ITV

Tag: Greatest Briton

  • Gandhi voted into top 10 greatest S. Africans of all time

    Gandhi voted into top 10 greatest S. Africans of all time

    MUMBAI: The South African version of the BBC television format The Greats has resulted in Mahatma Gandhi being listed as one of the ten greatest South Africans of all time.

    In Great South Africans, based on the BBC’s Great Britons, public service broadcaster SABC 3 asked the South African public to vote for the country’s greatest men and women. Many South Africans voted for Mahatma Ghandi, thus making him one of the top ten.

    The vote is now on to decide which one out of the list will be most deserving of a place in history next to Nelson Mandela. In a surprise departure from the original BBC format, Nelson Mandela was declared the Greatest South African of all and the public is now being asked to vote for a winner from the other nine Great South Africans. The BBC’s Great Britons led to Winston Churchill being voted the Greatest Briton.

    The format of the show was licensed to SABC 3 by BBC Worldwide, the commercial consumer arm of the BBC. BBC Worldwide head of Africa, South Asia and Middle East Monisha Shah commented, “One of the most interesting aspects of the format of The Greats is that it provides so many topics for nation wide discussion: ‘What is greatness?’ ‘What qualifies one – in this case – as a Great South African?’ It is a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi’s lasting legacy that South Africa considers him one of its own. We look forward to licensing a similar programme about Great Indians which will generate similar interest in India’s icons, past and present.”

    Over the next nine weeks, celebrity ‘champions’ will try to convince the public why their candidate should win, in 30-minute documentaries on SABC 3. Author and journalist Brenda Kali, herself a member of the Indian community in South Africa, will be Mahatma Gandhi’s advocate.

    The top ten Great South Africans as voted for by the South African public includes: Dr Christiaan Barnard, F W De Klerk, Mahatma Gandhi, Nkosi Johnson; Winnie Madikizela Mandela; Nelson Mandela; Thabo Mbeki; Gary Player; Jan Smuts and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

    BBC Worldwide has also licensed the format of The Greats to Germany, where more than three million votes were cast and statesman Konrad Adenauer was voted ‘Best German’, to Finland and The Netherlands where the top ten is due to be announced shortly, and to Portugal, Canada, and Czech Republic and Russia, while negotiations are underway with broadcasters in many more countries around the world.

  • Scientist Newton is the ‘Greatest Briton’ according to BBC World viewers

    LONDON: Scientist Sir Isaac Newton has been voted the Greatest Briton by viewers of BBC World, following a 10-week series that profiled some of the most eminent British men and women in history, a company release stated yesterday
    The results will be broadcast in Great Britons: The World’s Greatest Briton on BBC World at 7.40 pm this evening and repeated thrice tomorrow, at 2.40 am, 2.40 pm and 11.40 pm.
    The man who calculated the theory of gravity won the poll with 21.4 per cent of votes, beating Sir Winston Churchill, who attracted 17 per cent. Princess Diana of Wales came third, with 13 per cent votes.


    The BBC release said, Tristram Hunt, the historian who presented the Great Britons profile of Newton, said he was delighted that his choice had won. “Newton’s achievements affected all mankind and I think it is a proper reflection of his genius that a global audience has voted him the Greatest Briton. Indeed, it was Newton’s advances in physics — his understanding of gravity and planetary motion — that have sent satellites into space and allowed this series to be beamed round the globe. The world has now repaid the favour.”
    Great Britons was launched in June on BBC World. It followed a highly successful series on BBC Television in the UK, in which viewers selected Sir Winston Churchill as their Greatest Briton. BBC World’s global version kept the original shortlist of 10, which had been chosen through a separate public vote.
    Commissioning editor of Great Britons for BBC World Narendhra Morar said, “One of the reasons for Newton’s victory was that the poll was conducted online and he would appeal to younger, computer-savvy voters. It’s fascinating that our viewers chose a different greatest Briton to the original series, although Churchill still had a strong following and actually came first among BBC World’s ex-pat viewers.”
    The final BBC World result is as follows:
    Name and year    Percentage votes
    Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)    21.4
    Sir Winston Churchill (1874- 1965)    17
    Princess Diana (1961- ’97)    13
    William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)    12.1
    Charles Darwin (1809 -’82)    10.1
    John Lennon (1940 – ’80)    8
    Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-’59)    7.9
    Elizabeth I (1533 – 1603)    
    6.1

    Oliver Cromwell (1599 – 1658)    2.2
    Horatio Nelson, Viscount Nelson (1758 – 1805)    2.1

  • BBC World invites votes for ‘Greatest Briton’

    BBC World invites votes for ‘Greatest Briton’

    MUMBAI: Last year in a BBC poll, 1.6 million UK viewers voted for Sir Winston Churchill as the “greatest Briton”. Now, the survey broadens it’s reach to the rest of the world to find out whether or not we agree with that choice.

    Votes must be cast through the site www.bbcworld.com/vote. The site also has a biography of all ten Britons on the shortlist, as well as summaries of each presenter’s argument and pertinent facts about the nominees. They include Churchill, Charles Darwin, Princess Diana, John Lennon amongst others.

    On air, the channel commenced the weekly series Great Britons from 7 June every Saturday at 7:40 pm with a repeat on Sunday’s at 2:40 pm and 11:40 pm.

    Presenters – including the conservative politician Michael Portillo, the historian Tristram Hunt and Jeremy Clarkson, the presenter of Top Gear – will explain passionately why their choice deserves to be named as the world’s greatest Briton.

    In the final programme in the series, scheduled to be broadcast on 16 and 17 August, Click Online presenter Stephen Cole will reveal the results of the global voting. The poll will provide an insight into the figures whom international viewers consider their twenty-first century role models.