Get Ahead

Get Ahead is a BBC Television programme that ran from 1958 to 1962 and offered a prize of £5,000 (equivalent to £148,000 in 2023) to a contestant's idea for an entrepreneurial project for a profitable business. It was an early forerunner of programmes such as Dragons' Den on BBC Two.

The programme was sponsored by the News Chronicle^[1] as a form of indirect advertising to skirt the Television Act 1954.^[2]

The programme was presented by Kenneth Horne and Peter West. A panel of senior business experts judged the merit of the award and included Sir Miles Thomas, who had been chairman of BOAC^[3] and the British offshoot of Monsanto, the American chemical company at the time.