It's Academic being taped in historic Studio A at NBC-owned WRC-TV in Washington, DC on December 12, 2009Mac McGarry hosts It's Academic in Washington DC on December 12, 2009
The Washington, D.C. version of the show has been on the air since October 7, 1961, and is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the longest-running quiz program in TV history.[1] The program was created for WRC by Sophie Altman, who continued as executive producer until her death on May 24, 2008. Mac McGarry hosted the Washington shows from the beginning until June 25, 2011. Hillary Howard, formerly a news anchor for Washington radio station WTOP-FM, took over as host subsequent to McGarry's official retirement in November 2011.[2] The program is sponsored by philanthropist investor David Rubenstein and by the McLean, Virginia-based Mitre Corporation.[3]
Format
The single-elimination tournament features 81 schools in the Washington metropolitan area, 81 schools in the Baltimore metropolitan area (including Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore), and nine schools in the Central Virginia region.[needs update] The winners in each region go on to battle each other in the Super Bowl.
Each contest is composed of five rounds. Round 1 is a category round with eight themed questions (e.g. "the letter B" or "famous paintings"). Questions do not appear on the players' monitors but do appear for the home viewers. Each team is given 100 points before this round and teams receive 10 points for each correct answer and lose 10 for each incorrect answer.
In Round 2, each team is individually asked five questions and receive 20 points each for a correct answer, but do not lose points for an incorrect answer.
Round 3 is a toss-up visual round. The monitor displays an image and the host provides a question accompanying the image. Teams receive 20 points for each correct answer and lose 20 for each incorrect answer (10 until April 19, 2014 in Washington, Baltimore, and starting with the 2014 season in Charlottesville; other cities' visual rounds are still 10 points up or down). Eight questions are used. The fourth question is always a math question.
Before Round 4 the captain of each team introduces the sponsors and school administrators and coaches. Teams then select from three question packets. The team to the immediate left of the team that is supposed to answer chooses which packet the answering team will use. Eight questions are given to each team, with 20 points for a correct answer and no penalties. A 25-point bonus is given if a team correctly answers all eight questions, for a total of 185 points in this round. The fourth question is always a science question and the seventh question is always a math question (data from both those questions are displayed on the monitor or team's screen).
Round 5 features quick-fire toss-up questions, each worth +/-20 points. Visual questions are worth +/-30 points. The number of questions varies depending on the time left in the game. The game ends when the buzzer sounds, home viewers may realize that the game will come to a close while the countdown clock appears on the television screen. If a team has buzzed in prior the buzzer sounding, the team is required to answer the question before the game is considered over. If there is a tie in the knockout round (e.g. the final), the presenter may ask one last tie-breaker question to determine the winner.
After the host has announced the teams' final scores, the studio audience is invited down from the stands to join the contestants on camera during the closing credit sequence. In the Washington version from about 1976 to June 2017, the song heard under the credit roll (if there are no musicians from any of the competing schools) was "T.L.C. (Tender Loving Care)" by the band MFSB (a new theme was introduced in Washington for the 2017–18 season, entitled "Just Let Go", by Marti Amado and Ron Bolton, music production by Network Music which is used throughout the show).
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, later episodes in the 2019–2020 season were played in a remote format, with teams in separate locations, and without buzzers. Teams were recorded separately, and were not aware of other teams' scores. The competition will return to the studio in late winter/early spring 2023.[4][needs update]
Discontinued rounds
Prior to the adoption of the current format, there were several other formats of play.
Category round
The "very fast"[5] category round consisted of questions pertaining to the same category. In some cases, the question was the same throughout the round: teams were given different items, and had to answer the common question on the basis of each item (e.g., given a state, name either senator from that state[6]). In other cases, all the answers in the category round shared an announced characteristic in common (e.g., geographical locations whose names begin and end with "A"[5]). Teams used their buzzers in this round, earning 10 points for a correct answer, but losing 10 points[6] (later 20 points[5]) for wrong answers.
Timed round
In all forms, a team individually answers questions from a packet within a time limit. In one form, at the beginning of the game, teams get one minute to answer questions for 20 points each. In this form, teams are not penalized for wrong answers, in order to help the teams in "building score".[7] In another form, teams have one and a half minutes to answer questions for 20 points each. However, 20 points are deducted for a wrong answer. Teams may pass a question, losing 10 points; however, the other two teams may buzz-in to answer the passed questions (with a few exceptions) for plus or minus 20 points after the time runs out for the team's turn. Every question that is fully read must be answered or passed within a reasonable time. However, if a question is not finished when time expires, the team may reject it without penalty or answer the question at their own risk. In this form, getting all 10 questions (later eight) correct originally earned the team a 50-point bonus, later reduced to 25.[5][7][8]
Scrimmage round
A "scrimmage round" was once used during the 1977–78 Buffalo season championship, as well as in Washington and Baltimore through much of the 1970s, and also in Cleveland at about that time. Teams were instructed to "use [their] lights and buzzers" for a "one-minute scrimmage round." 10 points were scored for a correct answer, with no penalties.[9]
Beginning in 2008, telecasts on the WRC-TV version have included "guest questions" from notable persons in government, business, sports, and the arts. Among those seen in pre-recorded videos are:
WNBC in New York aired a local edition of It's Academic from September 15, 1963[12] through July 1, 1972,[13] hosted most of the time by Art James, with Lee Leonard filling in for a year.
WLWT, WCPO-TV and WCET in Cincinnati aired a local It's Academic from October 13, 1963 to May 30, 1982. The Cincinnati hosts included Dave Manning, Lloyd Baldwin, Steve Douglas and Claire Slemmer.
A version of It's Academic aired on CBS affiliate WBEN-TV in Buffalo from January 27, 1968 through 1986. Initially hosted by National Football LeagueHall of Fame radio broadcaster of the Buffalo Bills, Van Miller, the first season concluded on April 20, 1968. The show was later revived for a few months in 2008 by NBC affiliate WGRZ, with Kevin O'Neill as host. The show returned to the area starting January 12, 2013 and was hosted by O'Neill and produced by Full Circle Studios for broadcast on WGRZ.
A show using the It's Academic name aired in Richmond, Virginia on the NBC affiliate, WWBT Channel 12, from November 22, 1975 to June 26, 1976 (the Richmond championship aired on May 16, 1976), which was also hosted by Mac McGarry and sponsored by Giant. That was replaced by Battle of the Brains. Battle of the Brains has also replaced a version of It's Academic that aired in Hampton Roads.
The World Affairs Council, in conjunction with the United States Department of State, hosted an It's Academic International event in 2002, also hosted by Mac McGarry.
KHII-TV in Honolulu aired a local version titled It's Academic Hawaii hosted by Billy V (from Hawaii News Now-Sunrise). It was previously hosted by Rick Hamada and Keahi Tucker.
WEWS in Cleveland has had a version of the series since 1964. It was originally titled It's Academic and hosted by Don Cameron. In 1972, the series changed its name to Academic Challenge with host Don Webster, later replaced by Lou Maglio; the series later reverted to its former title during the mid-1990s, at which time Webster also returned as emcee. After a 35 consecutive year run and a brief hiatus, Academic Challenge returned to the WEWS airwaves in 2003 with host Adam Shapiro. Danita Harris hosted the 2006 season; from 2007 to 2016, Jason Nicholas was the host, succeeded by Hakem Dermish in December 2016 after Nicholas left WEWS.[15] Dermish was succeeded by WCPN host Rick Jackson on April 28, 2018 after Dermish left WEWS for CBS Sports in New York, while Jackson was subsequently replaced by Rob Powers for the 2019 season.[16]
Similar shows
A similar show predating It's Academic ran in the United Kingdom for many years featuring teams from British secondary schools. Top of the Form which ran on BBC Radio from 1948 to 1986 with a television version airing on BBC 1 from 1962 to 1975.
A Canadian quiz show, Reach for the Top was modelled on Top of the Form and began on CBUT in Vancouver in 1961 with locally produced versions airing across Canada on CBC Television from 1966 to 1985. The Toronto edition of the show on CBLT was hosted for several years by Alex Trebek, who later went on to be the long-term host of Jeopardy!.
Another similar British quiz show featuring competition by post-secondary teams is University Challenge, which has been on air since 1962, making it only slightly younger than It's Academic. It was featured in the British sitcom The Young Ones where one of the characters, Adrian, used a Stielhandgranate against another university team.[17]
Notable contestants
Notable people who have competed on It's Academic include:
Quiz bowl is a family of quiz-based competitions that test players on a wide variety of academic subjects. Standardized quiz bowl formats are played by lower school, middle school, high school, and university students throughout North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and Africa.
College Bowl is a radio, television, and student quiz show. College Bowl first aired on the NBC Radio Network in 1953 as College Quiz Bowl. It then moved to American television broadcast networks, airing from 1959 to 1963 on CBS and from 1963 to 1970 on NBC. In 1977, the president of College Bowl, Richard Reid, developed it into a non-televised national championship competition on campuses across America through an affiliation with the Association of College Unions International (ACUI), which lasted for 31 years. In 1989, College Bowl introduced a (sponsored) version of College Bowl for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) called Honda Campus All-Star Challenge (HCASC) which is ongoing. In 2007, College Bowl produced a new version and format of the game as an international championship in Africa, called Africa Challenge. The College Bowl Campus Program and National Championship ran until 2008.
Reach for the Top is a Canadian academic quiz competition for high school students. In the past, it has also been a game show nationally broadcast on the CBC. Matches are currently aired online through Reach for the Top's official YouTube channel. Teams qualify for national rounds through several stages of non-televised tournaments held at high schools throughout Canada during the year which are known as Schoolreach.
Scholastic Scrimmage is a high school quiz bowl game show that was launched in 1975. It airs on WLVT-TV, the PBS affiliate for the Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania.
It's Academic is an Australian children's game show which is based on the long-running American version of It's Academic, and pits students from different schools against each other in a test of knowledge covering a number of diverse subjects including English, mathematics, science, geography, sport, music and popular culture.
Buzz!: The Music Quiz is a party music video game developed by Relentless Software and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. It is the first in the Sony's Buzz! series of video games, and it was released for the PlayStation 2 exclusively in Europe. In The Music Quiz, players answer questions asked by the host, Buzz, by using the four Buzz! buzzers.
As Schools Match Wits is a high school quiz show, hosted by Beth Ward, that airs on PBS member station WGBY in Springfield, Massachusetts, and which is produced in association with Westfield State University. As Schools Match Wits is well known throughout Western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut.
Blokken (Blocks) is a Belgian quiz show based on the video game Tetris. It is broadcast on VRT 1 and hosted by Belgian television personality Ben Crabbé. The show is the longest running quiz show on Belgian television, with 22 seasons. On 10 December 2017 the show aired its 5000th episode.
Starstrider was a children's quiz show that was produced by Granada Television and aired on ITV in 1984 and 1985 and ran for 2 series. The host, Starstrider, a space being from the planet Ulphrates III on the search for intelligence, was played in Series 1 by Roger Sloman and in Series 2 by Jim Carter. Future Doctor Who actor Sylvester McCoy co-hosted both series, playing Starstrider's hapless assistant Wart. Both the host and co-host would greet the teams each week with the words, "Hello and welcome" and similarly they would end the show saying, "Goodbye and farewell".
Skatoony is a children's live action/animated game show, pitting live-action kids against cartoons. The series was co-produced by Talent TV and FremantleMedia Animation, Blink Studios, and Marblemedia with Smiley Guy Studios. The series used to air on Cartoon Network in the UK until 2017, with new episodes airing every Friday until the series cancellation in 2008. Skatoony has also aired as re-runs in the UK on Boomerang and Cartoon Network Too until the channel itself closed down in 2014. The show aired on Starz Kids & Family in the US until 2019. Reruns were occasionally shown on Teletoon in Canada until August 5, 2017. It also aired on Boomerang in Australia and New Zealand.
YSU Academic Challenge is the Youngstown, Ohio area high school quiz bowl program that airs on ABC station WYTV on Saturday nights and reairs on Sunday nights on MyYTV. Stan Boney, the chief meteorologist at WYTV, is the host of this program that premiered in 2002. In 2008 Academic Challenge changed its appearance but kept its old rules.
Whiz Quiz is a local TV program produced by WPBS-TV in Watertown, New York. It invites over 30 high-schools from across the North Country to participate in a quizbowl-style tournament. It debuted in 1980, and has been on the air since. The show airs on WPBS Mondays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m in the months of October and November. The American Championship Game starts at 8:00 p.m. The Championship Match is an hour-long show, with double the amount of questions.
Fifteen to One is a British general knowledge quiz show broadcast on Channel 4. It originally ran from 11 January 1988 to 19 December 2003 and had a reputation for being one of the toughest quizzes on TV. Throughout the show's original run, it was presented and produced by William G. Stewart. Thousands of contestants appeared on the programme, which had very little of the chatting between host and contestants that is often a feature of other television quiz shows.
Cleverdicks was a British television quiz show for Sky Atlantic, hosted by Ann Widdecombe. Running for 30 episodes, it was later repeated on Challenge. Four contestants competed in each episode for the right to call themselves "cleverdicks" and play for a roll-over cash jackpot. As explained by Widdecombe at the beginning of the first episode, a cleverdick is a person who is "irritatingly and ostentatiously knowledgeable or intelligent." The question material was therefore primarily academic in nature.
The 3rd Degree is a British quiz show broadcast on BBC Radio 4, hosted by comedian Steve Punt and made by Pozzitive Television. The series is recorded at different universities around the country, the contestants all coming from the university in which the recording takes place. One team consists of three students and the other of three lecturers who teach the subjects the students are studying.
Million Dollar Minute is an Australian quiz show which aired on the Seven Network. It premiered on 16 September 2013. The show was originally hosted by Grant Denyer, and later by Simon Reeve, and aired at 5:30 pm on weeknights. The show was cancelled in September 2015 and was replaced by The Chase Australia in its timeslot. Repeats are currently shown on 7TWO in place of Home and Away's Early Years on Hiatus.
Show Me the Telly is a British game show that aired on ITV from 25 November to 20 December 2013 as a winter replacement for Tipping Point and was hosted by Richard Bacon with Chris Tarrant as team captain.
Gefragt – Gejagt (Asked—Chased) is a quiz show that has been broadcast on German television since 2012. It is the German adaptation of ITV's show The Chase.
Pointless was an Australian television quiz show based on the British program of the same name. It was broadcast by Network 10 and hosted by Mark Humphries.
Campus Challenge is a Philippine television quiz show broadcast by UNTV. The show ran continuously every Sunday for 4 seasons beginning August 14, 2011, until it concluded on April 28, 2013. It was hosted by then-MTV VJ Jonathan "Sib" Sibulo and then-Miss Air Philippines 2018 Zahra Bianca Saldua. It is a Filipino adaptation of Arirang TV quiz show, Superkids.
1 2 3 4 WRC-TV (Washington) in association with Altman Productions. 23rd season premiere. It's Academic. Presented by Mac McGarry. Featuring Churchill, Mount Vernon and Northwestern. Original airdate 1983-09-25.
1 2 WIVB-TV (Buffalo) in association with Altman Productions. 1978–79 championship. It's Academic Presented by Van Miller. Featuring Grand Island, Iroquois, and Jamestown. Original airdate 1979.
1 2 WIVB-TV (Buffalo) in association with Altman Productions. It's Academic Presented by Van Miller. Featuring Williamsville East, Bishop Timon, and Salamanca Central. Original airdate 1981.
↑ Altman Productions. It's Academic Presented by Mac McGarry. Featuring Albemarle, St. Anne's-Belfield, and Madison County. Original airdate 1988.
↑ WIVB-TV (Buffalo) in association with Altman Productions. 1977–78 championship. It's Academic Presented by Van Miller. Featuring Nichols, Lancaster, and Williamsville East. Original airdate 1978.
↑ Campbell, Gail A. (1989-12-14). "Quick! Hit the Buzzer! Who Is Mac McGarry?". Washington Times. Both Mrs. Altman and Mr. McGarry point to a special charity version of It's Academic they did 10 years ago...That show pitted three Republican senators and three Democratic senators against the press. Republicans Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, John Danforth of Missouri and H.J. Heinz III of Pennsylvania got more points than Democrats Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, Lloyd Bentsen of Texas and Alan Cranston of California, but the press still won. The late Jessica Savitch, Art Buchwald and Washington Post political columnist David Broder handily whipped the pols...
In September 2011, the VOA Special English service of the Voice of America broadcast a story about It's Academic on its weekly Education Report. A transcript and MP3 of the program, intended for English learners, can be found at A TV Quiz Show for Teens Turns 50
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