BBC drama Cranford looks set to sweep the Bafta TV awards after receiving four nominations.

Dame Judi Dench, 73, leads the awards charge, nominated for best actress taking her Bafta nomination count to a record breaking 24. Co-star Dame Eileen Atkins, also 73, competes with Dench along with Gina McKee for The Street (BBC1) and Kierston Wareing for It's A Free World (Channel 4). As well as best actress Cranford will be hoping to mop up awards for both best drama serial and the audience award, but competition will be tough following a year of high-quality TV.

Harry Hill's off-the-wall show TV Burp, which has become a prime fixture of ITV1's Saturday night programming, has received nominations for both best entertainment performance and best entertainment programme, where Hill will go head-to-head with heavyweight shows Britain's Got Talent (ITV1), Have I Got News For You (BBC1) and Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1).

Other shows to receive two nominations include The Street (BBC1), The Thick Of It (BBC4) and Peep Show (Channel 4). This years Bafta TV nominations mark the end to a good year for Channel 4 as they have received the most of any TV channel with 23. One of the channels most innovative shows is Skins which follows the lives of a group of youths in Bristol. It received a nomination for best drama series where it will face stiff competition from BBC shows The Street, Rome and 2007 award winner Life on Mars which left viewers desperate for more following the conclusion to inadvertent time-traveller Sam Tyler's (John Simm) 1970s adventures.

This year's best actor award competitors are all first-time nominees: Andrew Garfield for Boy A (Channel 4); Tom Hardy for Stuart: A Life Backwards (BBC2); Matthew Macfadyen for Secret Life (Channel 4) and Antony Sher for Primo (BBC4). Whoever wins the award will be following in the footsteps of acting greats such as Jim Broadbent who won the award last year following a staggering performance in Longford. Broadbent played lawyer Lord Longford who made the headlines due to his close relationship with imprisoned Moors murderer Myra Hindley (Samantha Morton).

The Bafta TV awards also give praise to brilliant televised sporting events, and this year's BBC Wimbledon final, which Roger Federer won after a marathon five-set match with Rafael Nadal, receives its first nomination since the famous Bjorn Borg John McEnroe final of 1980. Lewis Hamilton, Oxford and Cambridge rowing teams and the England rugby team will all be hoping that their sport beats the tennis to the prize.

Tim Corrie, deputy head of the Bafta TV committee, was enthused by the number of new nominees for this year's awards: "The state of British TV is very healthy.

"There are new people coming up all the time. It's good to see Bafta reflecting the ringing of changes."

The awards will likely dominate the TV listings for April 20th and take place at the London Palladium.