ITV

110 shows, 118 sequences, oldest first.

8 of these moved between networks during their run and appear under each one.

1 sequence

Ivor the Engine

1959–1977·ITV / BBC One·Animation

A Welsh locomotive who wants to sing in the choir, drawn in pencil and cut out by hand.

• Season 1

2 sequences

Coronation Street

1960–·ITV·Drama

The longest-running television soap in the world, opening on rooftops and a cornet ever since 1960.

• Season 1
• Season 31

1 sequence

Danger Man

1960–1968·ITV·Drama

Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, the series he left to make The Prisoner.

• Season 1

1 sequence

University Challenge

1962–·ITV / BBC Two·Documentary

College Boy by Derek New, and a split screen that has stacked two teams on top of each other since 1962.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Ready Steady Go!

1963–1966·ITV·Documentary

"The weekend starts here" — the British pop programme that put the Beatles, the Stones and Motown on the same stage.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Stingray

1964–1965·ITV·Sci-Fi

"Stand by for action!" — the first British series filmed entirely in colour, and it opens by saying so.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Thunderbirds

1965–1966·ITV·Sci-Fi

Five, four, three, two, one — the countdown, the launch bays, and Barry Gray's march. Probably the most quoted title sequence Britain has produced.

• Season 1

1 sequence

World of Sport

1965–1985·ITV·Documentary

ITV's answer to Grandstand, which is remembered now almost entirely for the wrestling at four o'clock.

• Season 20

1 sequence

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

1967–1968·ITV·Sci-Fi

Anderson's darkest supermarionation series, opened by two rings of light moving across a wall.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Prisoner

1967–1968·ITV·Sci-Fi

Thunder, a Lotus Seven driven hard past Parliament, a resignation letter slammed onto a desk, and then gas under the door of a man's own flat. Two minutes that explain the entire premise without a narrator, and end with the only line the show ever needed: I am not a number.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Department S

1969–1970·ITV·Drama

An Interpol unit for cases nobody else can explain, which gave Jason King his own spin-off.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)

1969–1970·ITV·Crime

A private investigator and his dead partner, who only he can see, in a white suit.

• Season 1

1 sequence

UFO

1970–1971·ITV·Sci-Fi

Anderson's first live-action series, set in a 1980 that never arrived, with purple wigs and a Barry Gray theme.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Persuaders!

1971–1972·ITV·Drama

Roger Moore and Tony Curtis as bickering millionaires, opened by John Barry's most-covered television theme.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Upstairs, Downstairs

1971–1975·ITV·Drama

The Edwardian household drama that Downton Abbey is, by its own creator's admission, a direct descendant of.

• Season 1

2 sequences

Emmerdale

1972–·ITV·Drama

A Yorkshire Dales farming serial that dropped Farm from its name in 1989 and kept the landscape.

• Season 27
• Season 49

1 sequence

Rainbow

1972–1992·ITV·Comedy

Zippy, George and Bungle, and a theme about a paintbox in the sky that ran for twenty years.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Tomorrow People

1973–1979·ITV·Sci-Fi

Children evolving telepathy in a Thames Television series remade twice since.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Thriller (1973)

1973–1976·ITV·Horror

Brian Clemens' anthology of feature-length suspense plays, sold to America as a late-night staple.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Rising Damp

1974–1978·ITV·Comedy

Leonard Rossiter as a boarding-house landlord, and the most successful ITV sitcom of the seventies.

• Season 1

2 sequences

Space: 1999

1975–1977·ITV·Sci-Fi

The most confident opening Gerry Anderson ever made: a burst of brass, then a rapid-fire montage of clips from the episode you are about to watch, so no two broadcasts were identical.

• Season 1
• Season 2

1 sequence

The Sweeney

1975–1978·ITV·Crime

The Flying Squad in a Ford Granada, and the series that made British police drama violent.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Chorlton and the Wheelies

1976–1979·ITV·Animation

A happiness dragon in Wheelie World, from the studio that went on to make Danger Mouse.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Jamie and the Magic Torch

1976–1979·ITV·Animation

A torch that opens a hole in the bedroom floor down a helter-skelter into Cuckoo Land.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Muppet Show

1976–1981·ITV / Syndication·Comedy

An opening that changes every week by design: Statler and Waldorf get a new heckle, Gonzo gets a new way to fail the closing note, and the arch fills with whoever is in that episode.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Jesus of Nazareth

1977·RAI / ITV·Drama

Zeffirelli's six-hour life of Christ, cast so deeply that the titles are mostly name cards.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Robin's Nest

1977–1981·ITV·Comedy

The second Man About the House spin-off, with Robin running a bistro in Fulham.

• Season 2

1 sequence

The Krypton Factor

1977–1995·ITV·Documentary

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 sequence

The Professionals

1977–1983·ITV·Crime

Two CI5 agents and the controller who points them, in the ITV action series that spent a decade being complained about.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Sandbaggers

1978–1980·ITV·Drama

British intelligence run as an office job, with the operations mostly discussed rather than shown.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Minder

1979–1994·ITV·Comedy

Arthur Daley and his minder, and a theme song sung by Dennis Waterman about Dennis Waterman.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Only When I Laugh

1979–1982·ITV·Comedy

Three men in a hospital ward who are not especially ill, and the registrar who cannot discharge them.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Sapphire & Steel

1979–1982·ITV·Sci-Fi

Two operatives who are not people, sent to repair breaks in time, explained to the audience only by a narrated list of elements.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Tales of the Unexpected

1979–1988·ITV·Horror

A dancing silhouette, a spinning roulette wheel and Ron Grainer's theme — an anthology opening far more unsettling than most of the stories that follow it.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Worzel Gummidge

1979–1981·ITV·Comedy

A scarecrow who swaps heads for different moods, played by a former Doctor Who.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Button Moon

1980–1988·ITV·Animation

Puppets made of kitchen utensils flying to a moon made of a button, with a theme sung by Peter Davison's wife and later covered by him.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Hammer House of Horror

1980·ITV·Horror

Hammer's one television anthology, made after the films had stopped and shot on the same estate.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Metal Mickey

1980–1983·ITV·Comedy

A robot in a suburban family sitcom, directed by Micky Dolenz of the Monkees.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Brideshead Revisited

1981·ITV·Drama

Geoffrey Burgon's theme over an English country house — eleven hours of television that changed what British drama believed it could spend money on.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Bullseye

1981–1995·ITV·Documentary

Darts and general knowledge, and a cartoon bull who throws better than the contestants.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Stig of the Dump

1981·ITV·Drama

Clive King's boy in a chalk pit and the person living at the bottom of it, adapted by Thames.

• Season 1

2 sequences

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet

1983–1986·ITV·Comedy

Seven British builders sharing a hut on a Düsseldorf site, written as a comedy about not being able to find work at home.

• Season 1
• Season 2

1 sequence

Reilly, Ace of Spies

1983·ITV·Drama

Sidney Reilly across twelve parts, and the serial that gave Sam Neill his first lead.

• Season 1

3 sequences

The Bill

1983–2010·ITV·Crime

A London police station shot at ground level, under a rule the programme kept for twenty-seven years: no scene an officer is not present for.

• Season 1
• Season 4
• Season 5

1 sequence

Robin of Sherwood

1984–1986·ITV·Drama

The Robin Hood that put a horned god behind the legend, scored throughout by Clannad.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Sherlock Holmes (1984)

1984–1994·ITV·Crime

Granada's adaptation, played on a Baker Street built outdoors in Manchester and continued until Jeremy Brett could no longer work.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Spitting Image

1984–1996·ITV·Comedy

Latex puppets of everyone in public life, opening on the workshop that built them.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Trap Door

1984–1986·ITV·Animation

Plasticine creatures in a castle basement, with a theme built from a voice going "don't you open that trap door".

• Season 1

1 sequence

Thomas & Friends

1984–2021·ITV·Animation

Model locomotives shot a frame at a time on a table in Britain, narrated for the first two series by Ringo Starr.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

1984–2021·ITV·Animation

Model railway engines shot at eye level and narrated by Ringo Starr, from the Awdry books.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Dempsey and Makepeace

1985–1986·ITV·Crime

An American detective seconded to London and the aristocrat he is partnered with, who married in real life.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Boon

1986–1995·ITV·Crime

A retired fireman on a motorcycle, in the ITV drama that ran nine years on the strength of Jim Diamond's theme.

• Season 5

1 sequence

Catchphrase

1986–·ITV·Documentary

Say what you see, and a golden robot called Mr Chips who was the reason anyone watched.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Knightmare

1987–1994·ITV·Sci-Fi

A blindfolded child walked through a bluescreen dungeon by teammates who can see it — the first television format built on a video game's logic.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Ruth Rendell Mysteries

1987–2000·ITV·Crime

Rendell adapted for thirteen years, mostly as Wexford and occasionally as the standalone novels.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Hale and Pace

1988–1998·ITV·Comedy

Two former schoolteachers doing sketch comedy for ITV for a decade.

• Season 1

1 sequence

This Morning

1988–·ITV·Documentary

Daytime television broadcast from the Albert Dock, with a weather map floated in the water outside.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Agatha Christie's Poirot

1989–2013·ITV·Crime

Art Deco geometry and Christopher Gunning's theme — a title sequence that establishes the period, the register and the fastidiousness of the detective in one gesture.

• Season 1

2 sequences

Birds of a Feather

1989–2020·BBC One / ITV·Comedy

Two sisters in Chigwell whose husbands are both in prison.

• Season 1
• Season 10

1 sequence

Press Gang

1989–1993·ITV·Drama

A school newspaper written by Steven Moffat, which is why the dialogue is faster than the format.

• Season 1

1 sequence

TUGS

1989·ITV·Animation

Model tugboats in a 1920s harbour, made by the Thomas the Tank Engine team and considerably darker.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Art Attack

1990–2007·ITV·Documentary

Neil Buchanan making things out of household rubbish, and the big art laid out on the floor at the end.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Jeeves and Wooster

1990–1993·ITV·Comedy

Wodehouse played by Fry and Laurie, who had spent the previous decade writing sketches together.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Mr. Bean

1990–1995·ITV·Comedy

A man dropped from the sky in a spotlight while a choir sings about him in Latin, every week, for a character who never explains himself.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Rosie and Jim

1990–2000·ITV·Comedy

Two rag dolls on a narrowboat who come alive when the adult is not looking.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Upper Hand

1990–1996·ITV·Comedy

Who's the Boss? remade for ITV, and one of the few American formats that worked coming the other way.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Prime Suspect

1991–2006·ITV·Crime

Stephen Warbeck's theme over London at night — spare, cold, and entirely without the reassurance the genre usually offers.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Soldier Soldier

1991–1997·ITV·Drama

A fictional infantry regiment and the families attached to it, which made two of its cast into pop stars.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Darling Buds of May

1991–1993·ITV·Comedy

H. E. Bates's Kent farming family, and the series that made Catherine Zeta-Jones a household name inside a fortnight.

• Season 1

1 sequence

A Touch of Frost

1992–2010·ITV·Crime

David Jason as a Denton detective who is right and insubordinate in roughly equal measure.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Gladiators

1992–2000·ITV·Documentary

Contenders ready, gladiators ready — a Saturday-night format built entirely out of its own catchphrases.

• Seasons 1–8

1 sequence

Heartbeat

1992–2010·ITV·Drama

A Yorkshire village policeman in the 1960s, opened by the Buddy Holly song the series is named for.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Men Behaving Badly

1992–1998·ITV / BBC One·Comedy

Two flatmates and the phrase the British press attached to a decade.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Cracker

1993–2006·ITV·Crime

Nineteen seconds, and no attempt to make its criminal psychologist look like someone you would want to meet.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Sharpe

1993–2008·ITV·Drama

A rifleman commissioned out of the ranks in the Peninsular War, filmed for its first runs in Crimea.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Sooty & Co

1993–1998·ITV·Comedy

The Sooty puppets moved to a shop, in the ITV series Matthew Corbett handed over at the end of.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Tots TV

1993–1998·ITV·Comedy

Three rag dolls with a bag, one of whom only speaks French, from the studio that went on to make Teletubbies.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Wycliffe

1993–1998·ITV·Crime

A detective superintendent working Cornwall, filmed largely on the coast it is set on.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Kipper

1997–2000·ITV·Animation

Mick Inkpen's dog animated at the pace of the picture books, which is to say slowly and on purpose.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Midsomer Murders

1997–·ITV·Crime

A theremin over English villages — the single most incongruous pairing of instrument and setting in television, and the reason the show is recognisable in four notes.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Where the Heart Is

1997–2006·ITV·Drama

District nurses in a Yorkshire town, which ran nine years on almost no incident.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Hornblower

1998–2003·ITV·Drama

Forester's naval officer, made not as a series but as eight television films spread over five years.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Worst Witch

1998–2001·ITV·Sci-Fi

Jill Murphy's boarding school for witches, filmed a year before the first Harry Potter book was published in America.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

1998–·ITV·Documentary

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 sequence

Bad Girls

1999–2006·ITV·Drama

A women's prison wing written by two of Prisoner Cell Block H's admirers, and ITV's answer to it.

• Season 1

2 sequences

Big Brother (UK)

2000–·Channel 4 / ITV·Documentary

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 sequence

I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!

2002–·ITV·Documentary

Celebrities in an Australian jungle, and one of the few formats whose titles are remade from scratch every series.

• Season 24

1 sequence

Mr. Bean: The Animated Series

2002–2019·ITV·Animation

The character animated, which suits him — he barely spoke in live action either.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Rosemary & Thyme

2003–2007·ITV·Crime

Two gardeners who keep finding bodies in the borders they have been hired to replant.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Agatha Christie's Marple

2004–2013·ITV·Crime

The ITV Marple, which adapted novels Miss Marple was never in by writing her into them.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Doc Martin

2004–2022·ITV·Comedy

A London surgeon with a blood phobia relocated to a Cornish village that will not leave him alone.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The X Factor

2004–2018·ITV·Documentary

Simon Cowell's format after Pop Idol, opening on a spotlight sweep and a fanfare rebuilt every few series.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Dancing on Ice

2006–·ITV·Documentary

Celebrities skating in pairs, judged by Torvill and Dean, who had won the thing for real.

• Season 7

1 sequence

Benidorm

2007–2018·ITV·Comedy

An all-inclusive Spanish resort and the same British families returning to it for ten series.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Britain's Got Talent

2007–·ITV·Documentary

The variety format that exported itself to seventy countries, and the theme it kept for its first four series.

• Seasons 1–4

1 sequence

Primeval

2007–2011·ITV·Sci-Fi

Anomalies in time opening across England and letting prehistory through, in ITV's answer to the revived Doctor Who.

• Season 3

1 sequence

Law & Order: UK

2009–2014·ITV·Crime

American scripts reshot in London with the two-part structure intact, and the chung-chung kept.

• Season 6

1 sequence

Whitechapel

2009–2013·ITV·Crime

Modern police work in the streets the Ripper murders happened in, with each series restaging an old case.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Downton Abbey

2010–2015·ITV·Drama

A dog's back, a bell board and a house — thirty-one seconds establishing an entire social order without showing a single face.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Penn & Teller: Fool Us

2011–·ITV / The CW·Documentary

Magicians performing one trick each for two men who will say afterwards whether they worked out how it was done.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Vera

2011–·ITV·Crime

Northumberland coast and moorland in twenty seconds, with no detective visible in any of it.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Endeavour

2012–2023·ITV·Crime

The Morse prequel, which quotes Pheloung's Morse-code motif in its own theme without repeating it.

• Season 1

1 sequence

The Bletchley Circle

2012–2014·ITV·Crime

Four women who broke codes during the war, using the same habits on a murder afterwards.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Broadchurch

2013–2017·ITV·Crime

Dorset cliffs and a beach, filmed as beautifully as a tourist board would want and used for the opposite purpose.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Mr Selfridge

2013–2016·ITV·Drama

The American who opened a department store on Oxford Street and spent everything keeping it.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Vicious

2013–2016·ITV·Comedy

Two actors who have lived together for fifty years, insulting each other in front of a studio audience.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Unforgotten

2015–·ITV·Crime

Two detectives working cold cases old enough that the suspects have built whole lives since.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Jericho (2016)

2016·ITV·Drama

A shanty town thrown up under a Victorian railway viaduct in Yorkshire, and ITV's attempt at a British western.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Victoria

2016–2019·ITV·Drama

The young queen's first years, opened by a jewelled monogram assembling itself.

• Season 1

1 sequence

Too Close

2021·ITV·Drama

A forensic psychiatrist and the patient who will not stay on her side of the table.

• Season 1