The News Quiz

Image: Panellists, newsreaders/announcers and presenter Simon Hoggart celebrate 25 years of The News Quiz on 7/09/2002. Shown here are Brian Perkins (newsreader), Charlotte Green (newsreader), John Sergeant (panellist), Alan Coren (panellist), Jeremy Hardy (panellist), Linda Smith (panellist), Andy Hamilton (panellist), Peter Donaldson (newsreader), Simon Hoggart (presenter), Corrie Corfield (newsreader) and Francis Wheen (panellist).

The first edition of the popular and influential Radio 4 game show, The News Quiz, was broadcast on 6 September 1977. The show has had many guests but is largely unchanged forty years later. Each edition is bookended with the perky theme 'The Typewriter' - by Leroy Anderson - and the panellists reading funny newspaper cuttings. For the first show the chairman was Barry Norman and the guests were Alan Coren, Richard Ingrams, Russell Davies and Clive James.

There have only been five regular presenters of The News Quiz. After Norman, Barry Took presented, then Simon Hoggart. Then Took again, and Hoggart, who remained until 2006. Sandi Toksvig chaired for ten years before Miles Jupp took over the chair in 2016, and following a series of guest presenters in 2020, Andy Zaltzman was confirmed as host.

Under Toksvig the programme led the way in increasing the diversity of the panels on game shows. The programme also has a BBC newsreader to read the headlines, allowing them to show a lighter side to their personality. Throughout the years the comedy has remained barbed, regardless of who has been in power.

The News Quiz was created by John Lloyd from Nicholas Parsons’ idea. The enduring success of the format led to the creation of a television version in Have I Got News For You. Lloyd’s many other successes with the BBC range from The News Huddlines, to Not the Nine O’clock News and QI.