The Bill was broadcast on ITV under the title "Woodentop" on 16 August 1983. "Woodentop" starred Mark Wingett as PC Jim Carver and Trudie Goodwin as WPC June Ackland of London's Metropolitan Police, both attached to the fictional Sun Hill police station. Although originally only intended as a one-off, "Woodentop" impressed ITV to the extent that a full series was commissioned, first broadcast on 16 October 1984 with one post-watershed episode per week, featuring an hour-long, separate storyline for each episode of the first three series. The first episode of the full series was "Funny Ol' Business – Cops & Robbers". With
Philippine television drama to primetime slots by the end of the 1990s in response to ABS-CBN's rise on national television with their primetime serials, a foreshadow of what would eventually be the touted primetime television series blocks of both rival networks. Modern Philippine television dramas have begun to evolve to today's modern form called "teleserye", a portmanteau of the Filipino words "telebisyon" ("television") and "serye" ("series"). The term originated from the ABS-CBN hit drama "Pangako Sa 'Yo", airing from 2000 to 2002 and starring Jericho Rosales and Kristine Hermosa, and the iconic rivalry between actresses Eula Valdez as the original Amor de Jesus-Powers