First watched : Uncertain
I've really no idea when I first caught this show but September 1974 when it followed immediately after Top of the Pops seems like a good candidate. The 1974 series was the third. I remember my mum saying something like "this is really difficult. I might get one or two in the general knowledge round". The show starts by quizzing the four contestants on a specialist subject then brings them back for a general knowledge round. The most famous winner, in 1980, was London cabbie Fred Housego who had a brief career as a TV personality on the back of it.
The show's still on today with pretty much the same format and a good fit for the late Magnus Magnusson in John Humphreys but that does disguise some wobbles. It was cancelled as a BBC 1 show in 1997 fter a big slump in viewing figures but resurrected on Radio Four the following year with Peter Snow as the question master. That lasted three years before Clive Anderson had a go on a satellite channel. After a year's hiatus it resumed on BBC 2 with Humphreys.
When I first saw it I could perhaps answer a handful of the general knowledge questions while the first half of the programme was nigh on incomprehensible. The specialist subjects chosen were often ridiculously esoteric. I still watch it occasionally though never by appointment and the general knowledge round seems pretty easy for an ex-pub quizzer like me. It's more of a challenge to take on the contestants on their own subjects and out-score them which is getting easier now that they often come from popular rather than high brow culture. Inevitably the show has been accused of "dumbing down" and I think there's something in that. Certainly it's now much less difficult than University Challenge whereas I'd say they were once on a par.
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