Listen to Classic FM’s TV Music Countdown in partnership with Radio Times this Summer Bank Holiday

24 August 2021, 08:49 | Updated: 30 August 2021, 09:33

We’re partnering with Radio Times to find out the nation’s Top 50 favourite TV themes of all time!

What’s your No. 1 TV theme? We’re partnering with Radio Times to reveal the nation’s favourite pieces of TV music – as voted for by Classic FM listeners and Radio Times readers.

Voting has now closed for the countdown, but could it be the sweeping strings of the Downton Abbey Suite, the cinematic splendour of the Blue Planet soundtrack, or perhaps the foreboding opening music for The Crown that is crowned as the nation’s favourite TV theme?

Listen to Classic FM’s TV Music Countdown in partnership with Radio Times from 9am-7pm on Monday 30th August.

Follow the countdown live here >

Alan Titchmarsh wants you to have your say in Classic FM's TV Music Countdown!

TV broadcasting legend and Classic FM presenter Alan Titchmarsh (watch above) told us about his personal picks, saying: “Of my favourites, Black Beauty is pretty near the top of the list. I remember it from the 1970s – the tune is called ‘Galloping Home’, it’s by Dennis King, and it’s one of those pieces that’s just wonderfully visual, you can just see this large, gleaming black stallion galloping across the moorland. It’s very difficult to get out of your head.”

He continues: “Cranford was such a wonderful TV series – and what a cast, with the likes of Dame Eileen Atkins and Dame Judi Dench. It’s based on a book by Mrs Gaskell, set in a village which is basically run by women. She calls them in the book ‘The Amazons’, and believe me they are. And the theme music, which was written by Carl Davis, to me perfectly suits Cranford.

“You’ve got to be very brave to attach a piece of serious church music to a situation comedy, but that’s exactly what Richard Curtis commissioned from Howard Goodall for The Vicar of Dibley a setting of the 23rd psalm, ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’. To put that at the beginning of a comedy? But does it work, or what...”

Listen to Classic FM’s TV Music Countdown in partnership with Radio Times from 9am-7pm on Monday 30th August.