Fifteen to One is a British general knowledge quiz show broadcast on Channel 4. It originally ran from 11 January 1988 to 19 December 2003 and had a reputation for being one of the toughest quizzes on television. Throughout the show's original run, it was presented and produced by William G. Stewart. Thousands of contestants appeared on the programme, which had very little of the chatting between host and contestants that is often a feature of other television quiz shows.
History and presenters 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 this was reduced to 15 to fit the available running time. The number varied in other countries. William G. Stewart as producer originally only intended to present the pilot episode until a permanent host could be found if the show was taken up by one of the networks.
Prior to Stewart's retirement, the Grand Final of Series 35 of Fifteen to One, which originally aired on 19 December 2003, was the last edition of the show in the Stewart era until it was revived nearly ten years later. It was won by John Harrison, who also won the finals board trophy of that series with a score of 291. Stewart began the show by explaining some statistics about the show, which had run since its inception on 11 January 1988. Nearly 350,000 questions had been asked to 33,975 contestants in 2,265 shows.
On 9 December 2013, it was announced that Fifteen to One would return for a new 60-minute 20-part daytime series in 2014 instead of the 30-minute format, hosted by Danish-British comedian Sandi Toksvig, and primetime celebrity specials, which would be hosted by Australian comedian Adam Hills. There were ten series and 370 episodes in the revived edition which ran from 5 April 2014 to 28 June 2019.
Presenters' timeline
+ Main presenters of Fifteen to OneNoPresenterFromToDuration1William G. Stewart11 January 198819 December 200315 years, 342 days2Sandi Toksvig5 April 201428 June 20195 years, 84 days
Format
The 15 contestants stood in a semicircle, each behind a lectern with a number from 1 to 15 (a similar layout was used by the later game show The Weakest Link). Although the design varied slightly over the years, the essential elements were a number on the front of the lectern, a name badge on top of the lectern (in the earlier series, the badge was 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 videotaping. Upon elimination from the game, a contestant had to sit down and their spotlight went out.
A separate lectern for each contestant was moved in place for the third and final round, with the semicircle behind it no longer lit.
Twelve of the contestants were eliminated over the course of the first two rounds, leaving three to compete in the final.
Round 1 Each of the 15 numbered contestants began the quiz with three 'lives'. The host made two passes through the field in numerical order, asking one question to each contestant per pass; typically, the category for each question was announced before it was asked. The contestant had three seconds to respond, and lost one life for the first incorrect answer or failure to respond in time, whether on the first or second pass. A second miss took away both remaining lives and eliminated the contestant from the game. Stewart's succinct explanation of Round 1 was, "Two questions each in the first round; one correct answer from you to survive." The Celebrity Edition, however, allowed contestants who missed both of their questions to advance to the second round with one life remaining.
The outcome of Round 1 could vary considerably. Sometimes there were as few as four contestants left standing, but occasionally nobody was eliminated at all. There was never a case when only three or fewer contestants survived the round, which would have made Round 2 unnecessary. Were this to happen, the contingency plan would have been to replay the first round, although Stewart once jokingly said that he would give a talk on the Parthenon Marbles to fill the time. Stewart was an outspoken supporter of returning the Marbles to Greece, and once presented a Fifteen to One special on the subject with replicas of the Marbles placed at the contestants' podiums.
Round 2 At this point, every surviving contestant had either two or three lives remaining (or one, two or three in the Celebrity Edition). As in Round 1, questions were asked to contestants in numerical order in turn, with one life lost for an incorrect response. The first contestant to answer correctly gained the right to "nominate", or choose another contestant to receive the next question. If the nominee answered incorrectly, they lost one life and the nominating player kept control; a correct answer turned control over to the nominee. Contestants were eliminated after losing all their lives. Towards the end of the show's original run, a new rule forbade contestants from nominating the player who had just nominated them. This rule was abandoned in the revived series. When only three contestants remained, the round ended and the programme paused for a commercial break.
Round 2 had no fixed duration or number of questions; it varied depending on how many players survived from Round 1 and how many correct answers were given. In theory, it could continue indefinitely if not enough wrong answers were given to narrow the field to three, until the pool of available questions was exhausted.
Round 3: The Final Each of the three remaining contestants was given a new set of three lives and (except in the first two series) received one point for each life they had kept through the first two rounds. A maximum of 40 questions were asked in this round, with 10 points awarded for each correct answer and one life lost on each miss. The questions were initially open for all contestants on the buzzer until one of them gave a total of three correct answers (not necessarily on consecutive questions). That contestant could then either answer the next question directly or nominate an opponent to take it. A contestant who answered correctly gained control of the next question. If a nominee answered incorrectly, control reverted to the nominating contestant. If a contestant took a question for themselves and missed it, the buzzer questions resumed until one contestant gave a correct answer and gained control.
Once two contestants were eliminated, the remaining contestant became the day's winner and continued answering questions until all 40 had been used or all three lives were lost (whichever came first), with each correct answer still worth 10 points. However, if at least two contestants remained in the game after the questions were exhausted, the high scorer won; in the event of a tie, the contestant with the most remaining lives won. In episodes where all questions were asked, the winning contestant received an additional 10 points for every life remaining. The contestant would then earn a place on the Finals Board (see below) if their score was high enough. Regardless of their final scores and standings, all winning contestants were automatically invited to compete again in the next series. From Series 11 onward, contestants who lost in Round 3 were also invited to return if their score would have been high enough to earn a place on the Finals Board.
Finals Board/Leaderboard The 15 highest-scoring winners and their totals during any given series were displayed in a table referred to at different times as the Finals Board or Leaderboard. The board was cleared at the beginning of each new series, and the winners of the first 15 episodes were automatically entered onto it in descending order by score. Beyond the 15th episode, earlier winners could be displaced from the board by being outscored, and newer winners who failed to match or surpass the last-place score did not earn a slot on it at all. If more contestants were tied for last place than there were available slots at the bottom of the board, they were said to be "on the sidelines", and were frequently listed off to one side rather than on the board itself – for example, if three contestants tied for 14th place.
Grand Final At the end of a series, the 15 winners still listed 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 last place.
For the first eight series, the third round of each Grand Final followed the same "question/nominate" format as the regular episodes. In all subsequent series, all 40 questions were played on the buzzer.
Prizes There was no prize for winning an individual episode. Many players would win one of the daily shows but would not achieve a high enough score to appear on the high-score board for a place in the Grand Final. All winning players were invited back for 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; this rule applied even if they had been previous winners. However, in 2000, the rule was altered to allow players who had previously played a while earlier and had not got as far as the Grand Final to apply to be on the show again.
The series prize tended to be a classical artefact (for example an ancient Greek vase). Prizes were occasionally valued at several million pounds by archaeologists, and were presented to the winning contestant by the regular voice-over artist, Laura Calland (who married Stewart in 1997). Voice-overs were occasionally provided by other presenters, usually Philip Lowrie and occasionally Sarah Wynter, but only Calland was seen on screen, when she presented the prize. In later series, the highest-scoring person on the finals board also received a minor trophy. In series 1 to 3 the original voice-over was Anthony Hyde, although he was never seen on screen, and in the early days William G. Stewart presented the prize himself in the Grand Final. Calland became the regular voice-over artist at the beginning of series 4, after Anthony Hyde left at the end of series 3.
The Grand Final of Series 34, in early 2003, saw the only series tie. It was one of only four ties in the show's history, such a result being possible only when two contestants finished the final level on points and lives remaining. In this case, Jack Welsby and David Stedman both finished on 101 points with one life remaining. No provision had been made for a tie-breaker, so Stewart offered to buy a prize of equal value for the two winners.
In the 2014 revival, episode winners receive trophies, and the series winner receives a cash prize of £40,000.
Records The maximum end game score of 433 could only be achieved if a player started the end game with all three lives intact and correctly answered all 40 questions. The player scored 3 points for retaining their three lives from the first two rounds, 400 points for answering the 40 questions correctly, and 30 points for retaining their three lives from the end game. The maximum score was achieved only once by Bill McKaig, a minister from Glasgow, in April 1999 (Series 25). The other two contestants in that final, Martin Penny and Alison Shand, were invited back for the next series even though they had not won, a very rare exception to the rule preventing losers from competing on the show again.