''Britain's Best Sitcom'' is a 12-episode documentary series that

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

transmitted from 10 January to 27 March 2004. It was part of a nationwide media campaign and

opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of qu ...

conducted by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in 2003 and 2004. The BBC asked television viewers to select their favourite British situation comedies from a list of 100, with the option to supply one

write-in candidate A write-in candidate is a candidate whose name does not appear on the ballot but seeks election by asking voters to cast a vote for the candidate by physically writing in the person's name on the ballot. Depending on electoral law it may be poss ...

. In the first poll, conducted in August 2003, viewers could vote via telephone or the BBC's website; the second, conducted January–March 2004, added the option of voting by

text message Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile phones, tablet computers, smartwatches, desktop computer, des ...

. This second poll coincided with the television programme, which celebrated the top 50 sitcoms from the first poll, and urged viewers to vote their preference from the top 10. In the three-hour premiere episode, Jonathan Ross summarised the progress of the poll, and presented video clips from the bottom 40 of the 50 sitcoms that received the most votes. Each of the next ten weekly episodes, one hour in length, focused on one

sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...

. In each episode, a different presenter advocated a particular sitcom, delivering 20 reasons why it deserved viewers' votes. The sitcom's writers and actors, as well as celebrity viewers, also shared their own perspectives and memories. In the 90-minute finale, transmitted live, Jonathan Ross announced the top sitcom to be ''

Only Fools and Horses ''Only Fools and Horses'' (titled onscreen as ''Only Fools and Horses....'') is a British television sitcom that was created and written by John Sullivan (writer), John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Ki ...

''. ''Britain's Best Sitcom'' was preceded by the BBC Two programmes '' Great Britons'' (2002) and ''

The Big Read The Big Read was a survey on books that was carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, when over three-quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel. The year-long survey was th ...

'' (2003), each of which was also based on national opinion polls.

Structure of the polls

Round one: Selecting the top 50

Before the opening the poll, the

compiled a list of 100 "top ritishsitcoms" based on input from "sitcom writers and TV comedy experts". This list constituted the nominees for the first of the two rounds of votes solicited from the public. The BBC posted a homepage and ballot

web page A web page (or webpage) is a World Wide Web, Web document that is accessed in a web browser. A website typically consists of many web pages hyperlink, linked together under a common domain name. The term "web page" is therefore a metaphor of pap ...

for the Britain's Best Sitcom poll to the BBCi website on 28 July 2003. In August, they advertised the poll in the ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...

'' magazine, on the BBCi website, and via the national

teletext Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipped television sets. Teletext sends data in the broadcast signal, hidden in the invisible vertical blanking interval area at the to ...

service Ceefax, inviting the public to "have your say" and "play part in a major television event". The ballot required voters either to select 10 sitcoms from the list, or to select nine and then nominate a

. Voters could not rank their 10 selections by preference. Votes by telephone incurred a charge of 10 pence per minute. On 30 December 2003, the BBC published a

press release A press release (also known as a media release) is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing new information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public releas ...

promoting the forthcoming ''Britain's Best Sitcom'' series on BBC Two, and listing the 50 sitcoms that received the most votes. The list was alphabetical; it did not reveal the number of votes that any sitcom received, or its rank in the list. It contained no write-in candidates.

Round two: The top 10

The launch

On 10 January 2004, the BBC published another press release to promote the series, which was to begin that night on BBC Two. The press release provided more details about the programme and the vote, including an alphabetical list of the 10 finalists, and a ranked list of the rest of the top 50 sitcoms. The premiere episode of ''Britain's Best Sitcom'' began at 9 PM and concluded at midnight. From '' Goodnight Sweetheart'' (number 50) to ''

Father Ted ''Father Ted'' is a sitcom created by Irish writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews (writer), Arthur Mathews and produced by British production company Hat Trick Productions for British television channel Channel 4. It aired over three seri ...

'' (number 11), it counted down the 40 highest-ranked sitcoms that did not receive enough votes to place it in the top 10.

The vote

Each of the next 10 episodes of ''Britain's Best Sitcom'' was one hour long, and devoted to one of the 10 finalists. The "celebrity advocate" in each episode gave 20 reasons why their sitcom was the best. Their arguments were illustrated by video clips from the sitcom. On-screen messages in the episodes, as well as web pages in the BBC's website, and listings in the ''Radio Times''—informed viewers and readers that they could vote by telephone, by

(

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

), or online. Voting by text message was only possible in this final round of voting. Votes by telephone were less expensive than in the first round, because they lasted no more than one minute. A vote by telephone cost 10 pence; a vote by text message incurred a charge of 10–12 pence, depending on the

mobile network operator A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a mobile network provider, mobile network carrier, mobile , wireless service provider, wireless carrier, wireless operator, wireless telco, or cellular company, is a telecommunications provider of se ...

. For each of the finalists, online voters had access to an essay about the sitcom (from the BBCi Guide to Comedy), a selection of quotes from the advocate's arguments and from online comments, and an annotated video clip of a scene from one episode. The poll opened at 9 PM on 10 January 2004 (when the ''Britain's Best Sitcom'' premiere began). The voting rules allowed up to five people per household to vote. After the transmission of each weekly episode, viewer's had an opportunity to change their vote. The BBC collected

demographic profile A demographic profile is a form of demographic analysis in which information is gathered about a group to better understand the group's composition or behaviors for the purpose of providing more relevant services. In business, a demographic pro ...

data as part of the poll. It required online voters to answer three

market segmentation In marketing, market segmentation or customer segmentation is the process of dividing a consumer or business market into meaningful sub-groups of current or potential customers (or consumers) known as ''segments''. Its purpose is to identify pr ...

questions: whether they are male or female; which region of the UK they live in, and which age group they belong to. Voting closed on the night of 27 March 2004.

The result

Near the end of the live, final episode of ''Britain's Best Sitcom'', Jonathan Ross announced ''

'' to be the top sitcom by popular vote. After the programme's conclusion, the BBC published a ranked list of all 100 sitcoms on their website, along with the official vote tally for the top 10.

Episodes

The ''Britain's Best Sitcom'' Top 100

Notes

Background

''Britain's Best Sitcom'' was BBC Two's third television programme based on nationwide opinion polls between 2002 and 2004. It was preceded by the ''

'' (18 October – 13 December 2003) and '' Great Britons'' (20 October – 24 November 2002). ''The Big Read'' was based on a poll asking for readers' favourite novels; ''Great Britons'' was based on the 100 Great Britons poll, which asked members of the public to nominate people who were born in or lived in the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

(including

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

), and who "played a significant part in the life of the British Isles." All three polls were conducted during the tenure of

Jane Root Jane Marianna Root (born 18 May 1957) is an executive in the media industry. She was controller of BBC Two from 1999 to 2004, and the first woman to serve as a channel controller for the BBC. She became president of Discovery Networks in the Unite ...

as controller of BBC Two. Root served as the channel's controller (executive director of programming) from 1999 until 2004, when she left the BBC to head Discovery Networks in the United States.

References

External links

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