Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Game On
- 1 Genre and the Quiz Show
- 2 Quiz Show Histories
- 3 Quiz Show Theory: Approaching the Programme Text
- 4 Knowledge in the Quiz Show
- 5 The Quiz Show and ‘Ordinary’ People as Television Performers
- 6 ‘Asking the Audience’: Quiz Shows and Their viewers
- Conclusion: ‘Not the Final Answer…’
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Quiz Show Histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Game On
- 1 Genre and the Quiz Show
- 2 Quiz Show Histories
- 3 Quiz Show Theory: Approaching the Programme Text
- 4 Knowledge in the Quiz Show
- 5 The Quiz Show and ‘Ordinary’ People as Television Performers
- 6 ‘Asking the Audience’: Quiz Shows and Their viewers
- Conclusion: ‘Not the Final Answer…’
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the year 2000, Judith Keppel became the first contestant to win the top prize on the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (hereafter Millionaire). Keppel's win boosted media interest in the already popular show, and press critics continued to discuss the influence of the programme in ‘injecting new life into the genre and pitching it back into prime-time’ (Thynne 2000: 22). In the UK, a number of new quiz shows emerged in the wake of Millionaire, ranging across The Weakest Link (BBC1/2, 1999-), The Syndicate (BBC1, 2000), The Chair (BBC1, 2002), No Win, No Fee (BBC1, 2001), The Biggest Game in Town (ITV1, 2001), The Enemy Within (BBC1, 2002), The Vault (ITV1, 2002-4) and The Big Call (ITV1, 2005). While Millionaire enjoyed astonishing global success (as early as 2003, it had been taken up in over fifty territories), its impact was especially apparent in the US, largely because the quiz show had not been seen as a prime-time genre for some years. Although the quote above describes Millionaire as pitching the genre ‘back into prime-time [my emphasis]’, it would be unfair to suggest that it had ever disappeared from this slot in the UK. Certainly, there was a sense in the late 1990s that traditional forms of light entertainment, especially quiz shows and sitcoms, were being overtaken by the rise of popular factual programming. But the quiz show has always had a presence in daytime and prime-time slots on British terrestrial television. In America, shows such as Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and The Price is Right have long since been syndicated as popular daytime fare. But the emphasis on a prime-time ‘resurrection’ was particularly visible in the late 1990s.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Quiz Show , pp. 32 - 57Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2008