The Bill The Bill The Bill is a British police procedural television series, first broadcast on ITV from 16 October 1984 until 31 August 2010. The programme originated from a one-off drama, "Woodentop", broadcast in August 1983. In its final year on air, "The Bill" was broadcast once a week, usually on Tuesdays or Thursdays, in a one-hour format. The programme focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work. "The Bill" was the longest-running police procedural television series in the United Kingdom, and among the longest running of any
The Cops (TV series) a third series, creator Robert Jones later confirmed that the third series was written as a way of 'bringing "The Cops" to a close', with the final episode broadcast on 11 April 2001. The first series was released on VHS on 24 January 2000, available as four individual volumes or as a complete box set. Both the second and third series remain commercially unreleased. All three series received a single re-run on UKTV Drama in the early 2000s, although remain unrepeated since. The programme won back-to-back British Academy Television Awards in the Best Drama Series category in 1999 and 2000,