TV hit Top Gear has been named the nation's favourite television programme of the decade.

The show, presented by Jeremy Clarkson, who lives in Chipping Norton, James May and Richard Hammond, topped a poll commissioned for Channel 4 for a special programme next week.

BBC2's Top Gear was first broadcast in 1977 but BBC bosses grew tired of the format and decided in 2001 that it needed to be refreshed for the following year.

Many of the show's presenters defected to Five for the new Fifth Gear show, but by 2003 the BBC show had settled down with a line-up of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May and went from strength to strength.

The show fought off tough competition from Doctor Who, The Office, The Simpsons and QI to top the chart for C4's The Greatest TV Shows of the Noughties.

Hammond said: "I could never say what the reason is for Top Gear doing so well since we started it, but I think there's always a sense that we'd still be doing it even if the cameras weren't here and that makes it real."

Snow Patrol hit Chasing Cars was named the top tune of the decade for another show on the station which looks back over the past ten years in music.

C4 producers used new surveys to find the nation's preferred TV and chart hits rather than relying on sales and viewing figures.

Snow Patrol's track peaked at number six in the charts in 2006, but was popular enough to sell more than half a million copies. It beat other highly ranked songs such as Amy Winehouse's Rehab and The Killers' Mr Brightside - which only made it to number ten in the UK chart - to triumph as best song.

Arctic Monkeys' chart-topper track I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor was also strongly backed in the Channel 4 vote, as was James Blunt's You're Beautiful.

The full list will be revealed in the channel's programme The Greatest Songs of the Noughties.

© Press Association 2009