Weakest Link

The original British version of the show is still aired around the world on BBC Entertainment and domestically on Challenge.

The format has been licensed across the world, with many countries producing their own series of the programme and is the second most popular international franchise, behind only the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

[1] The programme sees a group of contestants ranging from five to nine players who will need to work as a team to try to win as much as possible of a maximum cash jackpot by correctly answering general-knowledge questions in a series of rapid-fire rounds.

Before the votes are revealed, a voice-over announcer reveals who statistically is the Strongest Link and Weakest Link, determined by how many questions were answered correctly and incorrectly, the amount of money banked and lost, and the total monetary value of the questions asked.

The person with the most votes is named the Weakest Link regardless of the statistics, is eliminated from the game, and wins nothing.

Once there are two players remaining, they play one final round, where the money banked is multiplied by a certain amount.

[2] However, in producing the show, Robinson began to act cold, harsh and nasty to the contestants.

Some international hosts like Chazia Mourali [nl], Montserrat Ontiveros [es], Andrei Gheorghe [ro], Neena Gupta, Hülya Uğur Tanrıöver, Fiona Coyne, Goedele Liekens, Laurence Boccolini, and Trine Gregorius [da] went to the BBC Studio for instruction and training purpose (meeting the UK production team and Anne Robinson) to replicate the presenting style.

The first notable example of this change was seen during George Gray's tenure as host in the 2002–03 syndicated version of the American edition; other countries where the hosts of the show were nicer were France (2014–15), Turkey (2015, 2019), Finland (2017–18), Cyprus (2017–21), the Netherlands (2019–20), Greece (2019–23), Australia (2021–22), the United States (2020–, although the hosting attitude of Jane Lynch was more so that of sarcasm, and snarky – reminiscent of her noted Sue Sylvester character from Glee[3]), and the United Kingdom (2021– ).

Although she did wear dark and black suits on about half of the shows, she often wore bright colored outfits on the other episodes.

Like season 2 of the syndicated version, once only two contestants remain the game goes straight to the head-to-head round.

Australia was the 1st country to adapt the format; not all the international versions share the same title as UK.

Most versions also have disciplinarian female hosts, again similar to the British original—with exceptions being Babken Chobanyan (Armenia), Fausto Silva (Brazil), Tasos Tryfonos (Cyprus and Greece), Julien Courbet (France), Riku Nieminen (Finland), Nikolai Fomenko (Russia, 2007-2008), Eamon Dunphy (Ireland), Edu Manzano, Allan K. (both Philippines), Shirō Itō (Japan), Pedro Granger (Portugal), Enrico Papi (Italy), Tseng Yang Qing (Taiwan), Baybars Altuntaş (Turkey), George Gray (United States) and Romesh Ranganathan (United Kingdom, 2021 till now).

Gray, Courbet, Ranganathan and Nieminen are comedians, and those versions were designed to play off comedy.