University Challenge
Format	Quiz show
Presented by	Bamber Gascoigne (1962–87) Jeremy Paxman (1994–)
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	41
No. of episodes	1513 (as of 19 March 2012)[1]
Production
Location(s)	Granada Studios, Manchester
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	ITV Studios (Granada Television)
Broadcast
Original channel	ITV (1962–87) BBC Two (1994–)
Picture format	4:3 (1962–2000) 16:9 (2001–present)
Original run	ITV: 21 September 1962 – 31 December 1987 BBC: 21 September 1994 – present
Chronology
Related shows	College Bowl University Challenge: The Professionals

University Challenge is a British quiz programme that has aired since 1962. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC television from 1959 to 1970.

Produced by Granada Television and filmed at Granada Studios in Manchester since its inception, University Challenge aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 1962 to 1987, presented by quiz master Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC revived the programme in 1994 with Jeremy Paxman as quiz master.

The current holders are the University of Manchester having won back-to-back titles in series 41 and 42 in 2012 and 2013. The programme will return for its 43rd series later in 2013.

History [edit]

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.^[2] From its inception in 1962, University Challenge was hosted by Bamber Gascoigne. The show was a cult favourite with a small but loyal core audience, and was one of a select few ITV shows which were transmitted without any advertising breaks. This meant that the show was relegated to irregular timeslots by the various ITV regional companies, such as Sunday afternoons, weekday mornings, weekday afternoons and, in some regions, 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. For example, in the 1985 season, 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.

This added complexity did little to halt declining viewer figures, and after ITV regions started to drop the programme altogether (the final season was not screened at all by LWT) it was taken off the air in 1987. It was eventually revived in 1994 by the BBC, although still produced by Granada Television, 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, not by Granada but by BBC Television, as part of a themed evening of programmes dedicated to Granada Television. It was presented by Bamber Gascoigne, and screened on BBC2 on 28 December 1992. The teams included one made up of students from Keble College, Oxford, which had fielded the winning team in the final 1987 season; and a graduates team made up of celebrity alumni who had previously starred 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).

The original announcer was Don Murray-Henderson, who was with the programme until his death in 1971. Jim Pope took over and stayed with the programme until his death in 2001. Since then, the announcer has been voiceover and broadcaster Roger Tilling. The theme tune is called "College Boy" and was composed by Derek New. The original, jauntier version from the Bamber Gascoigne era is no longer used, and has been replaced by a version recorded by The Balanescu Quartet.

Format [edit]

An episode of University Challenge in 1994

The current tournament format used for each series is that of a direct knockout tournament starting with 28 teams. The 14 first-round winners progress directly to the last 16. 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 16. The pairings for matches are often chosen in order to keep stronger teams apart.^[3]

Teams consist of four members and represent either a single university or a college of the universities which teach under a collegiate system (as in the case of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Wales or London)

"Starter" questions are answered individually "on the buzzer" without conferring and are worth 10 points. "Your starter for 10" became the programme's most famous catchphrase and inspired David Nicholls' 2003 novel Starter for Ten and the 2006 film based on it starring James McAvoy. The team answering a starter correctly gets a set of three "bonus" questions worth a potential 15 points over which they can confer. Sets of bonus questions are thematically linked, although, apart from Picture and Music bonus questions, they rarely share a connection with the preceding starter question. Generally there are three separate bonus questions worth 5 points each, but occasionally a bonus will require the enumeration of a given list with 5, 10 or 15 points given for correctly giving a certain number of items from the list (e.g., "there are seven fundamental SI units. Give 5 for 5 points, 6 for 10 points or all 7 for 15 points"). An incorrect interruption of a starter results in a 5-point penalty.

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. 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.^[4] 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, becoming almost frantic in the last minute or so before the "gong" which signals the end of the game. At this point, the game immediately ends, even if Jeremy 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 one or other of the teams answer correctly, or a team loses by giving an incorrect interruption. The ending of the programme is signified with Jeremy Paxman saying "It's goodbye from (name of losing team, who wave and say goodbye), it's goodbye from (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, Smith". The voiceovers are performed live in the studio by Roger Tilling and become noticeably more energetic towards the end of the programme. The 1985 season experimented with an actual two-tier set, which was discontinued the following season.

Controversies [edit]

Participation of individual Oxbridge colleges [edit]

The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge could each enter as separate teams up to five of their constituent colleges, which are not themselves universities: they have far fewer students - numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands - than most universities. This was the ostensible inspiration for an unusual 1975 protest. A team from the Victoria University of Manchester (which included David Aaronovitch) answered every question "Che Guevara", "Marx", "Trotsky" or "Lenin", possibly in the hope of making the resulting show unbroadcastable.^[5]

It did, however, get broadcast, although only portions of the episode still exist in the archives of Granada TV. Consequently, Granada banned the University of Manchester for several years.^[6]

Postgraduates [edit]

The show has, since its revival in 1994, featured a number of very high standard teams of postgraduate and mature students, who perhaps have a greater breadth of general knowledge.^[7] The Open University (OU) won the 1999 series with a team whose ages averaged 46. In the quarter-final they beat a slightly younger team from part-time and mature student specialist Birkbeck, University of London, by only one question. But Birkbeck won in 2003, also with a substantially mature team. Host Jeremy Paxman publicly criticised the OU team as not being in the spirit of the competition.^[8]

Ineligible contestants [edit]

In 2009, Sam Kay, part of the team from Corpus Christi College, Oxford was accused of not being a student when the show was broadcast. Kay, who had completed a chemistry degree the previous summer, had been planning to go on to study for a Doctor of Philosophy, but he did not have sufficient funding so dropped out. He then became an accountant.^[9] The team, whose captain Gail Trimble was dubbed the "human Google",^[10] won the competition but were subsequently disqualified and the trophy was awarded to the runners-up, the University of Manchester.^[11]

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 claimed 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.^[12] 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 claimed that the facts had not been brought to their attention.^[13][14]

Notable contestants [edit]

• David Aaronovitch – Victoria University of Manchester, 1975
• Tim Boswell – New College, Oxford
• Sebastian Faulks – Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1972
• Julian Fellowes – Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1969
• Stephen Fry – Queens' College, Cambridge, 1980
• Christopher Hitchens – Balliol College, Oxford^[15]
• Clive James – Pembroke College, Cambridge
• Kwasi Kwarteng – Trinity College, Cambridge, 1995
• David Lidington – Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 1978
• Miriam Margolyes – Newnham College, Cambridge, 1963
• David Mellor – Christ's College, Cambridge
• Charles Moore – Trinity College, Cambridge
• Malcolm Rifkind – University of Edinburgh, 1967
• John Sessions – reserve for UCNW Bangor 1973
• John Simpson – Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1964
• David Starkey – Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
• June Tabor – St Hugh's College, Oxford, 1968
• The Wizard of New Zealand – University of Leeds, 1963

Spin-off shows [edit]

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 Gascoine, 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. In December 2012, the programme presented a series which it called "University Challenge Christmas Special", which consisted of celebrities who were graduates of the teams represented on the programmes coming back to take part in the teams on the programmes of the series. This series was won by a team who represented New College, Oxford.

Similar programmes [edit]

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.

Other countries [edit]

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 was hosted by Peter Sinclair.

University Challenge, hosted by Dr. Magnus Clarke, ran in Australia on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's channel 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.^[16]

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.^[17]

Winners [edit]

Non-Oxbridge institutions that have won University Challenge more than once have been The University of Manchester with four wins, and Durham, Sussex, the Open University and Imperial College, London, who have each won twice. Among Oxford and Cambridge colleges, Trinity and Sidney Sussex from Cambridge, and Keble and University College from Oxford have won twice. The University of Manchester and Magdalen College, Oxford are the only institutions to have won four times and are also the only winners successfully to defend the title the following year.

Original series [edit]

Information in this table was obtained from University Challenge Series Champions. Sean Blanchflower. Retrieved 2008-02-26. .

New series [edit]

Both series [edit]

Lowest scores [edit]

Not much is known about the lowest scores from the Bamber Gascoigne series, except that the lowest score ever was amassed in 1971-2, when a Sussex team, fresh from two series wins, managed only 10 points.^[18] This is also the lowest score ever achieved on the programme.

Under quizmaster Jeremy Paxman, a low score of 15 was achieved by the University of Exeter in a quarter-final against Corpus Christi, Oxford, which also saw team captain Gail Trimble amass 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.^[19] Therefore, the 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.

Before these matches, the lowest score was 35, reached by New Hall, Cambridge, 1997.^[20] This score would have been lower if all fines for incorrect interruptions had been applied.^[21]

The lowest score during the Professionals series was achieved by the House of Commons team, who scored 25 in 2003. This should be seen in the context of the Professionals series' shorter playing time (about 20 minutes for a match instead of about 25 for the student series).

Highest scores [edit]

University College, Oxford scored 520 points in the final ITV season in 1987.^[22]

Specials [edit]

Some information from this table was obtained from the web pages listed in "Special Series". Sean Blanchflower. Retrieved 2008-02-26. 

In popular culture [edit]

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010)

• David Nicholls' novel Starter for Ten (2003) was based around one student's part in a University Challenge team whilst at an unnamed university (based on Nicholls' own alma mater, the University of Bristol, and identified as such in the film adaptation). The title was, of course, taken from the programme's catchphrase. The novel was adapted into the 2006 film Starter for 10, (released on 10 November in the UK).
• The Undertones 1979 single "My Perfect Cousin" contains the line: "He thinks that I'm a cabbage, cos I hate University Challenge".
• In 1984, an episode of The Young Ones, entitled "Bambi" (a play on the host's name), centred on a parody of University Challenge with a match between the fictitious teams of Scumbag College and Footlights College, Oxbridge. The cast included Stephen Fry, who participated in the real competition in 1980 while at Cambridge, and fellow alumni and Footlights members Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie as part of the "Footlights College" team and Griff Rhys Jones as the host.
• A quiz themed around BBC science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, broadcast in 1998, was entitled Universe Challenge. It opened as if it were a regular episode, but with Chris Barrie imitating Jeremy Paxman. Bamber comes from behind with a blaster gun and blows him out of the chair, so he can host. This was Bamber Gascoigne's last appearance as host.
• In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, University Challenge was placed 34th.
• Armando Ianucci's Time Trumpet did a parody of University Challenge, set in a future where students are 'too lazy to learn'; this parody was later referenced in an episode of the real series of University Challenge by the team captain of SOAS, John Joseph Perry, who, not knowing the real answer, simply answered "Venezuela?"
• In Series 8 of BBC TV series Waterloo Road, the school hosts a "School's Challenge" between themselves and local rival Havelock High. English teacher Grantly, who hosts the quiz, claims to have been team captain for the University of Manchester in 1974.

See also [edit]

• University Challenge 2004–05
• University Challenge 2005–06
• University Challenge 2006–07
• University Challenge 2007–08
• University Challenge 2008–09
• University Challenge 2009–10
• University Challenge 2010–11
• University Challenge 2011–12
• University Challenge 2012–13
• The 3rd Degree

Notes [edit]

External links [edit]

• University Challenge at BBC Programmes
• Sean Blanchflower's University Challenge pages
• University Challenge, with photograph of the highest-ever scoring team, from University College, Oxford, in the 1987 final against Keble College, Oxford at UKGameshows.com
• A full, illustrated behind-the-scenes account of the matches of the lowest-ever scoring team in the Paxman-era, by an Exeter contestant
• University Challenge India – a tribute
• Interview with the winning 2007 University of Warwick team
• University Challenge at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC Tightens University Challenge Rules in Response to Fiasco