20 of the most popular shows on British TV in 2016

Well, in some respects you'd be right. "Bake Off" and its sister show, "Bake Off Creme de le Creme," both feature in Business Insider's list of the most popular programmes on British television last year. But it's not all baking.

2016 was a year when drama was on top form, with shows like the brilliant "Line of Duty" making their case and US imports, including "The Walking Dead" and "Game of Thrones," having record-breaking seasons.

Meanwhile, in a gloomy 12 months for some, feelgood entertainment shows such as "Strictly Come Dancing" and "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" had a strong year. Read on for the top shows of 2016.

Methodology: Our data is provided by TV ratings supplier overnights.tv. The company crunches information from Barb, the industry body tasked with collecting audience information.

The viewing figure for each show represents the highest-rated episode of the series. We have stripped out sports, like the Olympics, and live events, including the New Year's Eve fireworks, from the list.

British TV is dominated by BBC1 and ITV, meaning a traditional top 20 would consist of programmes almost exclusively from these two channels. To address this, we have carved our list up into three sections: Pay-TV and specialist channels; smaller terrestrial channels; and the big boys - BBC1 and ITV. This will shine a light on smaller channels that are home to hit shows that would otherwise get lost in a shortlist.