Younger generations are more likely to name an American sitcom as their top choice
Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the first time that Fawlty Towers hit British screens. In honour of the occasion, a new YouGov survey asks the public: what is your favourite sitcom?
Given the list of sitcoms is enormous, we provided a box in which Brits could write down their favoured answer, with 54% telling us that they had a favourite.
Restricting our sample to only those who gave an answer shows that, 21 years after its final episode, US comedy Friends comes top with 14% of the vote.
Only Fools and Horses comes a close second, with 12% saying it is their personal favourite.
These are the only two shows that garner more than 10% of the vote – not necessarily surprising when you consider that the vote is spread over fully 137 different sitcoms that people named as their favourites.
In third place comes Big Bang Theory, which 6% named as their top pick.
Half a century after it first aired, Fawlty Towers still features highly on our list, ranking joint-fourth alongside Gavin and Stacey, The Office, Modern Family, and Not Going Out on 3% of the vote.
Rounding out the top ten are a cluster of six shows that all rank at joint-ninth on 2%: British shows Dad’s Army and Friday Night Dinner and US sitcoms Brooklyn 99, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Frasier, and the US version of The Office.
Friends is most popular among Millennials
While Friends topped the national list, it is among Millennials specifically that the show reigns supreme, winning 25% of the vote among this age group, far ahead of any other sitcom.
For Gen Z, Friends most share the top spot on the podium with more recent sitcom Modern Family, with both garnering 13% of the vote among the youngest adults. Among Gen X, Friends comes second to Only Fools and Horses at 13% and 17% respectively, while for Boomers it barely features, with just 2% naming it their favourite.
Instead, Boomers are most likely to name Only Fools and Horses as their favourite sitcom (18%), with Dad’s Army (7%) and Fawlty Towers (6%) placing second and third.
There is also a notable gender divide when it comes to favourite sitcoms. Friends is a notably more popular choice among women, of whom 23% said it was their favourite, compared to only 4% of men.
Instead, men are more likely to say that Only Fools and Horses is their favourite sitcom, at 16%, compared to 7% of women.
Younger Britons are most likely to name an American show as their favourite sitcom
Shows that 58% of those who told us their favourite sitcom named a British show, while 41% named an American show.
While British shows might have been named by the majority, there is a clear trend towards most preferring an American show among younger Britons. While 85% of Baby Boomers named a British sitcom as their favourite, and 69% of Gen Xers did the same, this falls to just 36% of Millennials and 30% of Gen Z.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a strong correlation between people’s age and the era their favourite sitcom originally aired. Most Gen Zers (54%) picked favourite sitcoms from the 2010s, while only 20% of Baby Boomers – instead two-thirds of Boomers (66%) favour shows that ran in the 70s, 80s or 90s.
What is your favourite sitcom? What do you think about British versus American comedy, and everything else? Have your say, join the YouGov panel, and get paid to share your thoughts. Sign up here.
Photos: Getty
