Winners

• Best Actor
  • Winner: Tom Courtenay
    Tom Courtenay
    Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
    
     — A Rather English Marriage
    A Rather English Marriage
    A Rather English Marriage is a novel by Angela Lambert, first published in 1992, and later adapted for television by Andrew Davies for the BBC.-Plot summary:...
    
    (BBC2
    BBC Two
    BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
    
    )
  • Other nominees: Robert Carlyle
    Robert Carlyle
    Robert Carlyle, OBE is a Scottish film and television actor. He is known for a variety of roles including those in Trainspotting, Hamish Macbeth, The Full Monty, The World Is Not Enough, Angela's Ashes, The 51st State, and 28 Weeks Later...
    
     — Looking After Jo Jo
    Looking After Jo Jo
    Looking After Jo Jo is a 1998 BBC Scotland television drama starring Robert Carlyle as a petty thief turned drug dealer in Edinburgh in the 1980s. It is set in and around the North Sighthill housing estate....
    
    (BBC2); Albert Finney
    Albert Finney
    Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
    
     — A Rather English Marriage (BBC2); Timothy Spall
    Timothy Spall
    Timothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.-Early life:Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London. His mother, Sylvia R. , was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker...
    
     — Our Mutual Friend
    Our Mutual Friend
    Our Mutual Friend is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining psychological insight with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life" but is also about human...
    
    (BBC2)
• Best Actress
  • Winner: Thora Hird
    Thora Hird
    Dame Thora Hird DBE was an English actress.-Early life and career:Hird was born in the Lancashire seaside town of Morecambe. She first appeared on stage at the age of two months in a play her father was managing...
    
     — Waiting for the Telegram (BBC2)
  • Other nominees: Francesca Annis
    Francesca Annis
    Francesca Annis is an English actress, known for her film and television appearances, most recently in the BBC series Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Deceit.-Early life and education:...
    
     — Reckless (ITV
    ITV
    ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
    
    ); Natasha Little
    Natasha Little
    Natasha Little is a British actress. She is best known for her work on British television, but has also featured in many film and theatre roles.- Early life :...
    
     — Vanity Fair
    Vanity Fair (1998 TV serial)
    Vanity Fair is a BBC television drama serial adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel of the same name broadcast in 1998. The screenplay was written by Andrew Davies....
    
    (BBC1
    BBC One
    BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
    
    ); Joanna Lumley
    Joanna Lumley
    Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...
    
     — A Rather English Marriage (BBC2)
• Best Comedy (Programme or Series)
  • Winner: Father Ted
    Father Ted
    Father Ted is a comedy series set in Ireland that was produced by Hat Trick Productions for British broadcaster Channel 4. Written jointly by Irish writers Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan and starring a predominantly Irish cast, it originally aired over three series from 21 April 1995 until 1 May...
    
    (Hat Trick Productions
    Hat Trick Productions
    Hat Trick Productions is a British independent production company that produces television programmes, mainly specialising in comedy.-History:...
    
     / Channel 4
    Channel 4
    Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
    
    )
  • Other nominees: Dinnerladies
    Dinnerladies
    Dinnerladies is a British sitcom written, co-produced by and starring Victoria Wood. It ran on BBC One for 16 episodes from 1998 to 2000.-Plot:...
    
    (Pozzitive TV / Good Fun
    Good Fun
    Good Fun is a play by Victoria Wood, first performed in 1980. It is set in an Arts Centre in North West England.-Origins:Wood, keen to trade on her previous stage success Talent, was commissioned to write another play by impresario Michael Codron. "I wrote one called Pals, which he said was 'very...
    
     / BBC1); The Royle Family
    The Royle Family
    The Royle Family is a popular, BAFTA award-winning television comedy drama produced by Granada Television for the BBC, which ran for three series between 1998 and 2000, and specials from 2006 onwards...
    
    (Granada Television
    Granada Television
    Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
    
     / BBC1); The Vicar of Dibley
    The Vicar of Dibley
    The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007...
    
    (Tiger Aspect Productions
    Tiger Aspect Productions
    Tiger Aspect Productions is a British television production company, particularly noted for its situation comedies. Co-founded by producer Peter Bennett-Jones, its productions have included popular hits such as The Vicar of Dibley and Mr. Bean...
    
     / BBC1)
• Best Comedy Performance
  • Winner: Dermot Morgan
    Dermot Morgan
    Dermot John Morgan was an Irish comedian, actor and former schoolteacher, who achieved international renown for his roles as Father Ted Crilly in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted and a strip club MC in Taffin....
    
     — Father Ted (Channel 4)
  • Other nominees: Caroline Aherne
    Caroline Aherne
    Caroline Mary Aherne is an English comedian and BAFTA winning writer and actress, best known for Mrs Merton and The Royle Family.- Background :...
    
     — The Royle Family (BBC1); Ardal O'Hanlon
    Ardal O'Hanlon
    Ardal O'Hanlon is an Irish comedian and actor, best known for his roles in television sitcoms as Father Dougal McGuire in Father Ted and George Sunday in My Hero.-Early life:...
    
     — Father Ted (Channel 4); Julie Walters
    Julie Walters
    Julie Walters, CBE is an English actress and novelist. She came to international prominence in 1983 for Educating Rita, performing in the title role opposite Michael Caine. It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it won her BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress...
    
     — Dinnerladies (BBC1)
• Best Drama Serial
  • Winner: Our Mutual Friend (BBC
    BBC
    The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
    
     / BBC1)
  • Other nominees: Amongst Women
    Amongst Women
    Amongst Women is a novel by the Irish author John McGahern . The novel tells the story of Michael Moran, a bitter, ageing Irish Republican Army veteran, and his tyranny over his wife and children, who both love and fear him. It is McGahern's best known novel and is considered his masterpiece...
    
    (Parallel Film Productions Limited / BBC2); A Respectable Trade (BBC / BBC1); Vanity Fair (BBC / A&E Network
    A&E Network
    The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
    
     / BBC1)
• Best Drama Series
  British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series
  The British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series is one of the major categories of the British Academy Television Awards , the primary awards ceremony of the British television industry...
  
  
  • Winner: The Cops
    The Cops (TV series)
    The Cops is a British television series made by World Productions for the BBC.The production, set in the fictional town of Stanton in Northern England, was noted for its documentary-style camerawork and uncompromising portrayal of the police force...
    
    (World Productions
    World Productions
    World Productions is a British television production company, founded in the early 1990s by acclaimed producer Tony Garnett. The company's first major series was the police drama Between The Lines , and throughout the decade they went on to produce a succession of highly successful drama series...
    
     / BBC2)
  • Other nominees: Jonathan Creek
    Jonathan Creek
    Jonathan Creek is a British mystery series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. Primarily a crime drama, the show is also peppered with broadly comic touches...
    
    (BBC / BBC1); Playing the Field
    Playing the Field
    Playing the Field is a BBC television drama series following the lives of the Castlefield Blues, a fictitious female football team from South Yorkshire.-Outline:...
    
    (Tiger Aspect Productions / BBC1); Undercover Heart (BBC / BBC1)
• Best Single Drama
  • Winner: A Rather English Marriage (Wall to wall television / BBC1)
  • Other nominees: A Life For A Life – The True Story Of Stefan Kiszko (Picture Palace Productions / ITV); Playing Sandwiches
    Talking Heads (plays)
    Talking Heads is a series of dramatic monologues written for BBC television by British playwright Alan Bennett. The two series were first broadcast in 1988 and 1998, and have since been broadcast on BBC Radio and included on the A-level and GCSE English Literature syllabus.A West End theatre...
    
    (Slow Motion Limited / BBC2); Waiting for the Telegram (Slow Motion Limited / BBC2)
• Best Soap Opera
  • Winner: EastEnders
    EastEnders
    EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
    
    (BBC / BBC1)
  • Other nominees: Brookside
    Brookside
    Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...
    
    (Mersey Television
    Mersey Television
    Lime Pictures, formerly known as Mersey Television, is a British television production company, founded by producer and writer Phil Redmond in the early 1980s....
    
     / Channel 4); Coronation Street
    Coronation Street
    Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
    
    (Granada Television / ITV); Hollyoaks
    Hollyoaks
    Hollyoaks is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill...
    
    (Mersey Television / Channel 4)
• Best News and Current Affairs Journalism
  • Winner: Dispatches - Inside The Animal Liberation Front (Channel 4)
  • Other nominees: Newsnight
    Newsnight
    Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
    
    - Northern Ireland
    Northern Ireland
    Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
    
     peace process (BBC / BBC2); ETA: Coming In From The Cold (BBC / BBC2); Omagh bombing
    Omagh bombing
    The Omagh bombing was a car bomb attack carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army , a splinter group of former Provisional Irish Republican Army members opposed to the Good Friday Agreement, on Saturday 15 August 1998, in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Twenty-nine people died as a...
    
    (ITN / ITV)
• Best Light Entertainment Performance
  • Winner: Michael Parkinson
    Michael Parkinson
    Sir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...
    
     — Parkinson
    Parkinson (TV series)
    Parkinson is a British television talk show that was presented by Sir Michael Parkinson. It was first shown on the BBC from 1971 to 2004, and on ITV from 2004 to 2007.-Background:...
    
    (BBC1)
  • Other nominees: John Bird
    John Bird (actor)
    John Bird is an English satirist, actor and comedian.-Early life:Born in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, and educated at High Pavement Grammar School, Nottingham, Bird briefly joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain, while still at school...
    
     and John Fortune
    John Fortune
    John Fortune is a British satirist, comedian writer and actor, best known for his work with John Bird and Rory Bremner on the TV series Bremner, Bird and Fortune. He was educated at Bristol Cathedral School and King's College, Cambridge, where he was to meet and form a lasting friendship with John...
    
     — Rory Bremner - Who Else?
    Bremner, Bird and Fortune
    Bremner, Bird and Fortune is an award-winning satirical British television programme produced by Vera Productions for Channel Four, uniting the longstanding satirical team of John Bird and John Fortune with the satirical impressionist Rory Bremner.The show started in 1999. The fourteenth series...
    
    (Channel 4); Kathy Burke
    Kathy Burke
    Katherine Lucy Bridget Burke is an English actress, comedienne, playwright and theatre director. She is best known for her portrayals of Perry in the Harry Enfield film Kevin and Perry Go Large, and of Linda La Hughes in the British sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme...
    
     — Harry Enfield's Yule Log Chums (BBC1); Billy Connolly
    Billy Connolly
    William "Billy" Connolly, Jr., CBE is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin...
    
     — 30 Years of Billy Connolly (BBC1)
• Best Factual Series
  • Winner: The Human Body (BBC / BBC1)
  • Other nominees: The Clintons - A Marriage of Power (Channel 4); Cold War (Jeremy Isaacs Television Limited / Channel 4); The Life of Birds
    The Life of Birds
    The Life of Birds is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 21 October 1998....
    
    (BBC / BBC1)
• Best Feature
  • Winner: Back to the Floor
    Back to the Floor (UK TV series)
    Back to the Floor is a Reality-TV documentary series broadcast on BBC2 in the late 1990s and early 2000s in which CEOs or Top level managers Go undercover in their operations and take a junior/entry level job in their company. This give the bosses a lot think about during this exercise...
    
    (BBC / BBC2)
  • Other nominees: Changing Rooms
    Changing Rooms
    Changing room may refer to:*changeroom, a room or enclosure in a clothing store where customers may try on clothes before purchasing them*Changing Rooms, a BBC television series*The Changing Room, a stage play by David Storey...
    
    (Bazal / BBC2); House Doctor
    House Doctor
    This article is about the original TV show, The House Doctor which featured Ann Maurice; originally broadcast in the UK the show is now reaching a global audience.For the San Francisco Bay area interior designer known as the "House Doctor", see Lisa Quinn...
    
    (TalkBack Productions
    Talkback Productions
    Talkback Productions was formed in 1981 by Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. The company is one of the UK’s leading production companies and part of the RTL Group, a major European broadcast and content company....
    
     / Channel 5); Time Team
    Time Team
    Time Team is a British television series which has been aired on Channel 4 since 1994. Created by television producer Tim Taylor and presented by actor Tony Robinson, each episode features a team of specialists carrying out an archaeological dig over a period of three days, with Robinson explaining...
    
    (Videotext Communications / Channel 4)
• Flaherty Award for Single Documentary
  • Winner: After Lockerbie (BBC2)
  • Other nominees: 42 Up
    Seven Up!
    The Up Series is a series of documentary films produced by Granada Television that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The documentary has had seven episodes spanning 49 years and the documentary has been broadcast on both ITV and BBC...
    
    (Granada Television / BBC1); Mir Mortals; Tongue Tied
• Huw Wheldon Award for the Best Arts Programme or Series
  • Winner: Arena — The Brian Epstein
    Brian Epstein
    Brian Samuel Epstein , was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle...
    
     Story (BBC / BBC2)
  • Other nominees: Arena — The Noel Coward
    Noël Coward
    Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
    
     Trilogy (BBC / BBC2); The Secret Art of Government; Vile Bodies: Naked
• Best Light Entertainment Programme or Series
  • Winner: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
    Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (UK game show)
    Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a British television quiz show which offers a maximum cash prize of one million pounds for correctly answering successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty...
    
    (Celador
    Celador
    Celador is a global light entertainment company originally formed as an independent production company in 1983. It has produced a number of popular light entertainment shows and is probably best known for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and co-producing the film Slumdog Millionaire which collected...
    
     / ITV)
  • Other nominees: Big Train
    Big Train
    Big Train is a surreal British television comedy sketch show created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, writers of the successful sitcom Father Ted...
    
    (TalkBack Productions / BBC2); Goodness Gracious Me (BBC / BBC2); Rory Bremner - Who Else? (Kudos Film & Television
    Kudos (production company)
    Kudos Film and Television is a British independent film and television production company. It has produced television series for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, and its productions include Spooks , Hustle, Life on Mars and its spin-off Ashes to Ashes, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard and M.I. High...
    
     / Channel 4)
• Best Live Outside Broadcast Coverage
  • Winner: Derby Day
    Epsom Derby
    The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...
    
    (Channel 4)
  • Other nominees: The Eurovision Song Contest
    Eurovision Song Contest
    The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...
    
    (BBC1); Football World Cup Final Programme
    1998 FIFA World Cup
    The 1998 FIFA World Cup, the 16th FIFA World Cup, was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. France was chosen as host nation by FIFA on 2 July 1992. The tournament was won by France, who beat Brazil 3-0 in the final...
    
    (BBC1); World Cup ’98 – England v Argentina (ITV)
• Originality
  • Winner: The Human Body (BBC1)
  • Other nominees: Channel 5 News
    Five News
    5 News is the news programme of British broadcaster Channel 5, produced by Sky News. From 1 January 2005, Sky News was awarded the contract to provide the news for Channel 5, replacing ITN, which had provided the channel's news service from the channel's launch in 1997...
    
    (Channel 5); The King of Chaos; Lemur
    Lemur
    Lemurs are a clade of strepsirrhine primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. They are named after the lemures of Roman mythology due to the ghostly vocalizations, reflective eyes, and the nocturnal habits of some species...
    
    s
• Best International Programme or Series
  • Winner: The Larry Sanders Show
    The Larry Sanders Show
    The Larry Sanders Show is a satirical television sitcom that aired from August 1992 to May 1998 on the HBO cable television network in the United States. It starred stand-up comedian Garry Shandling as vain, neurotic talk show host Larry Sanders, and centered on the running of his TV show, and the...
    
    
  • Other nominees: Ally McBeal
    Ally McBeal
    Ally McBeal is an American legal comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia...
    
    ; The Simpsons
    The Simpsons
    The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
    
    ; The X-Files
    The X-Files
    The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
    
    
• The Lew Grade
  Lew Grade
  Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
  
   Award
  • Goodnight Mr Tom
• The Dennis Potter
  Dennis Potter
  Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...
  
   Award
  • David Renwick
    David Renwick
    David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek....
    
    
• The Alan Clarke
  Alan Clarke
  Alan Clarke was a television and film director, producer and writer, born in Wallasey, Merseyside, England.Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, including work for the famous play strands The Wednesday Play and Play for Today...
  
   Award
  • Jimmy Mulville
    Jimmy Mulville
    James Thomas "Jimmy" Mulville is an English comedian, comedy writer, producer and television presenter. Jimmy Mulville is best known for co-founding in 1986 the British independent television production company Hat Trick Productions with Denise O'Donoghue and Rory McGrath...
    
    
  • Denise O'Donoghue
• The Richard Dimbleby
  Richard Dimbleby
  Richard Dimbleby CBE was an English journalist and broadcaster widely acknowledged as one of the greatest figures in British broadcasting history.-Early life:...
  
   Award
  • Trevor McDonald
    Trevor McDonald
    Sir Trevor McDonald OBE is a Trinidadian-British newsreader and journalist. He had a long career as a news presenter with ITN...
    
    
• Special Award
  • Richard Curtis
    Richard Curtis
    Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit...