Jeremy Vine reveals why his game show is a new joy amid the ‘death’ of the quiz in the modern age

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I want to share about the time I participated in a large charity quiz. The host asked the first question: “Who was the American football player who started kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racial injustice?” It was a tough one! I struggled to remember. Was it Colin Kaepernick? I looked hopefully at my teammates for a clue.

I noticed a younger colleague – a bright, professional Gen Z employee who seemed like a good person – rummaging through her bag. “Okay,” she said, “let’s see…” and pulled out her phone.

Someone had a phone out during a quiz, which really worried me. Using a phone to look up answers could have gotten our whole team disqualified, and it would have been a disaster for my reputation – I was hosting the quiz show Eggheads at the time.

I was shocked and protested, but the woman just rolled her eyes and put her phone away. Then I noticed her neighbor doing the same thing. It suddenly hit me that this wasn’t just one person being rude—it was a habit for this whole generation.

I managed to sneak one of the true quiz masters, Kevin Ashman – arguably the best in the world back then – into the event. After just a moment of thought, a little chin-rubbing really, he nailed the answer: Colin Kaepernick. It was a pretty impressive moment, honestly.

You might be wondering what’s worse: secretly bringing a phone into a test, or having someone else take it for you. The key difference is that a person is alive, while a phone is just a device. The more we rely on smartphones, the less we seem to think for ourselves.

I’ve been reflecting on a shift in how we learn. My father used to memorize London’s streets, but that changed when he got a street atlas. Now, for those who grew up after 1990, knowing about something is often the same as knowing how to find it. And if you have a smartphone, you don’t really need to know anything at all – you can look it up instantly.

Television has a long tradition of quiz shows, from classics like Mastermind and Celebrity Squares to the iconic Ask the Family. I’ve had the pleasure of contributing to that history, having asked over 45,000 questions during the filming of more than 1,000 episodes of Eggheads between 2008 and 2023. Interestingly, the winning teams were seldom made up of younger players.

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Traditional trivia seems to be losing its appeal, much like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. In a world where smartphones have all the answers, knowing facts doesn’t seem as impressive anymore. We’ve gone from celebrating quiz masters to being annoyed by people who just state what their phone told them. While some good TV quizzes still exist, there aren’t many fresh ideas. It’s a shame, really – that feeling of smug satisfaction from knowing obscure information, often delivered with a Michael Caine impression, was a real part of British culture.

Maybe the next evolution of game shows could be a quiz that tests how quickly people can find answers online using Google. Or, we could simply return to traditional TV puzzles, which avoid the awkwardness of getting questions wrong on camera.

In 2008, David Lammy, who was then the Higher Education Minister, had a very public blunder on the quiz show Mastermind. When asked for the last name of scientists Marie and Pierre Curie, he mistakenly answered “Antoinette,” and also incorrectly stated that Henry VIII was followed by Henry VII. These kinds of mistakes, while embarrassing at the time, are very different from the low-stakes fun of a game like Wordle, where failing to guess the word doesn’t carry the same consequences. People likely wouldn’t have even noticed, or cared, if Lammy had struggled with a Wordle puzzle.

I’m currently hosting a show called ‘Celebrity Puzzling’ with team captains Carol Vorderman and Sally Lindsay. It’s all about brainteasers, logic puzzles, and thinking outside the box. I’ve always loved a good quiz – it’s a shame they’ve become less popular with smartphones – but this show offers a fresh and fun challenge. We play with patterns, word games, and connections, and everyone’s comfortable admitting when they’re stumped!

*(anagram answer is PUZZLING)

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2026-03-16 20:38