Editing University Challenge (section)

===ITV (1962 to 1987)===
[[File:Bamber Gascoigne.JPG|thumb|right|[[Bamber Gascoigne]] 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, Baron Bernstein|Sidney Bernstein]] who founded [[ITV Granada|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.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Made in Manchester: University Challenge celebrates 50 years on our screens |last=Taylor |first=Paul |url=http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/tv_and_showbiz/s/1588567_made-in-manchester-university-challenge-celebrates-50-years-on-our-screens |newspaper=Manchester Evening News |date=12 September 2012 |access-date=12 September 2012 |archive-date=19 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019041342/http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/tv_and_showbiz/s/1588567_made-in-manchester-university-challenge-celebrates-50-years-on-our-screens |url-status=dead }}</ref> 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-famed Ian Channell, better known as [[The Wizard of New Zealand]]) and the [[University of Reading]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=University Challenge – 1963 |url=https://blanchflower.org/uc/uc63.html |access-date=2023-05-29 |website=blanchflower.org}}</ref> 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. [[London Weekend Television|LWT]] stopped broadcasting the show in October 1983, with [[Thames Television|Thames]] following suit shortly afterwards.<ref>The Times (London, England), Wednesday, 12 Oct 1983; pg. 14;</ref> 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 from the axe. 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 [[Victoria University of Manchester|University of Manchester]] (which included [[David Aaronovitch]]) came second to [[Downing College, Cambridge]], when they started a round by answering every question "[[Che Guevara]]", "[[Karl Marx|Marx]]", "[[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]" or "[[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]]", in the hope of making the resulting show unbroadcastable.<ref name=UNperMD>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m49vh|title=Your Starter for Ten: 50 Years of University Challenge|author1=[[Mark Damazer]] (presenter)|author2=Jo Meek (producer)|publisher=BBC ("Radio 4 Extra")|access-date=24 April 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=BBC tightens University Challenge rules in response to fiasco |last=Gallagher |first=Paul |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jun/21/university-challenge-rules-television |newspaper=The Guardian |date=21 June 2009 |access-date=6 January 2012}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite news |title='University Challenge' Won By Manchester Team for Third Time |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/19/university-challenge-won-manchester_n_1364276.html |work=[[HuffPost]]|date=19 March 2012 |access-date=19 March 2012}}</ref>