The BBC today gave a first look at new University Challenge host Amol Rajan and a redesigned set as recording gets under way for the quiz show’s 61st year.
The Radio 4 star is taking over from Jeremy Paxman who confirmed he was ending his 28-year reign of the programme last August following his diagnosis with Parkinson’s.
Rajan, 39, will become only the third person to host University Challenge in the history of the BBC Two show, which was launched by Bamber Gascoigne in 1962.
The broadcaster has now modernised the set, replacing a previous version from 2013 which saw 1,736 contestants compete. In addition, producers have created a fresh titles sequence which will be shown when the series is shown this summer.
Rajan’s appointment to University Challenge caused a stir after comments in which he branded King Charles scientifically illiterate’ and the late Prince Philip a ‘racist buffoon’ resurfaced. The former editor of the Independent newspaper is also an outspoken republican who sparked fury from the Royal Family over a documentary about Princes William and Harry, and their relationship with the Press, which was criticised as ‘inaccurate’.
The BBC today gave a first look at new University Challenge host Amol Rajan on the set
Rajan will become only the third person to host University Challenge in the history of the show
Meanwhile, a ‘world exclusive’ interview with tennis star Novak Djokovic in February last year was attacked for airing the Serbian ace’s anti-vaccination views.
Today Rajan said: ‘I have spent years re-arranging Monday nights around the need to be in front of my television at 20.30. University Challenge really is my favourite programme.
‘And from their feedback and sheer numbers, our treasured audience has made very clear I am far from alone.
‘Perhaps that’s no surprise given this is Britain’s longest running TV quiz, in a nation of quiz lovers.
He added that while there was a new a set and presenter, ‘everything else remains’ including the title music, the voice of Roger Tilling and the ‘fiendish questions’.
Rajan also said some of the students appearing on this year’s series come from universities competing for the first time.
He continued: ‘What we’ve seen so far includes moments of huge tension, flashes of genius, and brilliant starters and bonuses that will have viewers joining in and shouting at their screens.’
In 2020, Rajan himself appeared as a contestant on a celebrity Christmas special of University Challenge, however his team from Downing College, Cambridge, failed to make it through the first round, losing to Durham.
The BBC’s 2021/22 annual report showed Rajan was on a salary of around £325,000 but he is expected to be paid more as the host of University Challenge.
Rajan has been married to Charlotte Faircloth since September 2013 and the couple have three children.
Paxman filmed his final episode last autumn and his final series – which is currently broadcasting the quarter finals – will finish on TV in the summer.
The 72-year-old, who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, had presented the show since it was revived by the BBC in 1994.
Producers have created a new titles sequence which will be shown when the new series starts
An image released by the BBC shows a grab from the new University Challenge title credits
Paxman revealed in May 2021 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s after his doctor had seen him on University Challenge during lockdown.
He said he suffered regular falls, including one that left him with ‘black eyes’ and admitted it was ‘very hard to know you’re not going to get better’.
Born in Leeds, Paxman started his career in 1972 on the BBC’s graduate trainee programme, working in local radio and reporting on the Troubles in Belfast.
Shortly after moving to London in 1977, he transferred from Tonight to Panorama, before stints on the Six O’Clock News and BBC One’s Breakfast Time.
He became a presenter of Newsnight in 1989, a position he would hold until June 2014 during which time he interviewed high-profile figures from politics and culture.
University Challenge is produced by Lifted Entertainment North, part of ITV Studios, in association with Richard Reid for the College Bowl Company.
Pinki Chambers, the BBC’s commissioning editor for entertainment and comedy, said: ‘The competition is fierce, the questions are harder and Amol has taken to the programme in an instant. This is going to be one of our best series yet.’
The show’s executive producer Peter Gwyn added: ‘The Lifted Entertainment team are genuinely thrilled to be working with Amol Rajan, who will become only the third person to host University Challenge, a programme we’ve been producing here in the North West for over 60 years.
‘We couldn’t be more proud or more excited to be part of a new era for this icon of British television.’
At the time of Rajan’s appointment, the Daily Mail reported that BBC colleagues had been left ‘seething’ because ‘he gets every gig going’.
It was also claimed that Rajan was handed the role even though two female presenters were told they would get a screen test, before the BBC backtracked on this offer.
There was concern that the broadcaster had opted to appoint another male host.
Times Radio presenter Mariella Frostrup took a dig at Rajan’s appointment at the time, tweeting: ‘Are BBC cuts now affecting staffing so badly that they only have one presenter?
‘Love Amol Rajan but what about the likes of Mishal Husain, Samira Ahmed, Kirsty Young. Would have been so great to see University Challenge finally go to a woman. It’s only 2022 after all!’
A member of the public responded: ‘Perhaps it just went to the best candidate regardless of sex. Get off your sexist high horse.’
But one senior BBC insider also told the Mail: ‘People are seething. He gets every gig going. They pay him so much that they have to find him stuff to do.’
It was announced last August that Jeremy Paxman would be stepping down from the show
Jeremy Paxman at the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards in London last month on March 24
It emerged last summer that Woman’s Hour presenter Emma Barnett, 38, and Front Row host Samira Ahmed, 54, had been acting as standby presenters for Paxman in recent months.
Ms Ahmed said on social media she would love to present the show. But two days later, the BBC confirmed Rajan had been appointed.
The Sun reported that Ms Barnett and Ms Ahmed were told they would get screen tests but this never happened.
A BBC source denied these screen tests had been promised.
Last month, the BBC was accused of elitism over its University Challenge rules which allow separate Oxbridge colleges to enter while limiting other universities to one team each.
The long-running show has eight of its 28 entrants hailing from Oxford or Cambridge colleges in the current series. The previous edition saw nine of the 28 entrants drawn from Oxbridge.
In a series of complaints to the BBC, Frank Coffield, an emeritus professor of education at University College London, said the show’s ‘grotesque’ Oxbridge bias breaks the corporation’s impartiality rules and perpetuates elitism in the UK.
In 2020, Rajan himself appeared as a contestant on a celebrity Christmas special of University Challenge, however his team failed to make it through the first round, losing to Durham
But the BBC’s complaints service said in reply: ‘All institutions that deliver higher education courses at the level of bachelor’s degree or equivalent or higher are welcome to apply to take part on University Challenge.’
In 2008, journalist and editor Rachael Jolley wrote in the New Statesmen about what she called the ‘deep inequality’ of the show’s format. Gascoigne, Paxman and Rajan all studied at Cambridge.
ANSWERS for University Challenge: Amol Rajan version
1. The Authors XI cricket team;
2. First non-white national newspaper editor in the UK for more than a century;
3. The Salisbury review;
4. Prince Philip
5. Becoming a father;
6. English literature;
7 – Three ‘massive’ rums.
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