the results were announced on 16 March 2010. In 2009 an episode of The Bill won the Knights of Illumination Award for Lighting Design- Drama. Impact and history It has been compared to Hill Street Blues due to the similar, serial, format that both series take. However, The Bill has seen little direct competition on British television in the police procedural genre over its 25-year history, though the BBC has twice launched rival series. The first was Merseybeat, which ran from 2001 but was cancelled in 2004 due to poor ratings and problems with the cast. The second, HolbyBlue, launched in 2007, was a spin-off of successful medical drama Holby City (itself a spin-off of the long-running Casualty). It was scheduled to go "head to head" with The Bill, prompting a brief "ratings war" but, in 2008, HolbyBlue was also cancelled by the BBC, again, largely due to poor ratings. When The Bill started, the majority of the Police Federation were opposed to the programme, claiming that it portrayed the police as a racist organisation, but feelings towards the programme later mellowed, to the extent that, in 2006, executive producer, Johnathan Young, met Sir Ian Blair, then Commissioner of the Met, and it was decided that the editorial relationship between the police and the programme was sufficient. However, Young stressed that The Bill is not "editorially bound" to the police. Despite better relations with the police, The Bill was still not without controversy. It was sometimes criticised for the high levels of violence, especially prior to 2009, when it occupied a pre-watershed timeslot. Specific story lines also came under fire in the media, such as that involving a gay kiss in 2002, as well as an episode broadcast in March 2008 which featured a fictional treatment for multiple sclerosis, leading the MS Society to brand the plot "grossly irresponsible". Spin-offs and related series During its 27-year-run, The Bill spawned several spin-off productions and related series in German and Dutch languages, as well as a series of documentaries. The following is a list of the most notable of these. Bureau Kruislaan: Dutch interpretation of the series. Produced by Joop van den Ende for VARA Television, the programme lasted for four series running from 1992 to 1995. In 1995, the show was nominated for the Gouden Televizier Ring, an award for the best television programme in the Netherlands. All four series of