University Challenge | |
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Genre | Quiz show |
Presented by | |
Voices of |
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Theme music composer | Derek New |
Opening theme | "Ting A Ling" performed by Duke Ellington (1962–1963) "College Boy" performed by: Derek New (1963–2000) the Balanescu Quartet (2000–present) |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 53 |
No. of episodes | 1,792 (as of 4 February 2019 [update] ) [1] [ clarification needed ] |
Production | |
Production locations |
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Running time | 30 minutes |
Production companies |
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Original release | |
Network | ITV |
Release | 21 September 1962 – 31 December 1987 |
Network | BBC Two |
Release | 28 December 1992 – present |
Related | |
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University Challenge is a British television quiz programme which first aired in 1962. University Challenge aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC revived the programme on 21 September 1994, the programme's 32nd anniversary, with Jeremy Paxman as the quizmaster. Paxman relinquished his role as host following the conclusion of the 52nd series in 2023, after which he was succeeded by Amol Rajan. [2] In October 2022, an ITV documentary, Paxman: Putting Up With Parkinson's, explored how Parkinson's disease has impacted him [3] and revealed that Paxman recorded his very last episode of University Challenge on 15 October 2022, which aired on 29 May 2023. [4] [5]
The current title holders are Imperial College London, who won a record fifth title in the final of the 2023-24 series on 8 April 2024.
On 21 April 2023, the BBC unveiled a new set and title card, which debuted on Rajan's first episode, which aired on 17 July 2023. [6] [7]
The show has always been produced by the same company (originally named Granada Television, renamed ITV Studios in 2009 and renamed again Lifted Entertainment in 2021), under licence from Richard Reid Productions and the College Bowl Company. [8] It was recorded at Granada Studios in Manchester from its inception until the studios closed down in 2013; it is now recorded at Dock10 studios in Salford. [9]
Despite periodic changes to the sets, studio layout, and presentation, University Challenge has preserved a high level of continuity from 1962 to the present. Some commentators have cited this as an essential element of its success. [10] Elements of this continuity include:
The programme had its beginnings in an American television quiz show called College Bowl . Cecil Bernstein, brother of Sidney Bernstein who founded Granada Television in 1954, had seen the programme in the United States and liked the format. It was decided that Granada would produce a similar programme with competing teams from universities across the United Kingdom. [13] From its inception in 1962, University Challenge was hosted by Bamber Gascoigne, who died in 2022. The programme's first match was a match between the University of Leeds (featuring a pre-famed Ian Channell, better known as The Wizard of New Zealand) and the University of Reading. [14] The show was a cult favourite with a small but loyal core audience, and was one of a select few ITV programmes that was transmitted without any advertising breaks. Originally, the series started off in many areas, being broadcast at peak times or just after the nightly news around 22:30; by the early 1970s, the series was relegated to irregular timeslots by the various ITV regional companies, with some broadcasting the show during daytime, at weekends or late at night. In the absence of a regular networked slot, audience figures would often fall, leading the producers to make changes to the long-standing format of the programme. LWT stopped broadcasting the show in October 1983, with Thames following suit shortly afterwards. [15] The programme was not broadcast in 1985 and returned in April 1986, when it was finally networked by ITV and broadcast at 15:00 on weekdays. The gameplay was revised, initial games were staged over two legs; the first in the classic format and the second played as a relay, where contestants selected questions from specific categories such as sport, literature and science, passing a baton between players whenever a "lap" of two correct answers was scored. The final series was also networked, but broadcast around 11:00 during the summer holiday period. Even so, the new networked time did little to save the series from the axe. The last ITV series was broadcast in 1987.
The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge could each enter up to five of their constituent colleges as separate teams, which are not themselves universities: they have far fewer students – numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands – than most universities. This was one ostensible inspiration for a 1975 protest, in which a team from the University of Manchester (which included David Aaronovitch) came second to Downing College, Cambridge, when they started a round by answering every question "Che Guevara", "Marx", "Trotsky" or "Lenin", in the hope of making the resulting show unbroadcastable. [16] [17] It was, however, broadcast, although only portions of the episode still exist in the Granada Television archives. Granada subsequently banned the University of Manchester for several years. [18]
University Challenge was revived by the BBC in 1994, although still produced by Granada Television (branded since 2009 as ITV Studios), using the original format, with minor differences, and presented by Jeremy Paxman.
During the show's hiatus, a special edition of the show was made by the BBC, as part of a themed evening of programmes dedicated to Granada Television. It was presented by Bamber Gascoigne and broadcast on BBC2 on 28 December 1992. The teams included one of students from Keble College, Oxford, which had fielded the winning team in the final 1987 season, and a graduates team of celebrity alumni who had previously appeared on the programme as students, including journalist John Simpson and actor Stephen Fry. This show was preceded by a short documentary about the show's history. Bamber Gascoigne's final appearance as host was in Universe Challenge in 1998 (see below).
Since its revival in 1994, the programme has featured a number of teams of postgraduate and mature students, whose participation has been criticised. [19] The Open University won the 1999 series with a team with an average age of 46. In the quarter-final, they narrowly beat a slightly younger team from part-time and mature student specialist Birkbeck, University of London. Birkbeck won the competition in 2003, also with a substantially mature team. Host Jeremy Paxman said that the Open University team was "not in the spirit" of the competition. [20] The team publicly replied by challenging him to specify in what way this was "contrary to the spirit of the quiz – or of the university". [21]
In 2009, Sam Kay, part of the team from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was accused of not being a student when the show was filmed. [22] Kay, who had completed a chemistry degree the previous summer, had been planning to go on to study for a Doctor of Philosophy, but dropped out as he did not have sufficient funding. He then became an accountant. [23] The team, whose captain Gail Trimble was dubbed the "human Google", [24] won the competition but was subsequently disqualified and the trophy awarded to the runners-up, the University of Manchester. [25]
A few days later, it was also revealed that Charles Markland, a member of the 2008 winning team from Christ Church, Oxford, had transferred his studies to Balliol College halfway through the series. He said that his team captain had contacted a researcher concerning the situation, and had been told that this was not a problem and that the same team should be maintained for continuity purposes. [26] It was also revealed that Freya McClements, captain of the 2004 winning team from Magdalen College, Oxford, was at the time studying at Trinity College, Dublin. Although it was mentioned in a BBC news story at the time, no action was taken because the BBC stated that the facts had not been brought to their attention. [27] [28]
In 2016, at the Henley Literary Festival, Jeremy Paxman said that, when students were unable to answer several consecutive starter questions, those questions were often deleted before the show is broadcast. [29]
Teams consist of four members and most represent a single university. The exceptions to this are colleges of the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of London and formerly the University of Wales which enter independent teams. While a number of other British universities have constituent colleges, only those where some teaching is undertaken at the college level may enter independent teams. The competing teams each year are selected by the show's producers, based both on scores from a general trivia quiz and the producers' judging of the suitability of the teams for television. [41] Oxford and Cambridge ("Oxbridge") colleges are prevalent in the competition: for instance, of the Christmas series between 2011 and 2022, Oxbridge colleges represented one-quarter of teams and three-quarters of winners. [42]
The contestants are identified by their surnames during gameplay, apart from at the beginning when they introduce themselves with their full names, where they are from and what they are studying.
The teams generally consist of mixed genders, mostly young adults but with some mature students also appearing.
The current tournament format used for each series is that of a direct knockout tournament starting with 28 teams. The fourteen first-round winners progress directly to the last sixteen. Two matches, involving the four highest scoring losing teams from the first round, whose losing scores often exceed winning scores in other first-round matches, fill the remaining places in the last sixteen. Teams in the quarter-final round (last eight teams) have to win two matches in the round to progress to the semi-finals. Equally, teams must lose two quarter-final matches in order to be eliminated from that round. The pairings for matches are often chosen in order to keep stronger teams apart. [43]
Starter questions are answered individually and are worth ten points. The catchphrase "your starter for ten" inspired David Nicholls' 2003 novel Starter for Ten and the 2006 film based on it starring James McAvoy. An incorrect interruption of a starter question incurs a five-point penalty; during the ITV series this took the form of five points being awarded to the opposing team, whereas in the BBC series five points are deducted from the interrupting team.
The team answering a starter correctly gets a set of three bonus questions worth a potential fifteen points, for which they can confer. Sets of bonus questions are thematically linked. They rarely share a connection with the preceding starter question, except when they are bonuses following a picture or music question. Generally, there are three separate bonus questions worth five points each, but occasionally a bonus will require the enumeration of a given list with five, ten or fifteen points given for correctly giving a certain number of items from the list (for example, "there are seven fundamental SI units. Give five for five points, six for ten points or all seven for fifteen points"). It is the team captain's responsibility to give the answer to the bonus questions unless another member of the team is specified with the phrase "Nominate [name]". The team member so named may then give the answer instead.
In the course of a game there are two picture rounds (occurring roughly one quarter and three-quarters of the way through) and one music round (at the halfway point), where the subsequent bonuses are connected thematically to the starter; if a picture or music starter is not correctly answered, the accompanying bonus questions are held back until a normal starter is correctly answered. Usually, in the recent contests, the first picture round focuses on science and technology, geography, and languages, while the second picture round focuses on art, film, television, and literature.[ citation needed ] The 2010 Manchester University team included a visually impaired student, Rachael Neiman, and the picture rounds in episodes involving the team were word puzzles for which she was provided with Braille transcriptions. [44] Pieces of music played for the music round may be classical or popular – for example, on 25 July 2011, the pieces played were winners of the Eurovision Song Contest. Occasionally, audio clips other than music (e.g. speech, animal sounds or other field recordings) are used.
The pace of questioning gradually increases through the show. The sound of a gong signals the end of the game. At this point, the game immediately ends, even if the quizmaster is halfway through asking a question. In the event of a tied score at the sound of the gong, a sudden death question is asked, the first team to answer correctly being deemed the winner; this is repeated until a team either gives a correct answer to a question or is deducted five points for an incorrect interruption to a question. The ending of the programme is usually signified with the quizmaster saying, "It's goodbye from ([name of losing team], who say goodbye), it's goodbye from ([name of winning team], likewise), and it's goodbye from me: goodbye!"
While the starter questions are being read out, the teams are shown on screen one above the other by means of a split-screen effect. When a player buzzes in, the shot zooms in to that player, accompanied by a voiceover identifying the player by team and surname, for example "Nottingham, Munro". The voiceovers are performed live in the studio by Roger Tilling and become more energetic towards the end of the programme. The 1986 series experimented with an actual two-tier set, which was discontinued the following year.
Notable contestants in the regular student competition. Special Celebrity Christmas editions, where all competitors are distinguished, are excluded.
The University of Manchester and Magdalen College, Oxford have both enjoyed four wins each, with Imperial College London having won a record five times. [50] The University of Manchester and Magdalen College, Oxford are also the only teams to successfully defend the title the year after their win (Manchester's 2009 win came only after the original winner was disqualified). Trinity College, Cambridge and Durham University hold three titles, and a further six institutions have two titles: Sussex, the Open University, Sidney Sussex–Cambridge, Keble–Oxford, University–Oxford and Warwick. At the time of Magdalen College, Oxford's third win in 2004, no other institution had won more than twice; the trophy in use since 1994 was given to the college in perpetuity and a new once created for use from 2005.
Rank | University/College | Number of wins | Win year(s) |
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1 | Imperial College London | 5 | 1996, 2001, 2020, 2022, 2024 |
2 | Magdalen College, Oxford | 4 | 1997, 1998, 2004, 2011 |
University of Manchester | 4 | 2006, 2009, 2012, 2013 | |
4 | Trinity College, Cambridge | 3 | 1974, 1995, 2014 |
Durham University | 3 | 1977, 2000, 2023 | |
6 | University of Sussex | 2 | 1967, 1969 |
University College, Oxford | 2 | 1972, 1976 | |
Keble College, Oxford | 2 | 1975, 1987 | |
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge | 2 | 1971, 1978 | |
The Open University | 2 | 1984, 1999 | |
University of Warwick | 2 | 2007, 2021 |
Information in these tables obtained from Blanchflower – University Challenge Series Champions. [51]
Little is known about the lowest scores from the Bamber Gascoigne series, except that the lowest score ever was in the 1971–72 season, when the University of Sussex, fresh from two series wins, managed only 10 points. [52] However, a low score was also achieved by Victoria University of Manchester in their first round match in 1975 when, for much of the recording, they answered only with the names of Marxists as a protest against the Oxford and Cambridge colleges being able to enter separate teams. [53]
Under Jeremy Paxman, the lowest score achieved by a student team is also 10 which, coincidentally, was also achieved by a team from the University of Sussex, in the first round of the 2021–22 series when they faced the University of Birmingham who scored 245. In the same series, the lowest winning score for a student team was achieved, by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who scored 85 in a quarter final against King's College London who scored 80. The second lowest losing score is 15, which was achieved by the University of Exeter in a 2008–09 quarter-final against Corpus Christi, Oxford, whose team captain Gail Trimble amassed 15 correct starter questions. However, the Corpus Christi team were later disqualified from the competition after it was found that team member Sam Kay had been ineligible for the last three matches. [54] Therefore, the second lowest score officially achieved against eligible opponents under quizmaster Jeremy Paxman was by Lincoln College, Oxford, who totalled 30 in a semi-final against the eventual series champions the University of Manchester, in an episode televised on 9 February 2009, just two weeks after the Corpus Christi vs Exeter match. This was also matched in the grand final by St John's College, Oxford, against Peterhouse, Cambridge, on 18 April 2016.
Before these matches, the lowest score was 35, reached by New Hall, Cambridge, 1997. [55] This score would have been lower if all deductions for incorrect interruptions had been applied. [56] [ better source needed ]
The lowest score during the Professionals series was achieved by the House of Commons team, who scored 25 in 2003. In the 2014 Christmas University Challenge series, a team of alumni from Newcastle University also finished with 25.
An all-time record low score for the series was achieved in the final of the 2017 Christmas series, when Keble College, Oxford, beat the University of Reading 240–0. The previous year's Christmas series saw the lowest winning score of all time, 75, scored by the University of Nottingham, who defeated their opponents, the University of Bristol, by just five points.
University College, Oxford, scored 520 points in the final ITV season in 1987. [57] In the Jeremy Paxman era, the team from Open University scored the highest score, 415, in the semi-final in 1997 against Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School.
Some information from this table was obtained from the web pages listed in "Special Series". Sean Blanchflower. Retrieved 26 February 2008.
ITV series
| BBC series
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The producers of the programme have taken the more recent inclusion of mature students to its logical conclusion by making two series without any student participants: University Challenge Reunited (2002) brought former teams back together, while University Challenge: The Professionals (from 2003) matched occupational groups such as civil servants, architects and doctors against each other. In 2003, the former was won by the 1979 team from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, the latter by a team from the Inland Revenue. The 2004 Professionals series was won by the British Library, and the 2005 series by the Privy Council Office. In 2006, Professionals was won by staff of the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford.
The show has seen numerous specials, including those for specific professions and celebrity editions, such as Universe Challenge, presented by former host and Red Dwarf fan, Bamber Gascoigne, where the cast of Red Dwarf challenged a team of their "ultimate fans" to celebrate Red Dwarf's 10th anniversary on the air. The cast was Chris Barrie (captain), Danny John-Jules, Robert Llewellyn, Chloë Annett and Craig Charles. The cast, who at times seemed amazed at the fans' knowledge, lost, but by only 15 points, 280–295.
Sixth Form Challenge, hosted by Chris Kelly, appeared briefly between 1965 and 1967. The sixth form contestants represented leading public schools and grammar schools. An untelevised version, Schools' Challenge , continues to run at junior and senior secondary school levels.
Challenging Times was a quiz show for teams representing higher education institutes in Ireland, televised by RTÉ from 1991 to 2001.
University Challenge ran in New Zealand for 14 seasons, from 1976 until 1989, with international series held between the previous years' British and New Zealand champions in both 1986 and 1987. It originally aired on TVNZ 1 and was hosted by Peter Sinclair from 1976 to 1977 and again from 1980 to 1989. From 1978 to 1979, Sinclair was briefly dropped from the show and was replaced by University of Otago lecturer Charles Higham, Sinclair returned in 1980 and from 1981 to 1982, the show briefly moved to TVNZ 2, it moved back to TV1 in 1983 and remained on the network until the series original conclusion in 1989. The series was revived in 2014 by Cue TV and aired on Prime with Cue TV owner Tom Conroy as host and ran until its second conclusion in 2017.
University Challenge, hosted by Magnus Clarke, ran in Australia on the ABC from 1987 until 1989. In the 1988 series, the University of New South Wales defeated the University of Melbourne in the final by 245 points to 175. [60]
University Challenge India started in summer 2003, with the season culminating in the finals of March 2004 where Sardar Patel College of Engineering (SPCE), Mumbai, beat Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. The 2004–2005 season finale saw a team of undergraduate engineering students from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT), Delhi, beat a team of management students from the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode. The Indian winners of the 2003–2004 season went on to beat the finalists from the UK show, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. UC India is produced by BBC World India, and Synergy Communications, co-owned by Siddhartha Basu, who also hosted the show. [61]
University Challenge inspired the format of two Dutch-language shows: Universiteitsstrijd [62] (the Netherlands), which ran for one season in 2016 on NTR, and De Campus Cup [63] (Belgium), which ran since 2019 on Canvas.
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.
Arthur Bamber Gascoigne was an English television presenter and author. He was the original quizmaster on University Challenge, which initially ran from 1962 to 1987.
Bamboozle! was a quiz game featured on Channel 4 Teletext in the United Kingdom. It was originally part of Teletext's "Fun & Games" category, though the rest of the category had been discontinued for some years before Bamboozle! ended. The last edition, themed around 'Ends and Lasts', appeared on Monday 14 December 2009. The Boozler 'family' appeared one last time on Tuesday 15 December 2009 saying farewell to the Teletext audience.
Starter for 10 is a 2006 British comedy-drama film directed by Tom Vaughan from a screenplay by David Nicholls, adapted from his 2003 novel Starter for Ten. The film stars James McAvoy as a university student who wins a place on a University Challenge quiz team. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2006, and was released in the UK and Ireland on 10 November 2006, and in Canada and the US on 23 February 2007.
Roger Tilling is a British voice-over artist, and broadcaster. Since 2001 he has been the announcer for the BBC television quiz programme University Challenge.
Series 38 of the quiz show University Challenge began on 7 July 2008 and was broadcast on BBC Two. This is a list of the matches played, their scores, and outcomes.
Series 36 of University Challenge began on 7 August 2006 and was broadcast on BBC Two. This is a list of the matches played, their scores, and outcomes.
This is a list of British television related events from 1962.
Gail Trimble is a British academic specialising in Latin poetry and literary form. She was captain of the Corpus Christi College team for the BBC television programme University Challenge in 2009 and scored a high proportion of the team's points. While her team won the challenge, they were subsequently disqualified after it was found that one of her teammates had finished his studies while the show was being recorded. Trimble has continued to appear on quiz programmes. She is now a fellow and tutor in Classics at Trinity College, Oxford.
Alexander Guttenplan is a former student primarily known as the captain of the team from Emmanuel College, Cambridge that won the University Challenge TV quiz show in 2010, scoring 315 points to 100 against St John's College, Oxford, in the final. His performance in this has been compared with that of Gail Trimble. He also "got the better" of presenter Jeremy Paxman, in an exchange which became an Internet sensation.
Series 24 of University Challenge ran between 21 September 1994 and 29 March 1995. This was the first series of the show for eight years and aired on BBC Two for the first time, having previously been broadcast on ITV. Jeremy Paxman took over as presenter from Bamber Gascoigne, who had presented the show from its inception in 1962 through until 1987.
Christmas University Challenge is a British quiz programme which has aired on BBC Two since 2011. It is a spin-off from University Challenge that airs daily over the Christmas period, and features teams of noteworthy alumni from British universities competing in the same format as the parent show.
Series 46 of University Challenge began on 11 July 2016 on BBC Two, and finished on 10 April 2017. This series of the long running quiz show drew larger audiences than usual thanks to a collection of interesting characters, most notably Eric Monkman from Wolfson College, Cambridge, who has been described on Twitter by many viewers as "the most intense contestant ever".
Eric Monkman is a Canadian academic and television personality based in the United Kingdom.
Series 48 of University Challenge began on 16 July 2018 on BBC Two.
Jay Bobby Seagull is an English mathematics teacher, broadcaster and writer. He appeared on the television programme University Challenge in 2017, and in 2018 on Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain. His second book, The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers, was published in 2018.
Birkbeck Students' Union is the representative body for students at Birkbeck, University of London, a public research university located in Bloomsbury, London, England.
The 50th series of University Challenge began on 13 July 2020 on BBC Two and ended on 5 April 2021. It was won by the University of Warwick for the institution's second title.
The 52nd series of University Challenge began on 29 August 2022 on BBC Two. A special programme commemorating the show's 60th anniversary was broadcast on the same night.
The 53rd series of the quiz show University Challenge began on 17 July 2023 on BBC Two, and ended with the final on 8 April 2024, when Imperial College London triumphed for a record-breaking fifth time. This was the first series to be hosted by Amol Rajan, who succeeded Jeremy Paxman. Rajan's presenting style, more energetic and less austere than his predecessor, garnered positive reception from critics and viewers.