University Challenge aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne.

On 21 April 2023, the BBC unveiled a new set and title card, which debuted on Rajan's first episode, aired on 17 July 2023.

[4] Elements of this continuity include: The programme had its beginnings in an American television quiz show called College Bowl.

It was decided that Granada would produce a similar programme with competing teams from universities across the United Kingdom.

[8] 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.

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.

This was one ostensible inspiration for a 1975 protest, in which a team from the University of Manchester (which included David Aaronovitch) came second to Downing College, Cambridge, when they started a round by answering every question "Che Guevara", "Marx", "Trotsky" or "Lenin", in the hope of making the resulting show unbroadcastable.

[12] University Challenge was revived by the BBC in 1994, although still produced by Granada Television (branded since 2009 as ITV Studios), using the original format, with minor differences, and presented by Jeremy Paxman.

[15][16] On 21 April 2023, the BBC unveiled a new set and title card, which debuted on Rajan's first episode, which aired on 17 July 2023.

[17][18] Since its revival in 1994, the programme has featured a number of teams of postgraduate and mature students, whose participation has been criticised.

In the quarter-final, they narrowly beat a slightly younger team from part-time and mature student specialist Birkbeck, University of London.

[21] In 2009, Sam Kay, part of the team from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was accused of not being a student when the show was filmed.

[22] Kay, who had completed a chemistry degree the previous summer, had been planning to go on to study for a Doctor of Philosophy, but dropped out as he did not have sufficient funding.

[23] The team, whose captain Gail Trimble was dubbed the "human Google",[24] won the competition but was subsequently disqualified and the trophy awarded to the runners-up, the University of Manchester.

[25] A few days later, it was also revealed that Charles Markland, a member of the 2008 winning team from Christ Church, Oxford, had transferred his studies to Balliol College halfway through the series.

The teams generally consist of mixed genders, mostly young adults but with some mature students also appearing.

The team answering a starter correctly gets a set of three bonus questions worth a potential fifteen points, for which they can confer.

[52] However, a low score was also achieved by Victoria University of Manchester in their first round match in 1975 when, for much of the recording, they answered only with the names of Marxists as a protest against the Oxford and Cambridge colleges being able to enter separate teams.

The second lowest losing score is 15, which was achieved by the University of Exeter in a 2008–09 quarter-final against Corpus Christi, Oxford, whose team captain Gail Trimble answered 15 starter questions correctly.

[54] Therefore, the second lowest score officially achieved against eligible opponents under Paxman was by Lincoln College, Oxford, who totalled 30 in a semi-final against the eventual series champions the University of Manchester, in an episode televised on 9 February 2009, just two weeks after the Corpus Christi vs Exeter match; this was also matched in the grand final by St John's College, Oxford, against Peterhouse, Cambridge, on 18 April 2016.

The producers of the programme have taken the more recent inclusion of mature students to its logical conclusion by making two series without any student participants: University Challenge Reunited (2002) brought former teams back together, while University Challenge: The Professionals (from 2003) matched occupational groups such as civil servants, architects and doctors against each other.

The cast was Chris Barrie (captain), Danny John-Jules, Robert Llewellyn, Chloë Annett and Craig Charles.

Challenging Times was a quiz show for teams representing higher education institutes in Ireland, televised by RTÉ from 1991 to 2001.

From 1978 to 1979, Sinclair was briefly dropped from the show and was replaced by University of Otago lecturer Charles Higham, Sinclair returned in 1980 and from 1981 to 1982, the show briefly moved to TVNZ 2, it moved back to TV1 in 1983 and remained on the network until the series original conclusion in 1989.

[61] University Challenge India started in summer 2003, with the season culminating in the finals of March 2004 where Sardar Patel College of Engineering (SPCE), Mumbai, beat Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad.

The Indian winners of the 2003–2004 season went on to beat the finalists from the UK show, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.