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This year, the Bafta TV Awards feel relatively young at 71. After all, David Attenborough has just turned 100, and August marks the 90th anniversary of BBC television. But Sunday’s ceremony is a long-established and recognised celebration of the state of British TV – which isn’t always easy to predict.
The frontrunner for this year’s awards – featuring new host Greg Davies – is Adolescence, which has 11 nominations. But its chances may be affected by the qualifying period for shows – the previous calendar year – meaning entries aired between 17 and five months ago. Given that Adolescence was dropped by Netflix on 13 March last year, some voters may conclude that it has already been honoured enough. (At last month’s separate Craft awards, it surprisingly lost the Writer category to Slow Horses.)
Each panel is sequestered, meaning that jurors have no knowledge of the likely winner of a category they aren’t a panellist for. But as they sometimes cast their votes based on who they think is likely to win other categories, some might vote against highly nominated shows such as Adolescence (or A Thousand Blows or The Celebrity Traitors) – assuming they have won another category. With the same two female actors unusually nominated in both the best and supporting sections, there is a greater than usual chance of such treacherous second guessing causing nominees to miss out.
Here are my predictions and preferences.(Despite being a Bafta voter, I have no inside knowledge of winners.)
Limited drama
Channel 4’s Troubles romance Trespasses and ITV’s I Fought The Law, with a grieving mother taking on parliament, are high-class contenders but, given the impact made by digital radicalisation drama Adolescence, the failure of the Netflix sensation to win would be equivalent to a Grand National favourite tripping on a divot just before the line.
Drama series
Just as the main threat to Adolescence turning its nominations into honours is patriotic voters leery of American streamers cleaning up at the British Academy, only snobbishness about Disney+ should prevent its 19th-century bare-knuckle boxing saga A Thousand Blows from knocking out its strongest challenger, BBC Northern Irish cop show Blue Lights.
Leading actor
If the first two predictions prove right, there will have been a lot of cutaways of Stephen Graham, given his involvement in both predicted winners. But his viscerally immersive performance of a parental nightmare feels impossible for jurors to vote against.
Leading actress
Probably the most contested and complex category, with Aimee Lou Wood and Erin Doherty listed for their “other” shows: Film Club and A Thousand Blows, rather than The White Lotus and Adolescence. But Sheridan Smith has become the most technically accomplished and emotionally affecting British TV actor since Julie Walters (who once dominated this category) and should win for her raw portrait of deep grief turned to social purpose as campaigner Ann Ming, mother of a murdered daughter, in ITV’s I Fought The Law.
Supporting actor
Unless multiple jurors have concluded that the show has won enough already, 16-year-old Owen Cooper should take this for his pivotal performance in Adolescence – and deserves to, as his young Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights suggests a rare child star who could go on to a formidable adult career.
Supporting actress
There should have been love in the jury room for Aimee Lou Wood as the moral heart of The White Lotus and Rose Ayling-Ellis in the sonically innovative Reunion. But – while it’s generally better if awards are shared around – Erin Doherty’s performance as forensic psychiatrist Briony in Adolescence should be shown in all drama schools as an example of the stillness and intelligence that make great screen acting.
Scripted comedy
Voters are urged to ignore external factors, which includes gender. But female comedy (in Amandaland and Things You Should Have Done) feels pitted against the humour of masculinity: How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) and Big Boys. Glad not to have been a voter, I marginally predict the Lucy Punch show on grounds of freshness.
Best actress in a comedy
Those shots of nominees gamely smiling when somebody else wins should be less forced than normal here as half the possibilities – Punch, Jennifer Saunders, Philippa Dunne – are from Amandaland. This domination risks splitting the show’s vote which could help multi-franchise comic genius Diane Morgan to win for the confusingly non-Amandaland-related Mandy.
Best actor in a comedy
A very open category, with all six results plausible and deserved. They range from TV grandee – Steve Coogan for Partridge’s probing of neurodiversity – to relative newbie: Oliver Savell as the schoolboy Alan Carr in Changing Ends. (Possibly helped by Carr’s Traitors boost?) As Lenny Rush (Am I Being Unreasonable?), won last year, a popular victor would be Mawaan Rizwan for Juice.
Entertainment
The Graham Norton Show and Would I Lie To You? have previously won. The frequently nominated Michael McIntyre’s Big Show never has and that might be corrected this year. But, if there wasn’t streamer-fear in the room, Prime Video’s Last One Laughing feels the smart option here.
Entertainment performance
Joe Lycett, winner for the last two years, is absent, which must improve the chances of Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan, who he beat both times. But a semi-declared aim of the Baftas is to tell the story of last year’s TV, which helps Claudia Winkleman for the remarkable visibility of The Celebrity Traitors.
Reality
On the same basis, The Celebrity Traitors feels a shoo-in here, especially given that, if the rival Virgin Island (Channel 4) won, Bafta would need 24/7 damage limitation PR.
Factual entertainment
In the most progressive category, the interesting choices would be ITV’s neurodiverse press conference The Assembly or Channel 4’s immigration gameshow Go Back To Where You Came From. Anecdotal evidence that Bafta jurors shy away from dislikable concepts or competitors favour the former.
Soap
With slots and audiences shrinking, this category increasingly feels like trying to run Crufts in a town with only three dogs. EastEnders won last year and Casualty the two before that, so in the interests of freshness, 2022 victor Coronation Street should come round again.
Daytime
Who cares much? But, marginally, BBC One’s Scam Interceptors, a real public service, over-enduring ITV quizshow, The Chase.
International
A ludicrous category as streamers unleash an international deluge, various of which (Adolescence, A Thousand Blows) are tactically moved to other categories due to British personnel. My vote goes to Netflix’s The Diplomat, the best TV political drama since The West Wing, but Pluribus, The Bear and The Studio run it close.
Current affairs
Despite jury instructions to ignore outside noise, it would be an upset if Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, rejected by the BBC but reprieved by Channel 4, a potentially attractive narrative to some jurors, doesn’t win.
Specialist factual
If Adolescence and A Thousand Blows convert nods into acceptance speeches, these may be seen as the Baftas in which the dominance of streamers over terrestrial networks reached tipping point. This category could be symbolic if two classic BBC docs – Belsen: What They Found and Simon Schama: The Road To Auschwitz – lose out to Netflix’s Surviving Black Hawk Down or, more likely, Apple’s magisterial Vietnam: The War That Changed America.
Single documentary
Here, too, a wannabe doc-maker – Netflix’s Grenfell: Uncovered – challenges a cherished British genre. Helped by his Manosphere film coinciding with voting, the UK’s most recognisable documentarian feels the one to beat with Louis Theroux: The Settlers, but the closer to home emotions of One Day In Southport could give this to Channel 4.
News coverage
A queasy category that asks judges to make technical distinctions between terrible scenes. The tense current context means that tough chairing may have been needed in the face-off between Sky News’s Gaza: Fight For Survival and Channel 4 News’s Israel-Iran: The Twelve Day War.
P & O Cruises memorable moment award
The only trophy chosen by public vote, this inevitably favours famous franchises with clips easily comprehensible out of context. That helps Adolescence – Jamie snaps at the psychologist – but perhaps even more so The Celebrity Traitors – Alan Carr wins.
The Bafta Television Awards 2026 airs on BBC One at 7pm, Sunday.
