Games - Fifteen to One

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	Games - Fifteen to One

Fifteen to One was a popular general knowledge quiz show on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, that ran from 4 January 1988 to 19 December 2003. Throughout it was presented and produced by William G. Stewart. Some 30,000 contestants appeared on the show. It was notable for having very little of the chatting between host and contestant that is often a feature of other quiz shows.

The basis of the show was devised by John M. Lewis, a former sales manager for British Telecom. He submitted the idea to Regent Productions who developed the programme into a 30 minute format. Originally, there were 20 starting contestants but the figure was cut down to 15 in order to fit the available running time. The number varied in other countries: in Poland, the number was 10 as the questions were longer in Polish.

Layout

The 15 contestants stood in a semicircle with a podium in front of each. The design varied slightly over the years, but the essential elements were: a number on the front of the podium, a name badge either on top of the podium or worn by the contestant, and three green neon lights to represent the lives of the contestant. The numbers were allocated by drawing lots from a bag before filming. Once a contestant was eliminated, the spotlight on them went out and they had to sit down.

A separate podium was moved in place for the third round, with the semicircle behind it no longer lit.

Over the course of the first two rounds, 12 contestants had to be eliminated.

Round 1

Each of the 15 numbered contestants began the quiz with three lives. Each contestant was asked a general knowledge question in numerical order and given a period of three seconds to give a correct response. If they failed to answer the question correctly, they lost one of their three lives. After all of the 15 contestants were asked a question, another round of questioning began in the same manner. If any player who had got their first question wrong failed to give a correct answer to their second question, they lost both remaining lives and were eliminated from the competition. Stewart's succinct explanation of round 1 was "Two questions each: one correct answer from you to survive."

Round 2

At this point, each contestant had either 2 or 3 lives remaining. As per Round 1, questions were asked to contestants 1, 2, 3 etc. in turn with one life lost for an incorrect response. As soon as one player answered correctly, the player could begin nominating. This meant they called out the number of the next player to face a question. If the nominated player did not give a correct answer he/she lost a life and the player who made the nomination had to nominate again. If the nominee answered correctly, they became the new nominating player. When a contestant lost their final life they were eliminated from the competition and had to sit down. Towards the end of the show's run, a rule was introduced that forbade contestants from nominating the contestant who had nominated them. When only three contestants remained, the first phase of the quiz was over and the programme paused for a commercial break.

There was no fixed length to Round 2 in terms of time or number of questions, so it could vary considerably. Sometimes, after a difficult first round, there might only be five contestants left standing, leading to a very short round 2. Other times, nobody got dismissed in the first round at all, and round 2 would be quite long. On a few occasions just 5 contestants remained, but Round 2 still ran on for quite a while, as they all proved to be quite evenly matched. There was never a case when only 3 (or fewer) contestants remained from Round 1, although William G. Stewart once jokingly said that if this happened he would give a talk on the Parthenon Marbles to fill the time. Stewart is an outspoken supporter of returning the Marbles to Greece, and once presented a Fifteen to One special on the subject.

Round 3

The end game (usually referred to as the final) was played for points. However, before it began in earnest, the three contestants were restored to the full set of three lives and the number of lives that each player had remaining at the end of Round 2 become part of the player's score. Thus those contestants who had 3 lives left started the second phase with a score of 3 points etc. This serves to give players who had not lost a life in the first phase of the game an advantage.

Before the round started, a brief introduction to each of the three players was made by the voice-over, giving their occupation and hobbies or interests.

In the end game, a maximum of 40 questions were asked with the number of questions remaining displayed on the bottom right hand corner of the screen. A wrong answer cost one life (three lost lives leading to elimination - regardless of score), while correct answers scored 10 points. The first question was open to all players to answer on the buzzer. Once one of the players answered 3 questions correctly they were given the opportunity to answer the next question themselves or nominate one of the other two players to answer.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Fifteen to One ]

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