bbc did indeed release it's list of top based on respondents bbc's numerical rankings of the apparently weren't disclosed until after the poll was rather heavily flogged in a series of broadcasts in which each of the top were advocated by various celebrities authorities commentators and during which time a vastly larger number of voters called in i seem to remember the final number on order of whether or how this affected final rankings is apparently unknown obviously these people were if nothing else in some degree tv fans the wikipedia article seems to fully accept the validity of the bbc poll which was not at all focused on scott further the article implies to me that the poll revealed a decline over time in scott's popularity with the british public seems like a reasonable thesis but without comparable polling data from previous periods this is not more than interesting speculation on the part of whatever author is cited for deep background wikipedia itself has a number of non featured articles that are somewhat relevant with regard to the rather complex topic of polling including sampling error margin of error tracking poll straw poll and various other topics i'm certainly uninformed