15. The Day Today
BBC2 1994
"Peter, you've lost the news!" The credibility of current affairs never entirely recovered from Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci's satirical blitzkrieg. If you can watch "Newsnight" with a straight face then you haven't seen enough of this.

14. Top Of The Pops
BBC1 1964-2006
Unmissable for most of its 40 years and the victim of the most scandalous tinkering and mismanagement of a big TV brand that we can recall. If the children of tomorrow want to know what was special about it show them this clip of David Bowie doing "Starman" in 1972. Would anyone let an actual member of the public drift into shot nowadays?

13. Brookside
Channel Four 1982-2003
In both "gritty anti-Thatcher Derek Hatton" phase and "lesbian kisses and bodies under the patio" incarnations, it was fantastic telly. Its high point was in 1990 when the Jordache family at number 10 killed their child abuser father and buried him under the patio.

12. Coronation Street
ITV 1960-present
So ingrained in the national identity that the PM demanded the release from prison of Deirdre Rachid, apparently failing to grasp that "it's not real, you know". Here are members of the cast of characters - including Len Fairclough and Minnie Caldwell - playing up to the stereotypes during a royal gala TV show in 1966.

11. Porridge
BBC1 1973-77
Ronnie Barker's finest half-hours in a show that never dates and never fails to put a spin on making the best of a bad job. This early episode treats us to the always entertaining sight of Ronnie Barker in his vest as he meets his prison medical with the same subtle insubordination that he approaches everything else in his life. "No, I don't eat sea food", indeed.

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