Documentary
Openings that state what the programme is and then get on with it.
191 shows · 201 sequences
The ones that kept changing
All 10 in Documentary · every genre →
2 sequencesBig Brother (UK)
2000–Channel 4 / ITVDocumentary
The eye, and a theme built out of the sound of the house — the format that made surveillance into a light entertainment brand.
- Season 1
- Season 8
2 sequencesBlue Peter
1958–BBC OneDocumentary
The world's longest-running children's programme, opening on a ship in full sail and a hornpipe.
- Season 45
- Season 64
2 sequencesFamily Feud
1976–ABC / SyndicationDocumentary
Survey says — two families, a buzzer, and a theme rearranged for every host since Richard Dawson.
- Season 1
- Season 35
2 sequencesGrandstand
1958–2007BBC OneDocumentary
Five hours of live sport on a Saturday afternoon, held together by a man at a desk and the teleprinter behind him.
- Season 23
- Season 33
2 sequencesInk Master
2012–2018SpikeDocumentary
Tattoo artists competing on other people's skin, which raises the stakes over most craft contests.
- Season 2
- Season 5
2 sequencesMatch of the Day
1964–BBC OneDocumentary
Barry Stoller's theme, unchanged since 1970, over whatever graphics the decade happens to allow.
- Season 7
- Season 62
2020s
1 sequenceClarkson's Farm
2021–Prime VideoDocumentary
Jeremy Clarkson farming a thousand Cotswold acres badly, and the year-shaped structure the titles borrow from.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWelcome to Wrexham
2022–FXDocumentary
Two American actors buying a Welsh football club, and a title sequence that treats the town as the subject rather than them.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTiger King
2020–2021NetflixDocumentary
Airbrushed big-cat portraiture and rhinestone lettering, executed with total sincerity — the subject's own aesthetic, borrowed wholesale.
- Season 1
1 sequencePrehistoric Planet
2022–2023Apple TV+Documentary
Attenborough narrating the Cretaceous as though a camera crew had been there, with a title sequence to match.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Last Dance
2020ESPN / NetflixDocumentary
Archive footage cut to a hip-hop bed, treating a basketball season as a heist film.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMcMillions
2020HBODocumentary
The man who stole every winning piece in the McDonald's Monopoly game for twelve years.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHow To with John Wilson
2020–2023HBODocumentary
New York filmed on the street by one man with a camera, and titles assembled from the same accidental footage the series is made of.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Vow
2020–2022HBODocumentary
NXIVM told largely through footage its own members shot while they were still inside it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceI'll Be Gone in the Dark
2020HBODocumentary
Michelle McNamara's search for the Golden State Killer, finished by other people after she died.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCheer
2020–2022NetflixDocumentary
A Texas junior college cheerleading squad, filmed as a sport rather than as a sideline to one.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCulinary Class Wars
2024–NetflixDocumentary
A hundred anonymous Korean chefs cooking against twenty famous ones, the unknown half dressed in black throughout.
- Season 1
1 sequenceUnsolved Mysteries (2020)
2020–NetflixDocumentary
The revival, which keeps the original's silhouette and drops its host.
- Season 1
2010s
1 sequenceThe Great British Bake Off
2010–BBC Two / Channel 4Documentary
Bunting, a tent and a xylophone — twenty seconds of deliberate gentleness, and one of the most effective pieces of format branding on British television.
- Season 1
1 sequenceStorage Wars
2010–A&EDocumentary
Abandoned storage lockers auctioned unseen, with the bidders introduced like a heist crew.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDance Moms
2011–2019LifetimeDocumentary
A Pittsburgh dance studio, the children in it, and the mothers watching from behind the glass.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Jinx
2015–2024HBODocumentary
Andrew Jarecki's Robert Durst films, opened by a sequence that tells you nothing and implies everything.
- Season 1
1 sequenceQueer Eye
2018–NetflixDocumentary
Two minutes of the five hosts introduced one at a time, in the format's own house style of relentless warmth.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMaking a Murderer
2015–2018NetflixDocumentary
Manitowoc County in winter over a plucked string figure — the sequence that defined what a Netflix true-crime series would look like for the next decade.
- Season 1
1 sequenceLast Chance U
2016–2023NetflixDocumentary
Junior college football players with one season left to be recruited, and a marching-band cue for a theme.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSomebody Feed Phil
2018–NetflixDocumentary
Phil Rosenthal eating his way around the world, with a theme song written and sung about him by his friends.
- Season 5
1 sequenceGogglebox
2013–Channel 4Documentary
People watching television, filmed watching television, which turned out to be the format of the decade.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Vietnam War
2017PBSDocumentary
Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part account, scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
- Season 1
1 sequenceChef's Table
2015–NetflixDocumentary
Food shot in extreme close-up to classical strings — a cookery series that opens like a perfume advertisement and means it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Keepers
2017NetflixDocumentary
The unsolved killing of a Baltimore nun, and what her former pupils found when they investigated it themselves fifty years on.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAn Idiot Abroad
2010–2012Sky1Documentary
Karl Pilkington sent to the wonders of the world by two people enjoying it more than he is.
- Season 3
1 sequenceO.J.: Made in America
2016ESPNDocumentary
Nearly eight hours on one trial and a century of Los Angeles, opened in sixteen seconds because there is no time to spare.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBlue Planet II
2017BBC OneDocumentary
Hans Zimmer and Radiohead scoring the ocean — the first natural history series to hire a film composer and a rock band for its titles.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDirty Money
2018–2020NetflixDocumentary
One corporate fraud an episode, opening on money being counted by a machine that never stops.
- Season 1
1 sequenceFrozen Planet
2011BBC OneDocumentary
Ice filmed as architecture, and George Fenton again — twenty-six seconds with no animal in them at all.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHip-Hop Evolution
2016–2020NetflixDocumentary
Shad interviewing the people who were actually in the room, decade by decade.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHuman Planet
2011BBC OneDocumentary
The BBC natural-history unit turning its cameras on people, one habitat per episode.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRotten
2018–2019NetflixDocumentary
The food supply chain taken apart one commodity at a time, in seventeen seconds of things going bad.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAbstract: The Art of Design
2017–2019NetflixDocumentary
One designer an episode, with a title sequence rebuilt each time in that designer's own idiom — the rare series whose titles are the argument.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAdam Ruins Everything
2015–2019truTVDocumentary
A comedian interrupting people to explain, with citations on screen, why what they believe is wrong.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Amazing Race Canada
2013–CTVDocumentary
The format run entirely inside one country, which turns out to be quite large enough for it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmerican Pickers
2010–HistoryDocumentary
Two dealers driving across America buying things out of other people's barns.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBar Rescue
2011–2017SpikeDocumentary
A consultant shouting a failing bar back into business over three days.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Curse of Oak Island
2014–HistoryDocumentary
Two brothers digging a Nova Scotian island for treasure, across more than a decade of not finding it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDuck Dynasty
2012–2017A&EDocumentary
A Louisiana family who got rich making duck calls, and then considerably richer being filmed doing it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGeordie Shore
2011–2025MTVDocumentary
Jersey Shore relocated to Newcastle, and the format that gave British reality its next decade.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHardcore Pawn
2010–2015truTVDocumentary
A Detroit pawnbroker and the arguments across his counter, which are most of the programme.
- Season 1
2 sequencesInk Master
2012–2018SpikeDocumentary
Tattoo artists competing on other people's skin, which raises the stakes over most craft contests.
- Season 2
- Season 5
1 sequenceThe Only Way Is Essex
2010–ITV2Documentary
Structured reality built around a group of Essex friends, and the format most British television copied afterwards.
- Season 2
1 sequencePenn & Teller: Fool Us
2011–ITV / The CWDocumentary
Magicians performing one trick each for two men who will say afterwards whether they worked out how it was done.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRuPaul's Drag Race All Stars
2012–2016Logo TVDocumentary
Returning queens competing again, in the spin-off that handed the eliminations to the contestants.
- Season 1
1 sequenceVanderpump Rules
2013–BravoDocumentary
The staff of a Los Angeles restaurant, most of whom would rather be famous than employed.
- Season 12
1 sequenceWormwood
2017NetflixDocumentary
Errol Morris on Frank Olson's death, told half as interview and half as drama, with titles for both halves at once.
- Season 1
2000s
2 sequencesSurvivor
2000–CBSDocumentary
The competition format that rebuilt American primetime, and rebuilds its titles for every location.
- Season 1
- Season 50
1 sequenceHell's Kitchen
2005–FoxDocumentary
Flames, a skull made of a chef's hat, and Gordon Ramsay shouting — the titles tell you exactly what the hour is.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRuPaul's Drag Race
2009–Logo / VH1 / MTVDocumentary
Eighteen seconds that get remade every season — new logo treatment, new track, new set of queens.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmerican Idol
2002–Fox / ABCDocumentary
The talent format that ran American primetime for a decade, opening on a spotlight and a logo that spins.
- Season 1
2 sequencesTop Gear
2002–BBC TwoDocumentary
Twenty-one seconds of engine noise and a rock riff — a motoring programme that opens like a trailer for itself.
- Season 1
- Season 23
1 sequenceProject Runway
2004–Bravo / LifetimeDocumentary
Designers given a day and a budget, and Heidi Klum telling one of them they are out.
- Seasons 1–4
1 sequenceMythBusters
2003–2018Discovery ChannelDocumentary
Two special-effects builders testing folklore with explosives, introduced by a montage of the explosives.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Biggest Loser
2004–2020NBCDocumentary
A weight-loss competition whose titles were rebuilt around whichever pairing the season had chosen.
- Season 5
1 sequencePawn Stars
2009–HistoryDocumentary
A Las Vegas pawn shop, three generations of one family, and a guy they call an expert once an episode.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJersey Shore
2009–2012MTVDocumentary
Eight housemates in Seaside Heights, and the most watched series MTV has ever had.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Apprentice
2004–NBCDocumentary
Manhattan from a helicopter over the O'Jays' For the Love of Money, which is the whole thesis of the programme in one sample.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDeadliest Catch
2005–Discovery ChannelDocumentary
Bering Sea crab boats, opening on the sea doing the thing that makes the programme's title literal.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTop Chef
2006–BravoDocumentary
Knives on a board and a countdown, in the cooking competition that took itself seriously first.
- Season 1
1 sequenceKeeping Up with the Kardashians
2007–2021E!Documentary
Fourteen years of a family photograph rebuilt every season, and ten seconds to do it in.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Hills
2006–2010MTVDocumentary
The Laguna Beach spin-off that moved to Los Angeles, and the show that made the word scripted an argument.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe X Factor
2004–2018ITVDocumentary
Simon Cowell's format after Pop Idol, opening on a spotlight sweep and a fanfare rebuilt every few series.
- Season 1
1 sequenceFear Factor
2001–2012NBCDocumentary
The Dutch format that asked contestants to eat things, opening on a montage of them regretting it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Bachelor
2002–ABCDocumentary
The format that turned courtship into an elimination bracket, and gave the rose its own verb.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Osbournes
2002–2005MTVDocumentary
Ozzy Osbourne singing Crazy Train as a lounge number over a title card done in gold leaf, which is the joke the whole series runs on.
- Season 1
2 sequencesBig Brother (UK)
2000–Channel 4 / ITVDocumentary
The eye, and a theme built out of the sound of the house — the format that made surveillance into a light entertainment brand.
- Season 1
- Season 8
1 sequenceLaguna Beach
2004–2006MTVDocumentary
Real teenagers filmed like a drama, and the format most of MTV's next decade was built on.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWho Do You Think You Are?
2004–BBC OneDocumentary
One celebrity's ancestry per episode, opening on photographs that dissolve into each other backwards.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAnthony Bourdain: No Reservations
2005–2012Travel ChannelDocumentary
The travel programme that treated a meal as reporting, opening on a passport stamp and a guitar line.
- Season 1
1 sequenceLong Way Round
2004Sky OneDocumentary
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman riding from London to New York the long way, and the map that opens each leg.
- Season 1
1 sequenceIce Road Truckers
2007–2017HistoryDocumentary
Haulage across frozen lakes in the Northwest Territories, opening on the ice doing what the ice does.
- Season 1
1 sequenceExtreme Makeover: Home Edition
2003–2020ABCDocumentary
A family's house rebuilt in a week, opening on the bus that is about to move.
- Season 3
1 sequencePlanet Earth
2006BBC OneDocumentary
George Fenton's orchestral swell over the planet from orbit — twenty-nine seconds that set the house style for every natural history series since.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDragons' Den
2005–BBC TwoDocumentary
The Japanese format Britain took and exported again, opening on money stacked in front of five people who are not going to give you any.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Blue Planet
2001BBC OneDocumentary
The first of the BBC's ocean series, and the template its sequel and the Planet Earth films all inherited.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSupernanny
2004–Channel 4Documentary
Jo Frost arriving by taxi to reorganise a household, every week, for twenty years.
- Season 4
1 sequenceWife Swap
2003–2009Channel 4Documentary
Two households exchanged for a fortnight, in ten seconds of titles that give away the whole premise.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDepartures
2008–2012OLN (Canada)Documentary
Two friends travelling for a year with a cameraman, shot with more care than the format usually gets.
- Season 1
1 sequence19 Kids and Counting
2008–2015TLCDocumentary
An Arkansas family of twenty-one, and the programme TLC built a decade of its schedule around.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Amazing Race
2001–CBSDocumentary
A race around the world, opening on a map and a countdown that has won ten Emmys for its programme.
- Season 10
1 sequenceAmerica's Next Top Model
2003–2018UPN / The CWDocumentary
The format that ran for twenty-four cycles and rebuilt its titles for most of them.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAncient Aliens
2009–HistoryDocumentary
A documentary series whose answer to every question it raises is the same one.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAustralian Survivor
2002–Network TenDocumentary
The format remade locally three separate times before it finally stuck.
- Season 2
1 sequenceBad Girls Club
2006–2017OxygenDocumentary
Seven women in a house chosen for how badly they were expected to get on.
- Season 2
1 sequenceBattleBots
2000–2002Comedy CentralDocumentary
Home-built robots destroying each other inside a perspex box, and the reason a good many engineers exist.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBondi Rescue
2006–Network TenDocumentary
The lifeguards at Bondi Beach, filmed across a summer at a time.
- Season 8
1 sequenceBritain's Got Talent
2007–ITVDocumentary
The variety format that exported itself to seventy countries, and the theme it kept for its first four series.
- Seasons 1–4
1 sequenceThe Crocodile Hunter Diaries
2002–2006Animal PlanetDocumentary
The spin-off following the zoo's staff between expeditions, rather than Irwin in the field.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDancing on Ice
2006–ITVDocumentary
Celebrities skating in pairs, judged by Torvill and Dean, who had won the thing for real.
- Season 7
1 sequenceDeadly Women
2005–2021Discovery Channel / Investigation DiscoveryDocumentary
Murders committed by women, reconstructed by actors and narrated flat, across fourteen seasons of the Investigation Discovery house style.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDog the Bounty Hunter
2004–2012A&EDocumentary
A Hawaii bail bondsman and his family, in the series that made A&E a reality network.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGhost Adventures
2008–Travel ChannelDocumentary
Three men locking themselves overnight inside buildings they believe are haunted.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHow It's Made
2001–Discovery ChannelDocumentary
Manufacturing filmed without a presenter, a plot or a raised voice, for over thirty seasons.
- Season 15
1 sequenceI'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!
2002–ITVDocumentary
Celebrities in an Australian jungle, and one of the few formats whose titles are remade from scratch every series.
- Season 24
1 sequenceIron Chef America
2005–2018Food NetworkDocumentary
The Fuji format remade in a Food Network kitchen, with the man in the gold cape replaced by a chairman.
- Season 1
1 sequenceKitchen Nightmares
2007–FoxDocumentary
The American Ramsay format, louder than the Channel 4 original it was remade from.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMan v. Food
2008–2022Travel Channel / Cooking ChannelDocumentary
A presenter attempting restaurant eating challenges built to be impossible, and losing more often than not.
- Season 10
1 sequenceMasterChef Australia
2009–Network TenDocumentary
The British format remade at far greater length, and for several years the most watched thing on Australian television.
- Season 2
1 sequenceThe Mole
2001–2008ABCDocumentary
Contestants building a prize fund while one of them sabotages it, and nobody knows which.
- Season 1
1 sequenceOnly Connect
2008–BBC Four / BBC TwoDocumentary
A quiz whose easiest round asks what four things have in common, and whose hardest does not admit there is a connection at all.
- Season 1
1 sequenceA Place in the Sun
2000–Channel 4Documentary
British buyers shown three houses abroad, running daily for a quarter of a century.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRiver Monsters
2009–2017Animal PlanetDocumentary
A biologist catching freshwater fish large enough to account for the local legends about them.
- Season 1
1 sequenceShark Tank
2009–ABCDocumentary
The American Dragons' Den, with the same format's Japanese parent behind both.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSo You Think You Can Dance
2005–2024FoxDocumentary
The dance contest built to the Idol template by Idol's own producer, and one of the few competition formats to run its production credits over the performance rather than after it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceStrictly Come Dancing
2004–BBC OneDocumentary
The BBC's ballroom format, sold to fifty-odd countries as Dancing with the Stars and kept at home under its own name.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTemptation Island
2001–2003FoxDocumentary
Unmarried couples separated onto an island of singles, and the format that drew the first serious wave of complaints about American reality television.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWheeler Dealers
2003–2023Discovery Real Time / Discovery ChannelDocumentary
One man buys a car badly, the other repairs it, and the profit is announced at the end whether there is any or not.
- Season 1
1990s
1 sequenceThe Real World
1992–2019MTVDocumentary
"This is the true story of seven strangers" — the narration that invented the reality format, and the one every parody since has copied.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDateline NBC
1992–NBCDocumentary
NBC's newsmagazine, which outlasted every other network attempt at the form by turning into a true-crime hour.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTime Team
1994–2014Channel 4Documentary
Three days to excavate a site, with the clock running in the titles before anyone picks up a trowel.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWho Wants to Be a Millionaire?
1998–ITVDocumentary
Keith and Matthew Strachan's music, which unusually runs continuously under the questions rather than only over the titles — one of the few game shows scored like a thriller.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Beatles Anthology
1995ABCDocumentary
The band's own account of itself, assembled with the three surviving members.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBill Nye the Science Guy
1993–1998PBS / SyndicationDocumentary
Science for children at the speed of a music video, with a theme that shouts the presenter's name.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRobot Wars
1998–2018BBC TwoDocumentary
Twenty-one seconds of sparks and industrial metal, for a programme in which people destroyed their own hardware for sport.
- Seasons 1–4
1 sequenceNBA on NBC
1990–2002NBCDocumentary
Roundball Rock, written by John Tesh and hummed into an answering machine because he had no way to record it — the most fondly remembered sports theme in America.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCome Outside
1993–1997BBC TwoDocumentary
Auntie Mabel and her dog Pippin flying a spotted aeroplane to find out where one ordinary thing comes from.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWalking with Dinosaurs
1999BBC OneDocumentary
A natural history series about animals nobody has filmed, shot as though somebody had.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGrand Designs
1999–Channel 4Documentary
One self-build per episode, opening on drawings that assemble themselves into the house you are about to watch fail to be finished on time.
- Season 20
1 sequenceArt Attack
1990–2007ITVDocumentary
Neil Buchanan making things out of household rubbish, and the big art laid out on the floor at the end.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBeakman's World
1992–1998TLC / CBSDocumentary
Science explained by a man in a green coat and a person in a rat suit, which is more rigorous than it sounds.
- Season 4
1 sequenceThe Crocodile Hunter
1996–2004Animal PlanetDocumentary
Steve Irwin handling animals at arm's length or closer, for eight years.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Crystal Maze
1990–Channel 4Documentary
Four themed zones and a warehouse in Essex, opened with an orchestral fanfare grander than any game show has earned before or since.
- Season 5
1 sequenceForensic Files
1996–2011TLC / Court TV / truTVDocumentary
Real cases retold through the laboratory work that closed them, and the programme that made luminol a household word.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGladiators
1992–2000ITVDocumentary
Contenders ready, gladiators ready — a Saturday-night format built entirely out of its own catchphrases.
- Seasons 1–8
1 sequenceIron Chef
1993–1999Fuji TVDocumentary
A cookery contest staged as a martial-arts tournament, presided over by a man in a gold cape.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJudge Judy
1996–2021SyndicationDocumentary
Small claims heard by a former family court judge who lets almost nobody finish a sentence.
- Season 1
1 sequenceLegends of the Hidden Temple
1993–1995NickelodeonDocumentary
A children's game show staged inside a temple, presided over by a talking stone head.
- Season 1
1 sequenceLouis Theroux's Weird Weekends
1998–2000BBC TwoDocumentary
Theroux embedding himself with American subcultures and letting the awkwardness do the work.
- Season 1
1 sequenceNickelodeon Guts
1992–1995NickelodeonDocumentary
Children competing on wires and ramps, and climbing a fake mountain that shed foam.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTotal Request Live
1998–2008MTVDocumentary
MTV's daily video countdown, broadcast from a studio above Times Square with the crowd outside kept in shot.
- Season 5
1 sequenceWCW Monday Nitro
1995–2001TNTDocumentary
The programme that made Monday nights a ratings war, and lost it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWhere in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
1991–1995PBSDocumentary
A geography quiz whose house band sang the answers, and which taught a generation of children where Ouagadougou is.
- Season 1
1 sequenceZoboomafoo
1999–2001PBS Kids / CBCDocumentary
The Kratt brothers and a leaping lemur, teaching natural history to an audience too young to read.
- Season 1
1980s
1 sequenceUnsolved Mysteries
1987–2002NBCDocumentary
Robert Stack in a trench coat, a synthesiser and a fog machine — the most frightening thing on American television that was not fiction.
- Season 1
1 sequenceReading Rainbow
1983–2006PBSDocumentary
LeVar Burton reading to children for twenty-three years, and "but you don't have to take my word for it".
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmerica's Most Wanted
1988–2013FoxDocumentary
The programme Fox launched itself on, and the one that turned a network into a switchboard.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMTV Unplugged
1989–MTVDocumentary
Sixteen seconds and an acoustic guitar — a format whose whole argument is in the title card.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCatchphrase
1986–ITVDocumentary
Say what you see, and a golden robot called Mr Chips who was the reason anyone watched.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSolid Gold
1980–1988SyndicationDocumentary
The weekly chart countdown as a dance routine, with its own troupe named after it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceNewsnight
1980–BBC TwoDocumentary
The BBC's late analysis programme, opening on a rotating globe of headlines rather than a presenter.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCountryfile
1988–BBC OneDocumentary
Sunday evening rural affairs, and one of the most watched factual programmes in Britain.
- Season 24
1 sequenceAround the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin
1989BBC OneDocumentary
The Verne route without aircraft, and the series that turned a Python into Britain's travel presenter.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGreat Railway Journeys
1980–1999BBC TwoDocumentary
A writer and a railway line, one country per episode, in the strand that gave Michael Palin his second career.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Living Planet
1984BBC OneDocumentary
The Life on Earth sequel, on habitats rather than lineages, opening on the planet doing the sorting.
- Season 1
1 sequenceNightline
1980–ABCDocumentary
A late bulletin that began as nightly updates on the Iran hostage crisis and outlived the crisis by forty-five years.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe $50,000 Pyramid
1981SyndicationDocumentary
One year of the Pyramid format at its highest stake, between the $20,000 and $25,000 versions.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmerica's Funniest Home Videos
1989–ABCDocumentary
A clip show assembled entirely from what the audience sent in, and the longest-running entertainment programme ABC has.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmerican Gladiators
1989–1996SyndicationDocumentary
Members of the public running an assault course against professional athletes in lycra, in a format that outlived its own slot by decades.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBullseye
1981–1995ITVDocumentary
Darts and general knowledge, and a cartoon bull who throws better than the contestants.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCountdown
1982–Channel 4Documentary
The first programme Channel 4 ever broadcast, and a clock sequence that has been recognisable to British afternoons for forty years.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHollywood Squares
1986–1989SyndicationDocumentary
The noughts-and-crosses game revived for syndication, with nine celebrities stacked in a lit grid.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Joy of Painting
1983–1994PBSDocumentary
Bob Ross finishing a landscape in twenty-six minutes, over thirty-one seasons and a permanent afterlife online.
- Season 29
1 sequencePress Your Luck
1983–1986CBSDocumentary
A quiz built around a board that could take everything back, and a contestant who memorised its patterns.
- Season 1
1 sequenceStar Search
1983–1995SyndicationDocumentary
The syndicated talent contest that ran twelve years and handed the singing-competition format almost everything Idol later inherited.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTakeshi's Castle
1986–1990TBSDocumentary
A hundred contestants a week storming a fortress, and the origin of every obstacle-course format that came after it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThis Morning
1988–ITVDocumentary
Daytime television broadcast from the Albert Dock, with a weather map floated in the water outside.
- Season 1
1970s
2 sequencesFamily Feud
1976–ABC / SyndicationDocumentary
Survey says — two families, a buzzer, and a theme rearranged for every host since Richard Dawson.
- Season 1
- Season 35
2 sequencesThe Price Is Right
1972–CBSDocumentary
"Come on down" — the longest-running game show in American television, opening the same way for fifty years.
- Season 1
- Season 36
1 sequenceMonday Night Football
1970–ABCDocumentary
The programme that moved American football into primetime, and gave it a fanfare to arrive on.
- Season 2
1 sequenceSoul Train
1971–2006SyndicationDocumentary
An animated locomotive pulling into a city drawn in airbrush — the longest-running first-run syndicated show in American history opens like a record sleeve.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe World at War
1973–1974ITV (Thames)Documentary
Thames Television's twenty-six part history of the Second World War, still the benchmark for the form.
- Season 1
1 sequenceNBC Nightly News
1970–NBCDocumentary
Fourteen seconds of brass and a rotating globe, which is what a network evening bulletin has been reduced to.
- Season 47
1 sequenceThe Old Grey Whistle Test
1971–1988BBC TwoDocumentary
The serious music programme to Top of the Pops' singles chart, with a harmonica riff and a star-kicker cartoon.
- Season 1
1 sequenceA Question of Sport
1970–2023BBC OneDocumentary
The longest-running sports quiz on television, with a picture board and a what-happened-next round.
- Season 20
1 sequenceLife on Earth
1979BBC TwoDocumentary
The series that invented the modern natural history film, and the template for everything Attenborough made afterwards.
- Season 1
1 sequenceConnections
1978BBC OneDocumentary
James Burke tracing one invention to another across centuries, in a structure the titles set up before he says a word.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAustin City Limits
1974–PBSDocumentary
The longest-running music programme in American television, opening on a painted Austin skyline that is not quite the real one.
- Season 20
1 sequenceThe Ascent of Man
1973BBC TwoDocumentary
Jacob Bronowski on science as a human activity, made as the BBC's answer to its own Civilisation.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Krypton Factor
1977–1995ITVDocumentary
A general knowledge round, an assault course and a mental agility test, opening on a rotating wireframe grid that was expensive in 1977.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSki Sunday
1978–BBC TwoDocumentary
A downhill run cut to Pop Looks Bach, and a theme that in Britain means winter rather than skiing.
- Season 43
1 sequenceBlankety Blank
1979–1990BBC OneDocumentary
A panel game with a deliberately worthless prize, and a microphone shaped like a fishing rod.
- Season 1
1960s
2 sequencesTop of the Pops
1964–2006BBC OneDocumentary
Forty-two years of the chart, and a Phil Lynott instrumental called Yellow Pearl for a theme.
- Season 1
- Seasons 18–20
1 sequenceUniversity Challenge
1962–ITV / BBC TwoDocumentary
College Boy by Derek New, and a split screen that has stacked two teams on top of each other since 1962.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTomorrow's World
1965–2003BBC OneDocumentary
Live demonstrations of things that did not work yet, opening on graphics that promised they would.
- Season 29
1 sequenceReady Steady Go!
1963–1966ITVDocumentary
"The weekend starts here" — the British pop programme that put the Beatles, the Stones and Motown on the same stage.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWorld of Sport
1965–1985ITVDocumentary
ITV's answer to Grandstand, which is remembered now almost entirely for the wrestling at four o'clock.
- Season 20
1 sequenceSportsnight
1968–1997BBC OneDocumentary
The midweek sports programme, and the strand most of British sports broadcasting learned its trade on.
- Season 26
2 sequencesMatch of the Day
1964–BBC OneDocumentary
Barry Stoller's theme, unchanged since 1970, over whatever graphics the decade happens to allow.
- Season 7
- Season 62
1 sequence60 Minutes
1968–CBSDocumentary
A stopwatch and a ticking sound, and nothing else — the shortest argument any programme has made for its own title.
- Season 23
1 sequenceABC's Wide World of Sports
1961–1998ABCDocumentary
"The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" — a narration so well known that the ski-jumper who supplied the agony became famous for falling over.
- Season 20
1950s
2 sequencesBlue Peter
1958–BBC OneDocumentary
The world's longest-running children's programme, opening on a ship in full sail and a hornpipe.
- Season 45
- Season 64
1 sequenceThe Lawrence Welk Show
1951–1982ABC / SyndicationDocumentary
Champagne music, bubbles in the titles, and thirty-one years of the same band leader counting in.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTo Tell the Truth
1956–CBSDocumentary
Three people claiming to be the same person, and the line that ends it — will the real one please stand up.
- Season 1
1 sequencePanorama
1953–BBC OneDocumentary
The longest-running current affairs programme in the world, and a theme borrowed from Rachmaninoff.
- Season 30
1 sequenceTruth or Consequences
1950–1988CBS / NBC / SyndicationDocumentary
A radio stunt show that reached television in 1950 and persuaded a New Mexico town to rename itself after it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Sky at Night
1957–BBC One / BBC FourDocumentary
The longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history, opening on Sibelius' At the Castle Gate.
- Season 1
2 sequencesGrandstand
1958–2007BBC OneDocumentary
Five hours of live sport on a Saturday afternoon, held together by a man at a desk and the teleprinter behind him.
- Season 23
- Season 33
1 sequenceHockey Night in Canada
1952–CBC / SportsnetDocumentary
A theme so embedded that when the CBC lost the rights to it in 2008 the story led the national news.
- Season 70
1940s
1 sequenceThe Ed Sullivan Show
1948–1971CBSDocumentary
Twenty-three years of Sunday nights, and the stage the Beatles and Elvis were introduced to America from.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMeet the Press
1947–NBCDocumentary
The longest-running programme in television history, and fifteen seconds of titles to show for seventy-seven years.
- Season 77