This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Holmes, S. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

‘The Question Is – Is It All Worth Knowing?’ The cultural circulation of the early British quiz show

University of Kent

This article draws on archival research in order to explore the cultural circulation of the early quiz show in Britain-the conceptions, interpretations and evaluations which structured its development. The history of the British quiz show remains particularly neglected in television scholarship, and is often only discussed in relation to the advent of commercial television. Here it is usually invoked as the epitome of ITV's bid to woo the audience with ‘cheap’, undemanding and ‘trivial’ fare. This association between the quiz show and commercialism has rendered the BBC, a public service broadcaster, particularly invisible in quiz show history. But the BBC played a crucial role in developing the broadcast conception of the quiz/game show well before ITV was part of the cultural landscape. Ranging across both radio and television, it is this history that is explored here.

Key Words: BBC • ‘education’ • knowledge • public service • television history

Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 29, No. 1, 53-74 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0163443706071999


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?