Monday 4 April 2011

Calling david.call2

I was delighted to receive an email from Thomas Benson, Questions editor on University Challenge. On the subject of spoilers, Thomas is quite rightly anxious that people's enjoyment of the series is not ruined by spoilers, and so he asked me if I could confirm the website referred to by david.call2 in a comment he posted after the second semi final review - which I take the liberty of reproducing here : -

"Talking of spoilers (which you were) it seems to me that the BBC is as bad as anyone. Even before Monday's programme had been transmitted the UC website was announcing that the Grand Final constituted a contest between Magdelen Oxford and York - which rather made Magdelen scorching hot favourites to win their semi. I believe a similar thing happened before episode 34 was transmitted (when York featured in two programmes in a row)."

David - can you tell us exactly which UC website you were referring to, and leave us the URL if possible ? You can email me personally, or leave it as a comment to this post if you prefer. Thanks for your help on this on.

4 comments:

Aaron said...

The same happened for our OC final, Dave - you were a pretty short price to win your semi once the 3rd/4th matchup was listed as "Wrights v Alesmen" in the RT.

A spoiler all the more galling for viewers since it was such an epic comeback.

Jack said...

I can help you Dave. Here is the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t6l0/episodes/upcoming

This page on the BBC website prints the following week's fixtures in advance. I'm guessing this was what david.call2 was referring to.

Only devoted viewers like me will tune in despite already knowing the result. It's spoilers like this that forced Robot Wars onto Channel Five (allegedly).

Unknown said...

Jack is correct about the web address.
I have to say that knowing the outcome of a match in advance doesn't in any way spoil things for me personally, but I appreciate that a great many people feel differently on this point.

Londinius said...

Thanks everyone. I've emailed Thomas and confirmed that the website is indeed the one that he thought it was.

Dave