And the winner isn't... Davina McCall. She's one person guaranteed to go home empty-handed from The British Academy Television Awards this weekend.

As the host of the ceremony at London's Grosvenor House, McCall will be back in the spotlight following the axing of her BBC1 chat show after just a single series.

With barbs from critics and audiences dipping below three million, her programme isn't in the running to receive one of those mask-shaped Baftas.

She can console herself that a comeback isn't out of the question, as this year's nominations demonstrate. After three decades on the box, Noel Edmonds is up for his first British Academy Television Award in the entertainment performance category for hit game show Deal Or No Deal. He's up against Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear), Jack Dee (Jack Dee Live At The Apollo) and Jonathan Ross (Friday Night With Jonathan Ross).

One of the most spectacular TV comebacks in recent years has seen a revived Doctor Who transform the Saturday evening schedules. The series hopes for an award in the Drama Series category, having last received a nomination in 1977. Stiff competition comes from Bodies, Shameless and Spooks, but expect the Time Lord to be the man behind the winning Bafta mask The country's top soaps, Coronation Street and EastEnders, are back head-to-head for the first time in three years for the continuing drama prize. Casualty and its spin-off Holby City are the other contenders.

BBC drama Bleak House wins the prize for most nominations this year with a total of four. Turning Charles Dickens's novel into a cliffhanging, twice-weekly series resembling a period soap proved popular with critics and viewers alike.

Two of its stars, Gillian Anderson and Anna Maxwell Martin, earn their first Bafta nominations in the actress category. Lucy Cohu, for her performance as Princess Margaret in the controversial drama The Queen's Sister, is also a first time nominee in that category although the fourth contender, Anne Marie Duff, was nominated for the same role in Shameless in 2004.

Denis Lawson represents Bleak House in the actor category, alongside portrayals of real life people - Bernard Hill as MP David Blunkett in the satirical A Very Social Secretary and Mark Rylance as David Kelly, the government scientist caught up in a political row over the Iraq weapons dossier. Rufus Sewell is also in with a chance for the modern take on Shakespeare's Taming Of The Shrew.

Another Bard reworking, Much Ado About Nothing, claims a place in the single drama nominations with The Government Inspector, The Queen's Sister and Red Dust.

The features category has old favourites Top Gear and Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares joined by new contenders The Apprentice and Dragon's Den.

The Lew Grade Award for entertainment programme sees Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor battling for the Bafta just as they fought for viewers on Saturday nights. Their rivals have been there before, with Have I Got News For You nominated for the tenth time and Friday Night With Jonathan Ross for the fourth.

The comedy The Thick Of It, originally shown on BBC4, claims comedy performance nominations for both Peter Capaldi and Chris Langham. The competition is Catherine Tate for, unsurprisingly, The Catherine Tate Show and Ashley Jensen for Extras.

Extras and The Thick Of It also stand a chance of success in the situation comedy category, where they're nominated with Peep Show and The Worst Week Of My Life.

ITV, the poor relation of comedy, is represented by Aardman's Creature Comforts in the comedy programme or series category. The Catherine Tate Show features here too, with Help and Little Britain.

The factual series nominations throw up a real mix of subjects with the long-running 49Up competing against Jamie's School Dinners, Cocaine and Coast.

The Boy With The Incredible Brain is one of four documentaries vying for the Huw Weldon Award for specialist factual. Others are Life In The Undergrowth, Holocaust - A Music Memorial Film From Auschwitz, and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.

The single documentary prize, the Flaherty Award, has Children Of Beslan, Make Me Normal, The Real Sex Traffic and Taxidermy: Stuff The World in contention.

Both Sky News and BBC Ten O'Clock News receive a nomination for coverage of the London bombings in the news coverage category. So do ITV Evening News, The Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes and Channel 4 News, The Attorney General Story.

Over 200 programmes were viewed by a jury of industry people and journalists to decide the Bafta Television nominations. The public can vote in just one category, The Pioneer Audience Award.

Short-listed programmes are Jamie's School Dinners, Doctor Who, Strictly Come Dancing, The X Factor, Bleak House, The Catherine Tate Show, Desperate Housewives and The Apprentice. You can vote at www.pioneer.co.uk/bafta but you'll have to be quick as voting closes at 5pm today.

While you're sitting at home with a cup of cocoa watching the stars walk along the red carpet (over 150 metres square, which would cover quite a lot of living rooms), you might like to know that the 1,500 guests will guzzle 700 bottles of Taittinger champagne on the night. That's in addition to eating 6,000 pre-ceremony canapes and downing 1,200 bottles of red and white Penfolds' wine over the four-course dinner.

* The British Academy Television Awards take place tomorrow night and will be screened on ITV1 and ITV2 on Monday from 9pm.