Transmission
The programme is usually recorded in front of a live audience on a Thursday evening at the BBC Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House in central London. It is then edited, broadcast first on Friday evening, then repeated on the Saturday lunchtime. The final 30 minute show is significantly shorter than the original recording. In 2012 the BBC began making a longer version available through iPlayer.
Each week, four panelists appear on the show. They are usually either comedians or journalists, and sometimes politicians. Journalists predominated in the early years. The ostensible purpose of the show is to test contestants' knowledge of the events of the previous week by asking questions which are usually oblique references to those events. However this has given way to a general free-for-all where panelists chime in with their own humorous and satirical remarks once the question has been answered. The participants frequently wander off topic. The host ends the discussion of each question with a summary of the events it refers to, usually with a scripted comic punchline, before asking the next question. It is not uncommon for the show to get through only two rounds of the panel before the final section is reached. Before the host announces the largely symbolic scores, the panelists read out funny newspaper cuttings.
Read more about this topic: The News Quiz