Big Brother is one of Top 20 TV landmarks

The Channel 4 reality series Big Brother was ranked yesterday alongside the Apollo moon landing and Live Aid as one of the greatest landmarks in TV history.

Radio Times has drawn up a list of 20 programmes that changed our views of the world, with highlights spanning 40 years. The most recent event to make the list was coverage of the 11 September attacks, the numbing images of airliners hurtling into New York's World Trade Centre in 2001.

The compiler, Hugo Davenport, included Big Brother for kickstarting the interest in reality TV. He says of the show: "This multimedia event - pointless, trivial, banal, but obsessive - stoked the appetite for talent-free celebrity."

The list shows 1969 was a golden year for television landmarks. It included the launch of classic comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus, the moon landing and an unprecedented peek into the world of the Windsors in Royal Family.

The Ethiopian famine of 1984 sparked two entries in the list - Michael Buerk's heartrending reports from the country and the Live Aid broadcast the following year.

Mr Davenport says: "No one had ever used television's global reach to such direct effect." The top 10 programmes were:

1. That Was The Week That Was (1962)

2. JFK assassination (1963)

3. Till Death Us Do Part (1965)

4. Cathy Come Home (1966)

5. Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969)

6. Apollo moon landing (1969)

7. Royal Family (1969)

8. The World At War (1973)

9. Tiswas (1974)

10. The Naked Civil Servant (1975)