The Weakest Link

The Weakest Link (or, in the U.S., simply Weakest Link) is a television game show which first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two in 2000. It was devised by doctor and situation comedy writer Fintan Coyle and the comedian Cathy Dunning, and developed for television by the BBC Entertainment department. It has since been replicated around the world. The BBC officially dropped the definite article (the "the") from the title (and the logo) in 2001, though it is still generally referred to by its original title, and host Anne Robinson still says "Welcome to The Weakest Link" and "let's play The Weakest Link" regardless.

Other versions

The daily version, which runs at the 5:15 pm slot on BBC2, has had great success still winning its slot, proving that quiz shows do not have to give away a lot of money (£10 000 - although this has never been reached and most teams only achieve a fraction of that amount) to bring in ratings.

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In December 2000, a short-lived weekly night-time version aired on BBC1. Known as the "Champions League", it brought back previous winners from the daily version, to compete against each other (only 8 contestants though) to win £20 000. In mid-January 2001, having ran out of champions to bring back, the show now featured 8 regular contestants competing. In April, it was then cut back to 7 contestants, in order to reduce the show to fit into a half-hour slot. In September 2001, the night-time show was revamped, with a new studio, a new hour-long time slot, in which 9 contestants could now compete just like the daily version. The top prize was also raised to £50 000. After lasting the season, it was decided that the show would only appear every so often in primetime, as special celebrity editions, usually lasting one a week for a month. Usually this would occur, 2-3 times a year.

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