Have I Got News For You

Have I Got News for You began on BBC Two on 28 September 1990 and transferred to BBC One in October 2000. "Myself and Ian, we did a disastrous pilot for it," Paul Merton explained nine years later. "It was a beautiful summer's afternoon in 1990. Far too nice to be in a television studio, but I think the BBC had already... bought it, so that's how it became a series." Two series are made every year: the spring series between April to June comprises eight episodes and the autumn series between October to December contains nine, with a one-week break to allow the broadcasting of Children in Need. Over an hour's worth of material is recorded for each 30-minute programme on Thursday evenings for broadcast on Friday, allowing the show to remain topical while the BBC's lawyers have time to request cuts of potentially libellous material. "No reviewer could possibly review it in that time. We started off with an audience of two million, and somebody might have mentioned it to their friend, and then it sort of built up a momentum of its own." In recent years, the late-night weekend repeat has occasionally contained extra material from the week's recording. This became a permanent feature from the spring 2007 series, with the repeat having a running time of 40 minutes, and being titled (in the TV listings) Have I Got a Bit More News for You. The programme is recorded at the London Studios, former home of London Weekend Television, although the 2001 Election special episode was recorded at BBC Television Centre on the Friday morning after the election.Read More