LIVE, 9pm,
Here and on Youtube
The votes have been counted and the die has been cast. Join us LIVE at 9pm for the results of the Poll of the Year.
You’re advised to watch the video, or at least read the report, before heading under the cut for VOTE PERCENTAGES.
Right then, voting numbers were only about 70% of last year’s numbers, which is a shame, but it does mean there were much fewer instances of people just voting for one show in the Golden Five then going away.
Also we changed the vote methodology a bit – no longer were multiple votes for a show allowed, we hoped it would encourage a more interesting breadth of shows. Because we’ve changed the methodology, we’ve changed the way the percentages pan out – this time the percentage given reflects the percentage of people who put a show on their ballot paper.
So without further ado, here are the top twenties (and hangers on) for the main categories, top ten for radio and anything that got more than a vote in the online category.
| HALL OF FAME | |
| The Button | 56.0 |
| All Together Now | 32.0 |
| Who Wants to be a Millionaire? | 32.0 |
| I’ll Get This | 28.0 |
| The Circle | 26.7 |
| The Time It Takes | 20.0 |
| Take the Tower | 18.7 |
| The £100k Drop | 18.7 |
| Britain’s Brightest Family | 16.0 |
| Hardball | 16.0 |
| Buy It Now | 14.7 |
| Celebrity Game Night | 14.7 |
| Beat the Internet | 12.0 |
| Chase the Case | 12.0 |
| What Would Your Kid Do? | 10.7 |
| The Imitation Game | 9.3 |
| All Star Music Quiz | 6.7 |
| Football Genius | 6.7 |
| Revolution | 6.7 |
| The Great Model Railway… | 6.7 |
| HALL OF SHAME | |
| Wedding Day Winners | 37.3 |
| Chase the Case | 33.3 |
| For Fact’s Sake | 33.3 |
| Change Your Tune | 25.3 |
| Hardball | 24.0 |
| I Don’t Like Mondays | 14.7 |
| The Generation Game | 14.7 |
| Beat the Internet | 12.0 |
| The Wave | 12.0 |
| The Button | 10.7 |
| The Time It Takes | 10.7 |
| Ready or Not | 9.3 |
| Evil Monkeys | 6.7 |
| The Circle | 6.7 |
| WWTBAM | 6.7 |
| And They’re Off | 5.3 |
| Survival of the Fittest | 5.3 |
| All Together Now | 4.0 |
| I’ll Get This | 4.0 |
| The Imitation Game | 4.0 |
| GOLDEN FIVE | |
| Only Connect | 54.7 |
| The Chase | 45.3 |
| Impossible | 40.0 |
| Taskmaster | 37.3 |
| Who Wants to be a Millionaire | 26.7 |
| Pointless | 24.0 |
| House of Games | 21.3 |
| Tenable | 20.0 |
| Tipping Point | 17.3 |
| The Crystal Maze | 13.3 |
| The Button | 10.7 |
| 5 Gold Rings | 9.3 |
| Countdown | 8.0 |
| I’m a Celeb… | 8.0 |
| The £100k Drop | 8.0 |
| University Challenge | 6.7 |
| Would I Lie to You | 6.7 |
| Beat the Internet | 5.3 |
| The Great British Bake Off | 5.3 |
| All Together Now | 2.7 |
| Big Brother | 2.7 |
| Celwydd Noeth | 2.7 |
| Curious Creatures | 2.7 |
| Eggheads | 2.7 |
| Go 8 Bit | 2.7 |
| Hunted | 2.7 |
| I’ll Get This | 2.7 |
| Strictly Come Dancing | 2.7 |
| The Circle | 2.7 |
| RADIO FIVE | |
| Just a Minute | 22.7 |
| The Unbelievable Truth | 20.0 |
| I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue | 14.7 |
| The News Quiz | 14.7 |
| Fighting Talk | 12.0 |
| Popmaster | 9.3 |
| Brain of Britain | 8.0 |
| Round Britain Quiz | 8.0 |
| Counterpoint | 5.3 |
| It’s Not What You Know | 2.7 |
| ONLINE FIVE | |
| Lateral | 18.7 |
| Fingers on Buzzers | 5.3 |
| Bother’s Bar Game Night | 4.0 |
| HQ | 4.0 |
| Ultimate Beastmaster | 4.0 |
| Busted! | 2.7 |
| Citation Needed | 2.7 |
| The Fix | 2.7 |
Wie is De Mol picked up several votes, but I’m afraid I’d struggle to suggest it is legitimately watchable in the UK, although we thank our resident subber for subtitling it for us.
Big mistake having this at the same time as the NTAs! Which one do I follow
US.
The real burning question is whether David had a slide declaring Dolph Lundgren to be Game Show PM of the UK
No, but I would’ve put money on it winning the Hidden Gem. So maybe he got Environment Secretary or something.
That does invite the question of who else would be in Prime Minister Coren Mitchell’s cabinet. Would this make Picture Researcher Dr. Daniel Peake the Minister for Art, or something? Would David McGaughey be the Minister Without Portfolio?
Here’s a playlist with the last five years of results, for those who want a nostalgia trip:
This is probably the weirdest combination I’ve seen about a reality show
“Backers describe the show as a singular blend of Black Mirror, Westworld, The Truman Show and Monopoly…..”
https://deadline.com/2019/01/keshet-confirms-february-bow-in-israel-of-ambitious-reality-series-2025-natpe-1202539932/
Amateur Adventure Hour: you can do something not a million miles from 1997’s Heaven And Hell Live but almost certainly better in practice in Minecraft these days. I can well imagine a YouTube channel with nearly 5,000,000 subscribers giving $1,000 away as a stunt, too. From the title I thought it might be something a bit more Touch The Truck-like but it’s just a series of short elimination minigames, most of which are not actually especially interesting. Nevertheless, the potential is there.
Maybe.
Further to our chat about unusual rounds on The Unbelievable Truth, Richard Osman’s script about nuts in the latest edition is a ‘must listen’.
So Only Connect tops the Golden Five for the first time since 2011 – while !mpossible becomes the first show other than OC, Pointless and The Chase to make the top three since 2010.
And Pointless drops out of the G5 altogether. Just two years ago, it came first for the fifth consecutive year – and even when it was finally deposed from the summit by The Chase last year, it still finished ahead of OC.
I did have a feeling that it wouldn’t make the top three this year – with !mpossible doing well at 5:15, multiple votes no longer being allowed, Richard not retweeting the poll like he usually does, and the general feeling that even with the revised set and titles, the show has become very stale (whereas The Chase and OC still have something of a freshness about them). But not making the top five? That has to go down as something of a surprise, even after learning that some people *deliberately* didn’t vote for it.
Pointless will definitely continue into the 2020s, and thus qualify for the Long-Running category on UKGS. But will it get back into the G5 again – and, indeed, how far into the new decade will it go?
Millionaire With Clarky isn’t the first new show/revival to be the highest-placed in the G5 despite not winning the Hall of Fame, as OC will testify (topping the G5 in 2008 while finishing runner-up in the HoF to Duel). And 2018 wasn’t a great year for shows that frequently bubble under – Tipping Point fell from seventh to ninth, Countdown from tenth to joint 13th, University Challenge to joint 16th and GBBO to joint 18th (not that any of them are going away any time soon, of course). No real surprise, meanwhile, to see I’m A Celeb in joint 13th, after its best series in years.
And I note that no less than ten shows shared 20th – including the other three HoF shows, the outgoing Big Brother (how many votes did Love Island get, I wonder…?), the virtually evergreen Eggheads and Strictly, and even Celwydd Noeth (is this the best placing thus far for an S4C show?).
Terrific stuff as always, Brig and David. And Dan and Laura too. 😉