Format continuity 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. Elements of this continuity include: • The longevity of its quizmasters, with only three presenters in the programme's history; • The split-screen presentation during the starter question phase, which appears to place one team physically above the other. In the final years of the original Bamber Gascoigne era, the studio set genuinely was two-tiered, although the split-screen effect returned for the revived series and has been used ever since; • Long serving voiceover announcers, with only three in the programme's history – Don Murray-Henderson from 1962 until his death in 1971, then
Jim Pope until his death in 2001, then
Roger Tilling. Tilling's delivery typically becomes increasingly high-pitched as the episode progresses; • The theme tune "College Boy" by Derek New, which has been with the series since the 1960s (although the first series used "Ting A Ling" by
Duke Ellington). "College Boy" was originally scored for an ensemble of
tubular bells,
flugelhorn,
harpsichord, brushed
hi-hat,
bass drum and
double bass. The original theme returned for the early Paxman-era episodes and was later replaced by a
string quartet arrangement of the theme recorded by the
Balanescu Quartet.
ITV (1962 to 1987) hosted the original series of
University Challenge from 1962 to 1987 and the 1992 Granadaland special. 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. 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-fame Ian Channell, better known as
The Wizard of New Zealand) and the
University of Reading. 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. Thames resumed screening the series in 1984 however they only screened the Quarter-finals To the final in December 1984, when it was networked for the first time. The programme was not broadcast in 1985 and returned in April 1986, when it continued to 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. 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. 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.
BBC hosted
University Challenge from 1994 to 2023 and
its Christmas spin-off from 2011 to 2022. hosted the 2003 and 2005
Comic Relief editions of
University Challenge. hosted the 2019
Comic Relief edition of
University Challenge. hosted the 2020 and 2021
Children in Need editions of
University Challenge.
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). Paxman relinquished his role as host following the conclusion of the
52nd series in 2023, after which he was succeeded by
Amol Rajan. In October 2022, an ITV documentary, ''Paxman: Putting Up With Parkinson's'', explored how
Parkinson's disease has impacted him and revealed that Paxman recorded his last episode of
University Challenge on 15 October 2022, which aired on 29 May 2023. 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.
Postgraduates Since its revival in 1994, the programme has featured a number of teams of
postgraduate and
mature students, whose participation has been criticised. 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. 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".
Ineligible contestants 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. 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. The team, whose captain
Gail Trimble was dubbed the "human
Google", won the competition but was subsequently disqualified and the trophy awarded to the runners-up, the University of Manchester. 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. 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.
Editing 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.
In popular culture • In an episode of the BBC comedy series ''
Not the Nine O'Clock News'', first broadcast on 15 December 1980,
Griff Rhys Jones plays Bamber Gascoigne in a sketch that pitches two teams of criminals representing prisoners from
Wormwood Scrubs and
Parkhurst. The teams score "points" (remission of sentence) by "
grassing" on possible suspects involved in a crime. • In 1984 an episode of
The Young Ones, entitled "
Bambi" (a play on Bamber Gascoigne'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. The teams are arranged physically one above the other, in a parody of the show's split-screen format. • A quiz themed around BBC science fiction situation comedy
Red Dwarf, broadcast in 1998, is entitled
Universe Challenge. It opens as if it were a regular episode, but with
Chris Barrie impersonating Jeremy Paxman. Gascoigne comes from behind with a
blaster gun and blows him out of the chair to take over as host. This was 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. •
Starter For Ten is the title of a novel, first published in 2003, by British author
David Nicholls. The plot is about a first-year student, Brian Jackson, who attempts to join his university team competing in
University Challenge. Nicholls also adapted the novel into the film
Starter for 10 in 2006, starring
James McAvoy as Jackson, with
Mark Gatiss portraying Gascoigne. • In 2006
Armando Ianucci's
Time Trumpet presented 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 2007–08 series of
University Challenge by the team captain of
SOAS, Joe Perry, who, not knowing the real answer, simply answered "Venezuela?" • The quiz was the subject of the hour-long BBC Two documentary
The Story So Far, first broadcast in November 2006. • In 2014, a two-part documentary narrated by
Richard Osman called 'Class of 2014' outlined a brief history of the programme and the team selection process both within the universities and by the production staff. The documentary attracted some criticism due to the large emphasis on Oxbridge and Manchester during the programme. • In March 2017 semi-finalist team captains
Bobby Seagull of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and
Eric Monkman of
Wolfson College, Cambridge, appeared on BBC One's
The One Show. In August 2017 the two were featured on BBC Radio 4's
Today programme ahead of hosting their own show, ''Monkman and Seagull's Polymathic Adventure'', on 21 August. • In 2024, Amol Rajan's reply "We need
jungle, I’m afraid" was widely sampled by music producers, becoming a
viral phenomenon. ==Gameplay==