At the end of Q2 2026 I started this post with a moan about how these polls are conducted…I stand by my whingeing!

Couple of days ago the polling was updated for the end of Q3 (I’ve been a bit busy posting about other, more important, stuff!).

As I’ve said in other YouGov posts (all here) – I hope that no one in a decision-making role takes any notice of this information as it’s a really poor poll when it is setting up a comparison between modern comedians and people that died decades ago (or are only comic actors).

The actual polls can be viewed here but note that the data gets over written each quarter. Sometime in early January 2027 it will update to Q4 results, which means you have a couple of months to check out the Q3 polling.

Fame

This ranking is just a “have you heard of…?” type question. Positions 1-5 are Gold and 6-10 Silver. I’m mystified as to how anyone from the UK could NOT know Jimmy. He’s been on British TV constantly for 25 years!

Viewing the percentages data – Gold is 95+% and Silver 90-94%.

Popularity

This ranking is probably the one that comedians could roast each other about – how popular are they with each age range? It would just be nice if there were a lot more contemporary comedians on the list.

As someone who likes a bit of data analysis this is where it’s frustrating in that, to understand it better, I need more detail. From quarter to quarter there is no clue as to how many people responded in each group, are they comedy fans, do the same people respond each time?

Also note that this is where the voting spread is all over the place and very much age dependent.

• The “all adults” giving Jimmy a 55% popularity vote is actually better than it looks as the #1 (Billy Connolly) is only 64%.
• That 69% vote from Millennials actually made him #1 (see image further down this post)
• The Boomers score of 39% is the poor one as the #1 (Ronnie Barker) has 87%. That one really reflects nostalgia as half the top 10 are no longer with us.
• And Women scoring him at 52% voted Dawn French at #1 with 62%

The ranking / position gives a table that looks clearer (in that you can see that Jimmy has made progress this quarter with Millennials and Gen X).

Otherwise – I’d take all of this with a pinch of salt.