The show was devised by Chuck Thomas, Debbie King, and Simone Thorogood and produced by FremantleMedia for Information TV (between August 2005 and March 2006) and ITV (between December 2005 and January 2007).

Similar to other premium-line call-in shows, viewers on the TV version of Quizmania were encouraged to phone a premium-rate number in order to provide an answer to a quiz question.

In 2004, while working for E4 as anchor presenter on the United Kingdom version of the German-produced live phone-in television quiz show 9Live filmed in Munich,[1][2] presenter Debbie King joined with producers Chuck Thomas and Simone Thorogood to pitch a similar idea to UK production company Nation 217.

The original TV series ended on 14 January 2007, but was revived some 18 months later with a new mass participation online format.

The first online season involved trivia games where players attempted to select correct answers to sets of multiple choice questions in the fastest time.

In early 2007, a series of scandals broke out in the UK involving allegations of phone-in segments of television programmes and quiz channels conning viewers.

[5] This was to allow independent auditor Deloitte to conduct a review of programmes carried by ITV including Dancing on Ice, The X Factor and Quizmania which all used phone-ins to generate revenue, to ensure they are run fairly.

Tim Lichfield, Lottie Mayor & Kirsty Duffy returned for the first series of the online revival alongside former CITV continuity presenter Andy Jaye.

[8] Some fifteen months later he went on Sky News to defend quiz TV channels and programmes amid mounting controversy of such output.

The left side of the studio was turned into a seaside-like setting, complete with deckchair, bucket and spade, some artificial palm trees, and a barbecue.

A smaller version of the original studio was built for the online series with the technical gallery regularly appearing in-vision.

The first publicly released news of plans to revive the series was seen on the Quizmania website, on 18 December 2007 stating: "Yakkabakakkas!

[9] On 11 January 2008, those who had signed up to the Quizmania mailing list received an e-mail offering "a huge fluffy pink thank you to everyone for getting in touch."

This show was preceded by a pre-launch pilot edition, which was streamed live on 12 July 2008, with 100 winners of an e-mail competition allowed to take part.

On 31 July 2008, it was announced that the programme would continue beyond that period, although the Friday and Saturday shows were axed at the end of the four-week test run.

The final weekly edition of the present series was streamed on 16 October 2008 and was followed by two specials on 4 November 2008 to mark the USA presidential election.