Britain's Best Sitcom is a 12-episode documentary series that BBC Two transmitted from 10 January to 27 March 2004. It was part of a nationwide media campaign and opinion poll conducted by the BBC in 2003 and 2004.
The BBC asked television viewers to select their favourite British situation comedies from a list of 100, with the option to supply one write-in candidate. In the first poll, conducted in August 2003, viewers could vote via telephone or the BBC's website; the second, conducted January–March 2004, added the option of voting by text message. This second poll coincided with the television programme, which celebrated the top 50 sitcoms from the first poll, and urged viewers to vote their preference from the top 10.
In the three-hour premiere episode, Jonathan Ross summarised the progress of the poll, and presented video clips from the 50 sitcoms that received the most votes. This list constituted the nominees for the first of the two rounds of votes solicited from the public.
The BBC posted a homepage and ballot web page for the Britain's Best Sitcom poll to the BBCi website on 28 July 2003. In August, they advertised the poll in the Radio Times magazine, on the BBCi website, and via the national teletext service Ceefax,
The ballot required voters either to select 10 sitcoms from the list, or to select nine and then nominate a write-in candidate. The press release provided more details about the programme and the vote, including an alphabetical list of the 10 finalists, and a ranked list of the rest of the top 50 sitcoms. The premiere episode of Britain's Best Sitcom began at 9 PM and concluded at midnight. From Goodnight Sweetheart (number 50) to Father Ted (number 11), it counted down the 50 highest-ranked sitcoms.
The poll opened at 9 PM on 10 January 2004 (when the Britain's Best Sitcom premiere began). The voting rules allowed up to five people per household to vote. After the transmission of each weekly episode, viewer's had an opportunity to change their vote. The BBC collected demographic profile data as part of the poll. It required online voters to answer three market segmentation questions: whether they are male or female; which region of the UK they live in, and which age group they belong to.