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. Repeats of the final series are now shown on Challenge. 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 (this bit - apart from the announcement of the contestants' names, occupations, and home towns - would be edited out if time constraints required it)

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.

From this point on, after each successfully answered question the host asked - "Question or nominate?" If a nominated player failed to answer a question correctly, the player who made the nomination again had a choice of "Question or nominate?". If a player chose to answer a question themselves and failed to answer it correctly, the next question was asked on the buzzer. Once all 40 questions were asked, or the last remaining player lost all of his/her lives, the game was over. The player who survived longest was declared the winner. In the instance where two or three players survived until the end of 40 questions, the player with the higher or highest score (regardless of lives left) was the winner. Any lives that remained were added to the winning player's score with a value of 10 points each.

Again, round 3 could vary considerably in length. Thus, the programme was structured in such a way that it could be shortened or lengthened easily. For example, if the recording was running short, Stewart could show the finals board to the viewers at the end, or show the trophies for that series. If it was running long, the contestant introductions before round 3 could be cut short.

Finals Board

The Finals Board was the table of the fifteen highest scoring winners so far in that series. It started empty and as winners got sufficiently high scores they would be displayed on it: the first fifteen winners of a series were therefore guaranteed a slot on the board (however temporary)! If someone tied with the person in 15th place, both would be removed from the board and displayed to one side, with position 15 left empty.

At the end of the series those people whose names remained on the finals board competed in the grand final. An unscreened playoff took place immediately before the Grand Final if there were still people on the sidelines tied for 15th place.

Grand Final

This was played as per a regular episode with two changes. Due to the high standard of the competitors, and to allow time for presentation of the trophies, the running time was 45 minutes. Also, in Round 3, all the questions were played on the buzzer. Presumably this was to prevent any individual player from hogging the limited number of questions available.

Prizes

There was no actual prize for winning an individual episode. This meant that a lot of players would win one of the daily shows but would not post a winning score to trouble the high score board for a place in the grand final. In later series, a policy was implemented that such players would be invited back for an automatic place on the next series. Some players became so regular that in the last few series Grand Final winners would not get such an invitation. Initially, players who did not win were generally not permitted to compete again. However in the year 2000 the rule was altered to allow players who had previously played a while ago and had not got as far as the grand final to apply to be on the show again. See discussion notes for an example.

The series prize tended to be a classical artefact (for example a Greek vase), and was presented to the winning contestant by the regular voice-over artist, Laura Calland (who married Stewart in 1997). Calland's voice-overs were occasionally provided by other presenters, usually Philip Lowrie, but only Calland was seen on screen, when she presented the prize.

The grand final of the first series of 2003 saw the first and only series tie. It was one of only four real ties in the show's history, as normally when contestants finished on equal points, the winner was decided by the usual "remaining lives = 10 extra points each" formula. Only when two contestants were level on both points and lives remaining, would a tie be declared. No provision had been made for a tie breaker so the presenter offered to buy a prize of equal value for the two winners!

Records

A maximum end game score of 433 could be achieved if a player started the second phase with all three lives intact and correctly answered all 40 questions. The player scored 3 points for retaining 3 lives from Rounds 1 and 2, 400 points for answering 40 questions correctly and 30 points for retaining 3 lives from the end game. The maximum score was achieved only once by Bill McKaig, a minister from Glasgow.

The feat of answering all 40 third round questions correctly was also achieved by Daphne Fowler and Michael Penrice who both finished with a score of 432. It has been argued that Daphne Fowler's score was the best performance as a whole, as she had a much longer Round 2 to get through than Bill McKaig.

Trevor Montague

The show somewhat unexpectedly hit the headlines in 1998 when one of its former contestants, Trevor Montague, was sued by Regent Productions. Montague broke the rule which states that losers on the programme cannot take part again. Having been knocked out in 1989, he entered again in 1992 under the name Steve Romana. When a viewer saw a repeat of the series on Challenge TV, they noticed the same appearance between Montague and "Steve Romana" and contacted Channel 4 in the process.

Behind the Scenes

The shows were filmed at Capital Studios in Wandsworth, South London. Only in the first few series was there a live audience. William G Stewart decided to abolish the studio audience after audience members audibly whispered answers to questions on too many occasions. After that, the audience sounds were pre-recorded, and the only real audience was any contestants who had already been knocked out and one guest per contestant (for the last few series however the contestants' guests were also barred from the studio, due to a change in the layout of the filming and production equipment)

Winners of Fifteen to One

Series	Grand Final Winner	Top of the Finals Board	Score	Shown
1	Jon Goodwin	Peter Knott	270	1988
2	Mal Collier	Fred Gavin	290	1988
3	Kevin Ashman	Mal Collier	261	1989
4	Andrew Francis	Thomas Dyer	202	1989
5	Anthony Martin	Anthony Martin	251	1990
6	Mike Kirby	Mike Kirby	281	1990
7	Thomas Dyer	Mike Kirby	263	1991
8	Anthony Martin	Katharine Heaney	242	1991
9	Julian Allen	Barbara Thompson	252	1992
10	Barbara Thompson	Sheri Evans	231	1992
11	Anthony Martin	Tim Goadby	242	1993
12	Glen Binnie	Andrew McGlennon	302	1993
13	Stanley Miller	Peter Fillingham	251	1994
14	Leslie Booth	Lesley Webster	262	1994
15	Leslie Booth	Christopher Cooke	292	1995
16	Ian Potts	Susan 'O Donoghue	231	1995
17	Arnold O’ Hara	John Clarke	291	1996
18	Martin Riley	Martin Riley	333	1996
19	Trevor Montague*	Christopher Bostock	292	1997
20	Bill Francis	Rosemary Broome	311
21	Nick Terry	Christopher Bostock	272
22	Nick Terry	Bill McKaig	272	1998
23	Bill McKaig	Roy Smith	293
24	Paul Hillman	Michael Irwin	311
25	Nick Terry	Bill McKaig	433	1999
26	Nick Terry	Michael Penrice	321	1999
27	Les Arnott	John Jenkins	303	2000
28	Dag Griffiths	Daphne Fowler	432
29	Matti Watton	Daphne Fowler	383
30	Daphne Fowler	Daphne Fowler	333	2001
31	Daphne Fowler	Martin Saunders	292	2001
32	Matti Watton	Michael Penrice	423	2002
33	David Good	Jim MacIntosh	271	2002
34	Jack Welsby David Stedman	Azeez Feshitan	291	2003
35	John Harrison	John Harrison	291	2003

*Montague lost his prize in a court case. William G. Stewart was tipped off by an eagle-eyed viewer that Montague had previously appeared on the programme in disguise and under a different name to avoid the programme's strict rules that losing players could not re-enter unless invited.

Return of Fifteen to One?

There has been a quiet but consistent clamour for this show to return ever since it finished in 2003. Original host and producer William G Stewart has now retired from television work so it seems highly unlikely the show will return with him at the helm. There has been no hint from Channel 4 or any other broadcaster that they are looking to revitalise the programme, and it seems that maybe it is permanently consigned to history

External links

Channel 4 television programmes | British game shows

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