: Wolverhampton Wanderers 3 Blackburn Rovers 0

BBC-tv
12:45 to 16:55 Grandstand

The glorious Grandstand is now in full swing, and it’s football almost all the way. A day packed with filmed highlights of how each team got to the Empire Stadium (in previous rounds of the cup, rather than footage of their bus getting stuck in traffic, you understand), interviews with the players on each team, highlights of the 1959 final and the big match itself. In fact, the only billed diversion to the football in coverage of boxing from the USA, with Harold Johnson taking on Clarence Floyd.

For those finding themselves near Wenvoe, Blaen-Plwyf, Holme Moss or Sutton Coldfield masts, the coverage is preceded by a Cymraeg coupling of Telewele (12.15pm) and Newyddion (12.40pm). Alternatively, stick around after the final whistle for Hide and Seek (5pm), a “film story about the adventures of five children on a Swedish island”, narrated by Frank Duncan.

ATV
With the light channel presumably keeping their powder dry while working on a deal with the Football League that would give them rights to screen live matches, the schedule for cup final Saturday was instead given to Amateur Boxing, International Wrestling, the Moscow State Circus and (an unspecified) Western, all under the umbrella title of “Let’s Go“.

The deal was ultimately signed in August, got off to a wobbly start in September, and was swiftly dropped when clubs refused to let cameras into their grounds and the Football League decided that ITV should do more to compensate players.

The Times, 17 Aug 1960

Daily Telegraph, 15 Sept 1960

6 May 1961: Tottenham Hotspur 2 Leicester City 0

BBC-tv
11.15 to 16:55 Grandstand

A bit more variety to Grandstand this time around, with golf and swimming alongside the cup final fol-de-rol. Excitement elsewhere in the listings, as 9.30am (or 9.45am, depending on which newspaper you’re looking at) includes coverage of US space flight Operation Mercury, with Alan B Shepard Jr becoming the first American (and second person ever) to launch into space.

The live match was followed by western Range Rider at 5pm, for those who just couldn’t wait for another western – Laramie – at 6.30pm. Don’t worry, only a few more years until we get Doctor Who.

ATV
13:05 to 17:00 All-Star Afternoon: Cup Final and Wrestling

Following the grand folly that was their live Football League coverage, ITV are returning to the Cup Final this year, with their afternoon devoted to the final and Live Wrestling.

Following the sporting action at 5pm was Robin Hood starring Richard Greene in ‘The Black Patch’.

5 May 1962: Tottenham Hotspur 3 Burnley 1

BBC-tv
11.15 to 17:00 Grandstand

David Coleman is on the pitch at Wembley Stadium to bring another day of football and sporting action, with the regular segments (Meet the Finalists et al still going strong) sharing space with golf from St Andrews, swimming from Blackpool and Boxing from Miami. For the match itself, the BBC had taken extra effort to upgrade their match coverage, their cameras now able to zoom in on the action where practical, giving viewers a much improved experience.

Viewers tuning in before 11.15am could expect to see Telewele (10.40am) and Newyddion (11.05am) if they were in the relevant transmitter areas, or the tuning signal if not. Luckily, everyone would get to enjoy adventure series Circus Boy at 5pm, followed by Mr Pastry’s Progress at 5.25pm.

Mr Pastry (right)

ATV
14:40 to 17:00 FA Cup Final

Pretty much by the numbers over on ITV this year, with coverage starting twenty minutes before kick-off, and finishing practically before Danny Blanchflower had reached the bottom of the Wembley steps with the cup.

Before the coverage of the final, ITV viewers could enjoy Professional Wrestling from across town, over at Wembley Town Hall. Following the match, they were treated to Robin Hood episode “The Ghost That Failed”.

25 May 1963: Manchester United 3 Leicester City 1

BBC-tv
12:00 to 17:00 Grandstand

A few weeks later in May than had been planned at the start of the season, all thanks to fixture congestion created by The Big Freeze of 1963, at was almost June by the time the 1963 final came around. A Manchester United team that had narrowly avoided relegation from Division One found form at the right time, despatching a theoretically superior Leicester side with a goal from Denis Law and two from David Herd.

Elsewhere, viewers could enjoy Walker Cup golf from Tumberry, boxing from Madison Square Garden and show jumping from Wilmslow.

The regular Telewele and Newyddion preceded the action, now followed by ‘Announcements‘. As was now traditional, Circus Boy followed the final whistle at 5pm.

ATV
13:20 to 17:15 Saturday Sportstime

Having cast an envious glance at Grandstand, ATV tried to bottle that magic by putting a Saturday Sportstime sticker over their Saturday afternoon sporting action. Though with it comprising the same mixture of the FA Cup Final and wrestling, there wasn’t too much of a difference from last year.

For anyone not fancying Circus Boy on the Beeb, there was the option of seeing big budget drama Sir Francis Drake at 5.15pm.

Fool your friends by claiming this was the working title for Blue Peter

We’ll leave this there for now. Come back next time to see The BBC Television Service regenerate into two separate channels. There’ll be a lot of that going on.

18th May 2026
The Eighty-Three Roads To Wembley: Part One

With the FA Cup Final set to kick off soon (this year, Man City v Chelsea, or “The Neutrals’ Nightmare”), it’s time for bloggers, posters and podcasters to begin the annual pissing contest of How Early Cup Final Coverage Used To Begin. It started as early as 10am! No, 9am! Well, of course, I remember it starting at 8am!

But did it? Did it really? Did it? Really?

And is anyone bloody-minded enough to check? Are they really? If it ever really started, when did it start? Sadly, it’s very nearly a full 90 years since regular scheduled television began in the UK, so it’s not as if anyone’s about to check.

Yeah, hello.

Predictably, I’ve just done that thing. So: join me now as we scamper back through time to the sepia-soaked past and explore The Complete Coverage Of FA Cup Final Day on British Television, seeing how that particular journey panned out.

Starting with:

ERA ONE The Pre-War TV Era

30 April 1938: Preston North End 1 Huddersfield Town 0

BBC-tv Billing: “2.25pm Cup Final”

Preceded by: The Three Bears

Followed by: Closedown

While the BBC Television Service began in November 1936, by the time the first FA Cup Final of the television era came around – on 1 May, with Sunderland beating Preston 3-1 – the technology wasn’t quite up to beaming it all onto television screens. And so, as radio listeners settled down to “description by George F Allison and Ivan Sharpe” at 2.45pm, those early tele-adopters were treated to “Summer Gardening by C H Middleton”.

That changed in 1938, with live coverage of the final beamed into the homes to viewers in the UK (well, some bits of the UK) for the first time. The Radio Times listings for the big day had coverage set to begin at the very specific time of 2.27pm, with the action coming direct from Wembley, followed by short ballet film The Three Bears. However, newspapers from the day itself reverse that order, with The Three Bears sitting down to their porridge at 2.10pm, with the cup final coverage starting at 2.25pm. That late switch was a canny move – the viewing hundreds sat through a goalless 90-minutes, leading to half an hour of extra time, the match ultimately settled by Preston inside-right George Mutch slotting home a 119th minute penalty.

Even the Radio Times listing for the event had been uncertain about the whole affair: “By kind permission of the Football Association and Wembley Stadium, the Cup Final match between Preston North End and Huddersfield Town will be televised (conditions permitting) direct from Wembley.” Can’t imagine Matt Lorenzo excitedly proclaiming that on ITV, can you?

23 April 1939: Portsmouth 4 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1

BBC-tv Billing: “2.45pm F.A. Cup Final”

Preceded by: Nothing

Followed by: Closedown

Here we go. A veritable bagful of goals? Check. A much less uncertain Radio Times billing? Check. A warning that no enterprising publican is to broadcast the match to their customers? Check and don’t even bloody think about getting your J. E. Jenkinson’s Steam-Powered Firestick out.

It even made the cover of the RT, with a map of the pitch to aid radio listeners and a pointer to where the TV cameras would be.

The inside pages provided more detail, with the journal’s pseudonymous columnist The Scanner reporting how the trio of cameras – two just above the Royal Box and a third one on ground level – “should easily suffice to keep the whole of the game well in the picture”.

In short: great. All up and running. The FA Cup Final is going to be a staple of TV sports coverage for every year from now on, and nothing is going to change that. Now to take a big drink of water and check what happened in the 1940 Cup Final.

Hey, the telly’s stopped working. I was watching that cartoon.

ERA TWO The Early Post-War Years

26 April 1947: Charlton 1 Burnley 0

BBC-tv Billing: “4.05pm The Cup Final”

Preceded by: Nothing

Followed by: “4.45pm Interlude”

With television not quite ready to return in time for the 1946 final (27 April, Derby County 4 Charlton Athletic 1), it would be the following year before the final reappeared on TV screens. The reduced circumstances of the Television Service meant that full coverage couldn’t be provided for that year’s Charlton vs Burnley match, with just “the last part of the match” being screened from 4.05pm, along with the presentation of the cup to the winners, just in time for a twenty-minute interlude and the transmitters going to sleep until 8.30pm (Victorian operetta The Two Bouquets, if you were wondering).

24 April 1948: Manchester United 4 Blackpool 2

BBC-tv Billing: “2.30pm The Cup Final”

Preceded by: Nothing

Followed by: “4.50pm Closedown”

Here we, in a very real sense, go. Back to full-match coverage and for the first time, a proper itinerary.

2.30 Community singing and interviews with members of the crowd
2.55 Presentation of the teams to His Majesty the King
3.0 The kick-off
3.45 Half-time
3.55 The second half
4.40 The final whistle
4.45-4.50 Their Majesties the King and Queen present the F.A. Cup and medals to the two teams

That’s what we want.

30 April 1949: Leicester City 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 3

BBC-tv Billing: “2.30pm The Cup Final”

Preceded by: “2.15pm In Our Garden”

Followed by: “4.50pm Closedown”

The same again, another full itemised breakdown of events in the Radio Times and a return to a lead-in programme before the big match. In Our Garden allowed horticulturalists a chance to enjoy “F. Streeter [giving] more practical hints” before Abide With Me.

29 April 1950: Arsenal 2 Liverpool 0

BBC-tv Billing: “2.30pm The Cup Final”

Preceded by: “2pm In Our Garden”

Followed by: “4.50pm Closedown”

A repeat of the previous year’s coverage in 1950, this time with In Our Garden extended to a half-hour slot (“Frances Perry discusses the problem of chrysanthemum-stopping”). We could get used to this. Let’s hope nothing happens to (etc).

28 April 1951: Newcastle United 2 Blackpool 0

BBC-tv Billing: “3.45pm The Cup Final”

Preceded by: Nothing

Followed by: “5pm Whirligig”

Oh dear. “This afternoon sees the climax of the Association Football season and you are invited to join the hundred thousand spectators during the second half of the match.” The Football Association, wary of the growing popularity of television, decide to restrict television coverage to just the second half, lest there be in impact on ticket sales – a fuzzy eight-inch monochrome screen being deemed a distinct rival to being at Wembley. Or, indeed, any of the Football League matches taking place that afternoon.

3 May 1952: Newcastle United 1 Arsenal 0

BBC-tv Billing: “3pm Cricket: Worcestershire v. India”

Wait, what? September 1951 saw the FA Council proclaim that the Cup Final would not be televised until further notice. As such, televisually equipped fans of both teams were instead treated to cricket on their screens come kick-off time. That wasn’t the only grinchery being meted out by the Football Association – that year, only the second half of the match was broadcast on The Light Programme. Again, a total of eighteen Football League matches being played on the same day were to blame.

Hopes had been high prior to the FA Council’s meeting that the whole sorry saga could have been avoided, with reports that the final could be moved back a week to 10 May, thus avoiding a programme of league matches on the third. But: it was not to be.

2 May 1953: Blackpool 4 Bolton Wanderers 3

BBC-tv Billing: “2.30pm The Cup Final”

Preceded by: Nothing
Followed by: “5pm The S.S. Saturday Special”

With football missing from TV screens the previous May, the FA relented just a couple of months later, announcing in July 1952 that the final would return to TV screens, one unnamed delegate reporting to the press that it would do little harm to “show its goods in the shop window once a year”. That turned out to be splendid timing, meaning the television audience – boosted by a upswing in receiver sales in the run up to the Coronation – wouldn’t miss one of the most heralded cup finals in the competition’s history. Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortenson, Blackpool coming back from 3-1 down to win 4-3, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria etc.

As a cherry on that particular pudding, match coverage was followed by “The S.S. Saturday Special” with “Skipper Peter Butterworth and Porterhouse”, thereby making this an early holder of the record for Best Day Of Telly So Far.

1 May 1954: West Bromwich Albion 3 Preston North End 2

BBC-tv Billing: “2.30pm The Cup Final”

Preceded by: Nothing
Followed by: “5pm Whirligig”

Another goalfest, with Kenneth Wolstenholme on the lip-mic and the Queen Mum presenting the trophy to the victorious Baggies at the end.

7 May 1955: Newcastle United 3 Manchester City 1

BBC-tv Billing: “2.30pm The Cup Final”

Preceded by: Nothing
Followed by: “5pm Jigsaw”

The final year of the BBC’s uninterrupted monopoly of the big day, with the first Independent Television franchises gearing up for their big launch in September. The match was a memorable one, with Jackie Milburn slamming one home within the first minute as Newcastle roared to a 3-1 victory.

Any viewers served by the Kirk o’ Shotts, Glencairn and Redmoss transmitters would have welcome an alternative viewing option, given they were served up live coverage of the cricket match between Poloc Cricket Club v. West Scotland. Still, any Newcastle fans finding themselves north of the border that day would only need to wait another 70 years to see their team lift a trophy at Wembley.

We’ll leave it there for now, but look forward to the next few decades next time. ITV! Grandstand! And presumably the fabled Cup Final Coverage Starting At 9am!

Daily Mirror, Thursday 22 September 1955.

13th May 2026
TV Unwrapped: 2025
You might remember around this time last year, I posted a long list of 2024’s top fifty television programmes. Except, of course, not in any order of quality, everyone else is doing that. I listed them by quantity. Basically, which television programmes were broadcast most frequently throughout the year. I mean, quality like Celebrity Traitors is all very well and good, but you’ve got 24-hour schedules to fill.

Sorry, guys.

Last year’s list was hugely popular, being the most-read post on this blog over the last twelve months. (Granted, it being the only thing I’ve posted on this blog in the last twelve months may also be a factor.) But anyway, I’ve gone and done it again. Which shows have been thrown on most-frequently by the main free-to-air broadcasters throughout 2025? Let’s take a look!

As with last year’s list, there are a few rules. I’m not including news, weather, teleshopping, Unwind with ITV, overnight gambling filler or pseudo-programmes like FYI Daily that purely exist to exploit ad-minutes-per-hour loopholes. I’m only looking at the main entertainment channels that are (a) available on Freeview and (b) could be considered to have at least a half-decent budget (so, BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, C4, E4, More4 and Five). Oh, and this year I’ve managed to include EastEnders, which fell off the list last year.

There may very well be some omissions that have slipped through my datanet, but hopefully barely any.

But first, here’s a quiz! By my calculations there were a total of nine films that have been broadcast on four of the mainline TV channels in 2025. But what are they? See if you can work it out. I’ve given you the year each film was released, the number of characters in each title, and the number of times each film was broadcast on each channel.

Answers at the bottom of the list. Here’s the rundown!

–

50. Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, 334 times
BBC3
Last Year: 47th, 320 times

Repeat runs of Susan Nickson’s noughties sitcom show no sign of stopping, having become a bit of a mascot for BBC Three. Which is quite an achievement, given it pre-dates the channel itself by two years. Personally, I can’t help but wonder if Generation Z only view the series as a historical piece, it being their very own equivalent of the mid-80s BBC1 repeats of Hancock’s Half Hour.

49. Homes Under the Hammer, 344 times
BBC1 x 293, BBC2 x 51
Last Year: 45th, 333 times

As the cost of living continues to outpace rising incomes, there’ll be plenty of fuel for this series where people get forced out of their no-longer-affordable homes, meaning bowtied speculators can snap them up in bargain prices. Erm, hurrah for the invisible hand?

48. Top Gear, 347 times
BBC2 x 21, BBC3 x 326
Last Year: 54th, 291 times

The original series might be dead (or at least sleeping very heavily), but the repeats shall live on forever. A cursory search of the episode descriptions for the year returns 27 matches for “Matt LeBlanc”, but 145 for “Jeremy Clarkson”. And zero for the late Quentin Wilson. For shame.

47. The Adventures of Paddington, 364 times
C5
Last Year: 42nd, 363 times

How many more beloved celebrities will this behatted angel of death drag to the Pearly Gates before he is stopped?

46. Find It, Fix It, Flog It, 366 times
C4 x 177, More4 x 189
Last Year: 31st, 479 times

Noticed it, ignored it, watched another channel instead more like.

45. Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom, 369 times
C5
Last Year: 102nd, 185 times

One of Britain’s most underrated kids shows makes a welcome leap up the chart from last year. So much so, I had to check if some new episodes had been made. Sadly not – the 2013 Christmas two-parter is still the most recently-produced episode – but it means a new generation of kids will get to enjoy routines like “Name?” “The King.” “Occupation?” “King.” “Any previous work experience?” “Being King.” That can only be a good thing.

44. Car S.O.S, 376 times
C4 x 72, More4 x 304
Last Year: 43rd, 362 times

Channel Four’s commitment to outsider art triumphs once again, with this long running series of real-time Dogme95 films exploring the events of stricken motorists on the hard shoulder of the M56 waiting for a breakdown recovery truck to arrive. Obviously, that’s a lie, but the truth – that this is a programme originally made for the National Geographic Channel of all places – should be every bit as strange.

43. Celebrity Catchphrase, 379 times
ITV1 x 71, ITV2 x 308
Last Year: 52nd, 298 times

It’s six years since the last edition of regular Catchphrase aired, which feels surprising. Since then, it’s pivoted to a Celeb-only format – though that does make for a more interesting programme. Anyway, enjoy it in this format while you can, before the hard-working animators (and really, how many working hours must go into each episode of this?) are all replaced by AI slop bros.

41. Fireman Sam, 383 times
C5
Last Year: 32nd, 477 times

Naughty Norman Price still hasn’t been locked away, then. They probably just let him get away with his crimes because it’s so much fun saying his voice in a Welsh accent.

41. The Royal, 383 times
ITV3
Last Year: 37th, 389 times

Not a surprise for an ITV series to be a bit on the older side of current, but this does seem to be one programmes on heavy rotation on the channel that fewest people remember anything about. It’s like Avatar but with sixties Yorkshire accents.

40. Looney Tunes Cartoons, 395 times
ITV2
Last Year: 49th, 304 times

The HBO-funded series that HBO immediately lost interest in at least has an appreciative audience on ITV2. With HBO Max due to launch in the UK in 2026, it remains to be seen if this makes to move to there, or whether nobody involved will notice it, given it’s on at 6.30am on ITV2.

39. Food Unwrapped, 397 times
C4 x 23, More4 x 374
Last Year: 46th, 325 times

Show original Dutch version Keuringsdienst van Waarde, you cowards.

38. Top of the Pops, 399 times
BBC2 x 17, BBC4 x 382
Last Year: 39th, 377 times

The BBC Four repeats currently wading through the reeds of 1998 does nothing to diminish the power of the channel’s most popular repeat run. TIP: If you ever feel like looking at the Official Charts page for any given week in 1998 to see if there were other, much better songs that could be played on any given week, don’t bother. Whenever I’ve done that, the top forty throughout 1998 does generally seem to be just that bad.

37. Bargain Hunt, 400 times
BBC1 x 318, BBC2 x 82
Last Year: 35th, 405 times

Another perennial that shows no sign of stopping. Personally, I wish they’d do at least one episode about people (me, I mean me) on a quest through the charity shops of Britain seeking out Network DVD boxsets going for less than two quid.

34. EastEnders, 409 times
BBC1 x 206, BBC2 x 5, BBC3 x 190, BBC4 x 8
Last Year: 44th, 349 times

Due to a calamitous oversight on my part, I didn’t include ‘stEnders in last year’s rundown – the figure above is where it would’ve been – so it’s nice to see where it actually lands this time. Also nice to see it’s now a member of the exclusive club of Programmes Shown On All Four BBC Channels in 2025. There are just three other things broadcast on all four this year. What were they? I’ll tell you at the end of the rundown, along with those four-channel films – one of them is a bit of a surprise.

34. First Dates, 409 times
C4 x 45, E4 x 364
Last Year: 38th, 381 times

A collection of couples eat the edible sweet fruits that grow on phoenix dactylifera trees for the very first time. Not much of a premise, but that’s E4 viewers for you.

34. Midsomer Murders, 409 times
ITV1 x 17, ITV3 x 392
Last Year: 58th, 272 times

The Middle England Chainsaw Massacre continues unabated. At the time of writing this, there are still six episodes of Midsomer Murders filmed in 2023 that have yet to be broadcast.

33. Dinner Date, 451 times
ITV2
Last Year: Not broadcast

A collection of couples eat meals wholly comprised of the edible sweet fruits that grow on phoenix dactylifera trees. The only programme on this list that – as far as I could ascertain – wasn’t broadcast at all in 2024.

[UPDATE: With thanks to Ste Gordon on BlueSky, the appearance of Dinner Date on ITV2 is down to the closure of ITVBe, where it previously aired, meaning it moved to ITV2 this year.]

32. Hollyoaks, 473 times
E4
Last Year: 21st, 690 times

The move from mainline Channel Four to E4 has done little to stem to flow of episodes emanating out of Chester.

31. Minder, 484 times
ITV4
Last Year: 25th, 592 times

The timeliness adventures of Arfur and Terry continue to entertain. The non-zero chance of a second attempt at a remake but this time starring Bradley Walsh as Arfur continues to linger.

30. The King of Queens, 487 times
C4
Last Year: 40th, 364 times

The US sitcoms acting as interim replacements for RI:SE roll into their 57th year on early morning Channel Four.

29. Teen Titans Go!, 491 times
ITV2
Last Year: 22nd, 671 times

The Justice League’s Under-21 side remain popular, you notice.

28. Friends, 505 times
C5
Last Year: 36th, 404 times

IDEA FOR MISSION DOCUMENTARY: Dave Gorman travels to each household recycling plant in the UK to recover dumped VHS box sets of Friends, then uses them to construct a 1:1 replica of the Central Perk coffee shop. Comedy Central will do it.

27. Everybody Loves Raymond, 594 times
C4
Last Year: 19th, 733 times

Of course, nobody loves Raymond more than the Channel Four schedulers.

26. Countdown, 600 times
C4
Last Year: 30th, 496 times

If you ever needed evidence that Countdown is a show that Does Things Properly, the episode counts I’ve just looked up suggest there have been a total of 8,645 editions of the regular series, and just 24 editions of Celebrity Countdown. It’s the anti-Catchphrase! Which makes it even more of a shame I’d never stand a chance of winning an episode of the former.

25. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 613 times
E4
Last Year: 7th, 1148 times

Brooklyn’s finest provided enjoyable daytime filler for much of the year on E4, despite only appearing once outside of morning or early afternoon slots.

24. The Goldbergs, 629 times
E4
Last Year: 28th, 548 times

Ditto The Goldbergs, which appeared most frequently in overnight slots. Hey, it all counts though. As long as it’s not Unwind With ITV, I’m not including screensavers in here.

23. Magnum, P.I., 646 times
ITV4
Last Year: 61st, 266 times

Pleasingly, Maggers seems to have been scheduled most frequently in either breakfast slots or after-school slots, heavily suggesting it’s a series much beloved of schoolchildren. The kids are alright, after all.

22. Kojak, 651 times
ITV4
Last Year: 40th, 364 times

Who loves ya, baby? Another ITV4 lynchpin, and another series where I’d love to know the age range demographics for these screenings.

21. Pip & Posy, 696 times
C5
Last Year: 34th, 425 times

Channel Five try to thwart me by having some billings of this using ‘and’, and some using an ampersand. But I’m too wily for them.

20. Deal or No Deal, 726 times
ITV1 x 158, ITV2 x 568
Last Year: 89th, 228 times

After a (relatively) modest launch in 2024, a Mulhern-led Deal or No Deal was back in a Big Way in 2025. Poor Tipping Point, it never stood a chance. That’s at number 104 on the list, if you’re wondering, with a mere 183 airings in 2025.

19. American Dad!, 735 times
ITV2
Last Year: 18th, 747 times

Perhaps not quite as ubiquitous as it had been in previous years, the Smiths are still a handy go to for ITV2.

18. Gogglebox, 761 times
C4 x 141, E4 x 620
Last Year: 20th, 708 times

Still a huge number of people watching people watching telly. In a world where Twitch produces a conveyor beltful of six-figure salary gamers, I really should have predicted this would be a hit.

17. PAW Patrol, 794 times
C5
Last Year: 16th, 831 times

After a clutch of ITV4 and E4 shows, how about a refreshing slurp of Milkshake? The continued success of Fireman Sam But With Dogs sees Chase and company zoom into seventeenth place.

16. Young Sheldon, 824 times
E4
Last Year: 17th, 749 times

A surprisingly high placing for the Big Bang spin-off, bolstered by being superglued to the 9am and 9.30am slot on E4’s schedule for much of the year.

15. Family Guy, 876 times
ITV2
Last Year: 12th, 994 times

Despite the adventures of the Griffin family long having gone off the boil – we’re not about to get a South Park-style renaissance any time soon, one suspects – this is probably still the ultimate late night “oh well, there’s nothing else on” option.

14. Classic Emmerdale, 967 times
ITV3
Last Year: 10th, 1000 times

13. Classic Coronation Street, 970 times
ITV3
Last Year: 11th, 998 times

Classic-era soaps continue to do business for ITV3 – if you’re wondering, Corrie is up to the Hayley & Roy era, while the ‘Dale is operating in a spell where “Sam decides to tell the police about Eli running the drugs operation” is in an episode summary. Personally, I’m just waiting for the two programmes to get up to the present day so ITV3 can switch to what we all really want, Classic Albion Market.

12. Heartbeat, 1004 times
ITV3
Last Year: 15th, 927 times

While a great many of the programmes on this rundown are operating as filler in off-peak hours, Heartbeat makes most of its appearances in teatime slots. Now, that’s not particularly interesting, but neither is Heartbeat. Now, if there were repeats of Hart Beat, then I’d be interested.

11. Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, 1049 times
C4 x 324, E4 x 725
Last Year: 8th, 1025 times

The perennial appeal of Seeing Someone Else Get A Bollocking remains strong, I see.

10. 24 Hours in A&E, 1134 times
C4 x 93, More4 x 1041
Last Year: 9th, 1021 times

Having spent ten hours in a children’s A&E one day this year (and if any small children are reading this, a reminder that Hungry Hippo marbles should NOT be swallowed), I feel secure in saying it’s something best experienced on the telly.

9. Cheers, 1188 times
C4
Last Year: 26th, 555 times

One of the all-time great US sitcoms, and one to very much file under “watch while eating your cornflakes if you’ve got a day off”.

(Essential reading: Joel Morris’ Substack post tracking down all the original photos and illustrations from the Cheers title sequence.)

8. A Place in the Sun, 1209 times
C4 x 404, More4 x 805
Last Year: 14th, 930 times

TOP TIP: with the cost of living crisis showing no sign of abating, save money on expensive foreign holidays by simply sitting inches away from the TV screen while watching this.

7. Modern Family, 1377 times
E4
Last Year: 5th, 1786 times

As I said last year: “The viewers look unhappy.” “Shovel on more episodes of Modern Family.” But not quite as frequently this year.

6. Frasier, 1434 times
C4
Last Year: 6th, 1485 times

Still reliably funny, and guaranteed NO risk of being distracted by Rodney Trotter showing up.

5. Come Dine with Me, 1631 times
C4 x 211, More4 x 1420
Last Year: 3rd, 2199 times

The Bickering Olympics continues to enthral many, it seems.

4. Peppa Pig, 2038 times
C5
Last Year: 4th, 2194 times

Still in fourth place, Peppa and family are still as popular as ever.

3. Four in a Bed, 2655 times
C4 x 605, More4 x 2050
Last Year: 2nd, 2337 times

The Bickering Commonwealth Games continues to enthral many, it seems.

2. The Simpsons, 2995 times
C4 x 712, E4 x 2283
Last Year: 13th, 962 times

Last December, the news broke that daily weeknight broadcasts of The Simpsons would be moving from Channel 4 to E4, along with a selection of episodes being made available on Channel 4’s streaming platform. Any suspicions that the channel were washing their hands of Springfield’s first family were clearly unfounded – it would end up being broadcast more than three times as often in 2025 than it had the previous year. And that includes over 700 times on Channel 4 itself.

1. The Big Bang Theory, 3147 times
E4
Last Year: 1st, 3216 times

When I started compiling these figures, back in early December, it looked like The Big Bang Theory was about to be knocked off the top spot. By the end of November, the Simpsons had sneaked ahead of it, airing 2,765 times to Big Bang’s 2,615. And then, in December E4 decided to air Big Bang Theory an average of 17.2 times per day, which put it on top at the end of the year. Presumably the tape got stuck in the machine or something, but in any case there it is – The Big Bang Theory is the most frequently-shown programme on British television in 2025.

[UPDATE: Again, thanks to Ste Gordon on BlueSky for pointing this out, along with Milly Storrington in the comments, but E4 lose the rights to Big Bang at the end of December, hence them shovelling as many episodes as they can into the December schedules. Which – as I’m not including its new home TLC in next year’s rundown – means a new number one next year. Ooh, the excitement.]

–

Hang the hell on. What happens if you take all the E4s and ITV3s out of the running? What would be the most commonly spotted series’ if you restrict the list to the proper main channels?

Well, given the lack of variety in the above, that was going to be my original plan for this year’s list. But then I thought it would be interesting to compare everything to last year’s rundown, and that had included all the above channels, so I replicated last year’s format. However, I do have all that information to hand, so here’s a rundown if we’re keeping things to just BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, C4 and C5:
1. Peppa Pig, 2038 times | C5
2. Frasier, 1434 times | C4
3. Cheers, 1188 times | C4
4. PAW Patrol, 794 times | C5
5. The Simpsons, 712 times | C4
6. Four in a Bed, 605 times | C4
7. Countdown, 600 times | C4
8. Everybody Loves Raymond, 594 times | C4
9. Friends, 505 times | C5
10. The King of Queens, 487 times | C4
11. Pip & Posy, 416 times | C5
12. A Place in the Sun, 404 times | C4
13. Bargain Hunt, 400 times | BBC1 x 318, BBC2 x 82
14. Fireman Sam, 383 times | C5
15. Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom, 369 times | C5
16. The Adventures of Paddington, 364 times | C5
17. Homes Under the Hammer, 344 times | BBC1 x 293, BBC2 x 51
18. Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, 324 times | C4
19. Escape to the Country, 315 times | BBC1 x 266, BBC2 x 49
20. Flog It!, 283 times | BBC2
21. The Chase, 270 times | ITV1
22. Milo, 267 times | C5
23. This Morning, 259 times | ITV1
24. Lorraine, 259 times | ITV1
25. Jeremy Vine, 258 times | C5
26. Richard Osman’s House of Games, 257 times | BBC2
27. Odo, 257 times | C5
28. Tweedy & Fluff, 254 times | C5
29. Storm Huntley, 254 times | C5
30. Emmerdale, 250 times | ITV1
31. Newsnight, 245 times | BBC2
32. Home and Away, 237 times | C5
33. Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, 236 times | C5
34. Pointless, 234 times | BBC1 x 231, BBC2 x 3
35. Bargain-Loving Brits in the Sun, 231 times | C5
36. Loose Women, 230 times | ITV1
37. Pip and Posy, 224 times | C5
38. The One Show, 223 times | BBC1 x 222, BBC2 x 1
39. Milkshake! Story Den, 222 times | C5
40. EastEnders, 211 times | BBC1 x 206, BBC2 x 5
41. Come Dine with Me, 211 times | C4
42. Morning Live, 197 times | BBC1
43. Tipping Point, 183 times | ITV1
44. Rubble And Crew, 182 times | C5
45. Impossible, 180 times | BBC2
46. Mixmups, 178 times | C5
47. Find It, Fix It, Flog It, 177 times | C4
48. Oggy Oggy, 172 times | C5
49. Tim Rex In Space, 171 times | C5
50. Lingo, 169 times | ITV1
There you go. Okay, onto the promises I’d made at the start of the rundown. First up, those nine films shown on four different channels throughout 2025:

[EDIT 31/12/25: Play counts corrected to account for films on ITV2 and ITV4 being split in two by FYI Daily, thanks to commentgoer ghostvf for pointing this out]

That last one is a bit of a surprise, isn’t it?

As for the four programmes broadcast on all four BBC channels this year:

Lastly, there was one much loved programme title that aired on five different channels, but in different guises this year. That was…Dad’s Army. The series itself appeared on BBCs Two and Four, the 2016 film remake appeared on ITV1 in January, while the original 1971 film version aired on More4 in January, plus on Channel 4 on 28 December.

Hey, that’s the day I’m posting this blog update. I don’t just throw this together, you know. (Okay, I totally do.)

See you in 2026!
28th December 2025
So, What TV Programmes Appear Most Often on Christmas Eve?

Merry Excelmas!

Here’s a quick post I thought of doing after exploring all the televisual fare on Christmas Eve this year, and wondering: are there any true mainstays on Christmas Eve BBC television? The big day itself has the regulars: The Queen, Top of the Pops, ‘stEnders. But the precursor to the big day? That’s not remotely as peppered with usual suspects. OR IS IT?

Obviously, I had to take a look. And there are some surprises in there.

Firstly, here’s a rundown that just combines listings for BBC1 and BBC2:

Several surprises, there. Not least Shrek the Halls being as much a Christmas Eve fixture as Songs of Praise. Or University Challenge being shown more often than Midnight Mass of the Nativity (though in fairness, that’s because the latter has been broadcast under a few different billing titles).

What if we add BBCs Choice, Knowledge, Three and Four into the mix? Because we all remember huddling around the fire to watch Lenny Beige’s Variety Pack as children, don’t we? Well, here you go:

There it is. The Chronicles of Narnia and Most Annoying Pop Songs We Love to Hate, together at last. And Two Pints of Lager right near the top of the tree, but then that could apply for any calendar date given how often BBC Three throw it on.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Back soon with an end of year rundown. Two updates in one year? I’m spoiling you.

24th December 2025

The Most-Shown TV Shows of 2024 and It’s Slightly Different but Also Still The Most-Shown TV Shows of 2024

Following this update the other day, of the most-broadcast TV shows of 2024, I felt compelled to consider programmes only broadcast on the ‘main’ traditional channels. So, without any additional commentary, here’s a similar list, but only looking at programmes broadcast on BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

Pos	Programme	Airings	Network	Episodes per Day
20	3rd Rock From the Sun	292 times	C4	0.978
19	Flog It!	302 times	BBC2	0.978
18	Escape to the Country	313 times	BBC1 x 255, BBC2 x 58	0.986
17	Homes Under the Hammer	333 times	BBC1 x 271, BBC2 x 62	0.992
16	A Place in the Sun	353 times	C4	0.995
15	The Adventures of Paddington	363 times	C5	1.038
14	The King of Queens	364 times	C4	1.049
13	Come Dine with Me	384 times	C4	1.104
12	Friends	404 times	C5	1.107
11	Bargain Hunt	405 times	BBC1 x 307, BBC2 x 98	1.161
10	Pip & Posy	425 times	C5	1.303
9	Fireman Sam	477 times	C5	1.355
8	Countdown	496 times	C4	1.454
7	Four in a Bed	532 times	C4	1.516
6	Cheers	555 times	C4	1.781
5	Everybody Loves Raymond	733 times	C4	2.003
4	PAW Patrol	831 times	C5	2.27
3	The Simpsons	962 times	C4	2.366
2	Frasier	1485 times	C4	2.628
1	Peppa Pig	2194 times	C5	4.057

Merry Winterval, everyone! Hope you’re not getting an Everybody Loves Raymond box set for Christmas!

22nd December 2024

The Most 50 TV Shows of 2024
Yes, that’s not a typo. Or at least, not an accidental one.

Lots of newspapers, magazines and websites are currently parading their list of The 50 Best TV Shows of 2024 (spoiler: you haven’t heard of at least 25 of them, and won’t have watched at least 40 of them). But sod the quality, we’re going to focus on quantity. The programmes you won’t need to subscribe to sixteen different streaming services to be aware of. The shows where, providing you own a television and a face, the two will have collided at least once during 2024.

What if some idiot had pulled an entire year of TV listings for main channels? And then generated a list to see which programmes have been pumped out into the digital jungle most frequently? And made a reverse-order list of the fifty most oft-spotted shows? What then, eh?

Hi, I’m that idiot.

So, here we go. If nothing else, I can promise you:
- It’ll be an end of year list of TV programmes where you’ve probably heard of them all.
- We’ll learn which are the most uninspired of all the main UK TV channels.
- Confirmation that, if broadcast TV is dying, the cause of death is definitely going to be drowning.
Quick set of ground rules: I’m not including news, weather, teleshopping, Unwind with ITV, overnight gambling filler or pseudo-programmes like FYI Daily that purely exist to exploit ad-minutes-per-hour loopholes. I’m only looking at the main entertainment channels available on Freeview (BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, C4, E4, More4 and Five). There may very well be some omissions that have slipped through my datanet, but not too many.

Okay. On with the show(s).

–
1. Flog It!, 302 times
  BBC2
  0.825 episodes per day
Flog It! To Death, more like.
1. A New Life in the Sun, 304 times
  C4 x 114, More4 x 190
  0.831 episodes per day
A companion to a series we’ll definitely be seeing later in the list.
1. Looney Tunes Cartoons, 304 times
  ITV2
  0.831 episodes per day
Not the classic old Warner Bros cartoons of yore (many of which went out under the culturally memory-holed Merrie Melodies banner), but the HBO-funded and HBO-ignored modern versions. Which, as far as I’ve seen, are very good. But not good enough to have me putting the telly on at 6:50am each morning.
1. Escape to the Country, 313 times
  BBC1 x 255, BBC2 x 58
  0.855 episodes per day
The comforting feeling of following the journey of people who bought houses in London for 3/6 in the sixties, and as a result can now afford to buy Somerset.
1. Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, 320 times
  BBC2 x 1, BBC3 x 319
  0.874 episodes per day
Yep, with the back-on-actual-telly Three coming with the stated mission of serving modern-day 16 to 34-year-olds, the most common sight on the channel is a programme that started 23 years ago. So, it probably satisfies any remit the channel has for historical content. Airing as often as eight times per night. Eight times!
1. Food Unwrapped, 325 times
  C4 x 32, More4 x 293
  0.888 episodes per day
One can’t help but feel this food-based consumer series should’ve kept the title of the Dutch original. Keuringsdienst van Waarde practically rolls off the tongue.
1. Homes Under the Hammer, 333 times
  BBC1 x 271, BBC2 x 62
  0.91 episodes per day
As mentioned previously, the practice of property developers buying up repossessed homes to remodel and resell for a fast buck is a pretty distasteful idea for a TV series. But also, a very popular one.
1. Car S.O.S, 362 times
  C4 x 87, More4 x 275
  0.989 episodes per day
Rebroadcast episodes of the Nat Geo series are proving suitable filler fodder for tea-time More, with episodes also featuring on lunchtime Channel Four. Most interesting to me is that one of the presenters is Fuzz Townshend from Pop Will Eat Itself, which must surely have led to a #CarPoppies hashtag on the socials. “Not Now James May, We’re Busy” etc.
1. The Adventures of Paddington, 363 times
  C5
  0.992 episodes per day
Also known as: The Animated Adventures of Modern Britain’s Angel of Death.
1. Kojak, 364 times
  ITV4
  0.995 episodes per day
Nominative determinism klaxons abound, as more than 50 years since his most famous character debuted, Telly Savalas is still never off the damn thing.
1. The King of Queens, 364 times
  C4
  0.995 episodes per day
The mid-table US network sitcom makes the list, albeit mainly as support act to the Simpsons-Frasier-3rd Rock triumvirate of breakfast A-listers on the fourth channel.
1. Top of the Pops, 377 times
  BBC2 x 2, BBC4 x 375
  1.03 episodes per day
Giving a BlueSky-toting Gen X a reason to watch live broadcast television each Friday night? Even if it’s thirty-year old repeats, the opportunity to join the pile-in on Robson, Jerome and Nicky Campbell is just tantalising enough to keep the licence fee payments coming from over-forties.
1. First Dates, 381 times
  C4 x 55, E4 x 326
  1.041 episodes per day
Letting the viewer act as unseen third wheel in this long-running dating series is a quirk that keeps drawing an audience. It even enjoyed a Reeves and Mortimer spoof, albeit in the (admit it) below par BBC Four Vic and Bob’s Big Night Out.
1. The Royal, 389 times
  ITV3
  1.063 episodes per day
The Jive Bunny version of Casualty – it’s not just there to provide fodder for TV Burp.
1. Friends, 404 times
  C5
  1.104 episodes per day
They’ll be there for you, until a time where the show suddenly becomes unprofitable. Which isn’t happening any time soon.
1. Bargain Hunt, 405 times
  BBC1 x 307, BBC2 x 98
  1.107 episodes per day
Another entry from BBC One’s stable of daytime perennials. Bring back Open Air, you cowards!
1. Pip & Posy, 425 times
  C5
  1.161 episodes per day
This list is going to contain more Milkshake than a vessel hurled at Nigel Farage, isn’t it? This adaptation of Axel Scheffler’s book series proving to be an integral part of Five’s pre-school strand on all seven days of the week.
1. Bob’s Burgers, 448 times
  ITV2
  1.224 episodes per day
Still the strongest string in Fox’s Sunday evening animated comedy line-up over there, even if 2024 saw it removed from ITV2’s primetime line-up and relegated to the midnight hour. Still, it was lovely to see The Bob Burgers Movie getting a teatime airing over the summer.
1. Fireman Sam, 477 times
  C5
  1.303 episodes per day
Sam Tân for viewers west of Offa’s Dyke, of course. It’s incredible that this has been running in various guises since 1987, generating over 300 episodes along the way. Less credible that Norman Price is still getting away with his nonsense. Bet he wouldn’t be so cocky if the Sam/Fire Engine Transformer that you can find in branches of Home Bargains were to feature in the programme.
1. Find It, Fix It, Flog It, 479 times
  C4 x 189, More4 x 290
  1.309 episodes per day
Commission it, film it, repeat it, more like. It’s The Repair Shop but with a profit and loss margin.
1. Countdown, 496 times
  C4
  1.355 episodes per day
Astonishing that this is still going strong, and still providing surprises along the way. Mainly when you look at the list of former presenters. Anne Robinson? Really? Wow. Forgot that.
1. Mr Bean, 539 times
  ITV2 x 471, ITV4 x 68
  1.473 episodes per day
The total for ITV2 broadcasts of the animated spin-off bolstered by ITV4 repeats of Live Action Bean, granted. But I’m not doing the spreadsheet again.
1. The Goldbergs, 548 times
  E4
  1.497 episodes per day
Fulfilling E4’s public service remit of showing a billion episodes of an American sitcom most people have never heard of, the antics of the titular 1980s Philadelphia family have happily filled many a mid-afternoon hour throughout the year.
1. Agatha Christie’s Poirot, 549 times
  ITV3
  1.5 episodes per day
Twirly-‘tached crime-confounding capers are pretty much ITV3’s comfort blanket, so it’s little surprise to see a surfeit of Suchet here.
1. Cheers, 555 times
  C4
  1.516 episodes per day
Normally, when a channel gives up on something big, it’ll spend about a decade and untold millions trying to find something else to fill the gap. In the case of Four’s quest to find a popular successor to The Big Breakfast, the stopgap solution of flinging on American Sitcom Repeats until something better than RI:SE came along proved to be the canniest move the station would make this century.
1. Minder, 592 times
  ITV4
  1.617 episodes per day
“Why don’t you just… Not go home? She’d be over the moon.”
“That is very wounding, Terrence. Wounding and ungrateful.”
1. Totally Bonkers Guinness World Records, 615 times
  ITV2
  1.68 episodes per day
Ah, the 1980s scheduling staple of flinging on World Records footage to fill a half-hour or two is still going strong, though it really needs David Frost in NTSC for the full effect. And nobody has noticed that it’s putting a programme title that’s plugging alcohol in a kids’ slot, just after Scooby-Doo. Oh, you might disagree, but nobody would pick the suffix ‘Publishing’ if Guinness came up in a word association test.
1. Dress to Impress, 656 times
  ITV2
  1.792 episodes per day
A teatime staple for people who – somehow – avoid the whole teatime Pointless versus The Chase quandary. Basically people who heard about the Blur vs Oasis battle of the charts, and bought Everybody by Clock instead.
1. Teen Titans Go!, 671 times
  ITV2
  1.833 episodes per day
As far as superheroes go, here’s the Justice League’s Under-21 side, with ITV2 broadcasting every minute of their Bristol Street Motors Trophy group stage matches.
1. Hollyoaks, 690 times
  E4
  1.885 episodes per day
This is never going to end and when E4 finally get sick of it, it’ll just reappear on 4-Tel or something.
1. Gogglebox, 708 times
  C4 x 173, E4 x 535
  1.934 episodes per day
Gogglebox is nothing more than a less good remake of ParamountText’s Mailbox pages. Change my mind. (I really do stand by my original dismissal that it’s nothing more than a crowdsourced TV Burp.)
1. Everybody Loves Raymond, 733 times
  C4
  2.003 episodes per day
Channel Four certainly love Raymond, especially in a weekday early morning slot. It would’ve cost them a fortune to repurchase Lock-keeper Cottages for an ill-advised BB reboot, in fairness. Though one can’t help suspect that Chris Evans would now be a lot more willing to get involved.
1. American Dad!, 747 times
  ITV2
  2.041 episodes per day
One of the best jokes in American Dad! was Francine’s “No wonder the doctors in Scrubs don’t find time to be funny”. Mind you, that was a long time ago – don’t think it could afford to be that cocky nowadays. BONUS FACT: October 2025 will mark the 20th anniversary of American Dad debuting on BBC Two.
1. Young Sheldon, 749 times
  E4
  2.046 episodes per day
I don’t even like Old Sheldon tbh.
1. Paw Patrol, 831 times
  C5
  2.27 episodes per day
The cartoon canines show little sign of stopping. Rubble has even landed his own spin-off series, which makes him the Frasier of Adventure Bay.
1. Heartbeat, 927 times
  ITV3
  2.533 episodes per day
“Nick Berry had talent in a previous life
Nick Berry had talent in a previous life
Nick Berry had talent in a previous life
Nick Berry had it all” – Mclusky, Random Celebrity Insult Generator.

A bit harsh, lads. He was in The Box of Delights on BBC Four just the other day. They don’t cast just anyone as ‘Pirate Rat’.
1. A Place in the Sun, 930 times
  C4 x 353, More4 x 577
  2.541 episodes per day
[Adjusts Rory Bremner glasses while speaking in a Trevor MacDonald voice] Well, with old Keir Starmers stopping winter fuel payments, seeing coverage of people buying second homes in Gran Canaria will be the cheapest way pensioners can try to at least feel warm. [Pause for applause.]
1. The Simpsons, 962 times
  C4
  2.628 episodes per day
A cultural totem that completely transformed animated comedy it might be, but this week’s news that Four are going to shunt The Simpsons from a teatime slot on their main channel over to E4 means that Springfield now simply has to become a twin town of Chester.
1. Family Guy, 994 times
  ITV2
  2.716 episodes per day
Meanwhile, here’s the show that will forever be in the Simpsons’ shadow. Not as popular as it used to be, I’ll wager, but it seems certain that ITV would fly into a panic if someone else lost the rights. BBC Three would make a desperate bid for this if the master tapes of Two Pints of Lager ever snapped.
1. Classic Coronation Street, 998 times
  ITV3
  2.727 episodes per day
Followed by…
1. Classic Emmerdale, 1000 times
  ITV3
  2.732 episodes per day
A victory lap for ITV’s twin kings of soap. Once they run out, I’m hoping they’ll spin up Albion Market.
1. 24 Hours in A&E, 1021 times
  C4 x 62, More4 x 959
  2.79 episodes per day
Well, your nan might be been left there on a stretcher for 17 hours with her shattered hip, but at least More4 had something to show in a Saturday night double-bill all year. So, you know.
1. Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, 1025 times
  C4 x 228, E4 x 797
  2.801 episodes per day
It’s really hard to get tired of seeing other people get a bollocking at work, isn’t it? Though, unlike the superior British original version, this has never had a man walking around shouting “BOLLOCKS TO BISTO” through a loudhailer at passers-by.
1. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 1148 times
  E4
  3.137 episodes per day
The endlessly-quotable antics of New York’s fun blue line. A pity the endless cancellations and okay-one-more-seasons left the final episodes wobbling with disinterest towards the finish line, but remember it for all those lofty heights. “All of Planet Earth. With the British narrator.”
1. Frasier, 1485 times
  C4
  4.057 episodes per day
Here he is! If you ever want to annoy a fan of Frasier, simply point out that most episodes seem to involve Dr Crane getting handcuffed to a stripper ten minutes before an Important Dinner Party. Because, while that’s not true, that it tells us about Frasier is (etc).
1. Modern Family, 1786 times
  E4
  4.88 episodes per day
“The viewers look unhappy.” “Shovel on more episodes of Modern Family.” Showered with praise by the press, there must be something wrong with my telly, which only seems to show episodes where it’s far too busy being pleased with itself to, y’know, be good.
1. Peppa Pig, 2194 times
  C5
  5.995 episodes per day
Lovely as it is, imagine being in the part of the multiverse where Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom is the Astley Baker Davies production that took global TV by storm. Nothing against Peppa per se, but Ben and Holly is that bit better. Peppa probably couldn’t get away with having an (unseen) character called Sharon the Totally Insane, for one thing.
1. Come Dine with Me, 2199 times
  C4 x 384, E4 x 35, More4 x 1780
  6.008 episodes per day
Plus…
1. Four in a Bed, 2337 times
  C4 x 532, More4 x 1805
  6.385 episodes per day
While there were lots (and lots) of bad things about having an overstuffed cartoon scarecrow as Prime Minister for a few years, one that stands out was him appointing Nadine Dorries as Minister of Culture, who was determined to attack Channel Four following their wheeze of putting an ice sculpture in one of the chairs for an election debate. The good people of social media took at arms (well, keyboards) to express their disgust at Dorries wanting to force unpopular changes to the fourth channel, until she scampered back off to her, well, obviously not constituency. And yet… SO much of it is just these two programmes on a seemingly endless loop. S4C makes much more of an effort, and that’s got a budget of 17p and some buttons. What would Murun Buchstansangur say?
1. The Big Bang Theory, 3216 times
  E4
  8.787 episodes per day
Remember when E4 was going to be Britain’s answer to HBO? That was the initial plan before it launched, with subscriptions driving previously unimaginable levels of creativity. Where are we at with it in 2024? On 257 calendar days of 2024, E4 showed at least TEN episodes of The Big Bang Theory. The glory days of Skins and Misfits are basically in a whole other era, aren’t they?

–

And there we go. Between the fifty, that makes for a total of 39,340 individual TV broadcasts, all of which would require an issue of the Radio Times stretching from Carlisle to Cornwall (okay, no it wouldn’t).

But all these do tell us a lot about which are the least original TV channels currently kicking about your digibox. Indeed, there’s one channel that one might have expected to feature, but which was wholly absent from the list. Here’s the full breakdown by channel, ranked by ‘number of episodes in that top fifty’:

E4 – 9,830 broadcasts in the list
C4 – 6,804
More4 – 6,169
ITV2 – 4,906
C5 – 4,694
ITV3 – 3,863
ITV4 – 1,024
BBC1 – 833
BBC2 – 523
BBC4 – 375
BBC3 – 319
ITV1 – 0

That’s right, not a single ITV1 programme made the cut. For the record, the most-spotted programmes that even appeared on that channel were: Celebrity Catchphase (51st place, shown 298 times, 26 on ITV1, 272 on ITV2), Family Fortunes (56th place, shown 272 times, 24 on ITV1, 250 on ITV2) and Midsomer Murders (57th place, shown 272 times, 11 on ITV1, 261 on ITV3). The highest ranking for an ITV1-exclusive show was joint-67th place for This Morning and Lorraine (both shown 260 times). The Chase only made number 78 on the list (shown 249 times). Fair dues.

So, that’s it for the year. Hopefully, I shall be back on the blog soon. Hopefully with some exciting news. Ooh, the excitement.
20th December 2024