John Cleese is to accept a prestigious Lifetime Achievement award next month.

The Rose d'Or awards - due to be held in Berlin - celebrate the best in entertainment programming in six categories for television and online video, and five categories covering radio. Inaugurated in 1961, the awards go to the best radio, television and online entertainment programmes from the previous year.

The special Lifetime Achievement honour recognises those who have made an outstanding contribution to television or radio entertainment throughout their careers.

Cleese - who previously won a Rose d'Or as part of 1967's Frost Over England - said today: "I am delighted by this chance to annoy Terry Gilliam and I'm also very humbled by the offer of an all-expenses-paid holiday in Berlin."

Renowned for his ground-breaking work on television as part of the Monty Python team and for the enduring sitcom hit Fawlty Towers, organisers also note appearances in films such as Clockwise and A Fish Called Wanda, as well as the Harry Potter series.

The Rose d'Or was originally created by Swiss television and is now organised by the European Broadcasting Union, the body also behind the Eurovision Song Contest.

EBU Media Director Jean Philip De Tender praised Cleese's long and successful contribution to the broadcasting industry today: "The EBU believes no one is more deserving of the Rose d'Or Lifetime Achievement award than John Cleese. He has been making audiences around the world laugh for 50 years and his writing and instantly recognisable performances have contributed to some of the best and funniest entertainment on television and in film."

Rose d'Or compère and BBC broadcaster Paddy O'Connell says: "John Cleese helped invent TV entertainment - but has never forgotten the producers who put him on the screen. He knows the business inside out as writer, actor and performer. He's a rare public figure in the English-speaking world for learning German as a young man and told Der Spiegel he only wished it was his first language. For these reasons and thousands more, including a dead parrot, he's the perfect fit to pick up the Rose d'Or Lifetime Achievement award in Berlin."

This year's award ceremony is due to be held on Tuesday 13th September. Nominations for the other awards were announced last month.