Q... (TV series)

Q... was a surreal television comedy sketch show from Spike Milligan which ran from 1969 to 1982 on BBC2. There were six series in all, the first five numbered from Q5 to Q9, and a final series titled There's a Lot of It About. The first and third series ran for seven episodes, and the others for six episodes, each of which was 30 minutes long.

Various reasons have been suggested for the title. One possibility is that it was inspired by the project to construct the Cunard liner QE2, launched in September 1967, which was dubbed Q4. Another theory is that Milligan was inspired by the BBC 6-point technical quality scale of the time, where "Q5" was severe degradation to picture or sound, and "Q6" was complete loss of sound or vision. This was extended by some engineering departments to a 9-point scale, finishing at "Q9". According to Milligan's autobiography, the final series was renamed There's a Lot of It About after the BBC felt the public might find Q10 too confusing.

Forerunner in comedy

20Q

20Q is a computerized game of twenty questions that began as a test in artificial intelligence (AI). It was invented by Robin Burgener in 1988. The game was made handheld by Radica in 2004, then it was discontinued in 2011 because Techno Source took the license for 20Q handheld devices.

The game 20Q is based on the spoken parlor game known as twenty questions, and is both a website and a handheld device. 20Q asks the player to think of something and will then try to guess what they are thinking of with twenty yes-or-no questions. If it fails to guess in 20 questions, it will ask an additional 5 questions. If it fails to guess even with 25 (or 30) questions, the player is declared the winner. Sometimes the first guess of the object can be asked at question 14.

Principle and history

The principle is that the player thinks of something and the 20Q artificial intelligence asks a series of questions before guessing what the player is thinking. This artificial intelligence learns on its own with the information relayed back to the players who interact with it, and is not programmed. The player can answer these questions with: Yes, No, Unknown, and Sometimes. The experiment is based on the classic word game of Twenty Questions, and on the computer game "Animals," popular in the early 1970s, which used a somewhat simpler method to guess an animal.

WDCQ-TV

WDCQ-TV, channel 15 (virtual channel 19) branded as Q-TV, is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member public television station for the Flint/Tri-Cities television market. It is owned and operated by Delta College in University Center, an unincorporated community in Frankenlust Township in southwestern Bay County; and licensed in Bad Axe.

History

The station first signed on the air on October 12, 1964 as WUCM-TV channel 19, licensed to University Center; the "UCM" stood for University Center Michigan. The station was initially affiliated with National Educational Television until 1970, when the present-day PBS replaced NET. In 1986, WUCM established a satellite, WUCX-TV channel 35 in Bad Axe, to better cover Michigan's Thumb area. In 1997, when the station first adopted the "Q-TV" branding, both stations changed their calls, with WUCM becoming WDCQ-TV, and WUCX becoming WDCP-TV.

The channel 15 digital tower is located in Quanicassee, in northwestern Tuscola County. The analog channel 19 transmitter was located on a 496-foot (151 m) tower on the campus of Delta College, near the corner of 4-mile and Delta Roads near Delta College in Bay County. The analog channel 35 tower was located just south of Ubly.

Q TV

Q was a UK music channel based on Q Magazine, launched on 2 October 2000. It was operated by Box Television, and specialised in indie, rock and alternative.

It was available in the UK on Sky channel 364 and Virgin Media channel 338. In Ireland, it was available on UPC Ireland channel 714 and in Iceland on Síminn. It is also available in South Africa on TopTV channel 503.

The channel was also called Q The Music (cue the music), which was the channel's slogan.

The channel played a wide variety of music, predominantly bands like Snow Patrol, Coldplay, and Stereophonics.

History

Q was launched on 2 October 2000. In common with other EMAP channels, Q was originally a jukebox channel, where music video selections made were by the viewers using premium rate phone lines; however this element was dropped in 2004.

Closure

On 3 July 2012, Q closed and was replaced with Heat, a celebrity news and music TV channel.

FHM TV

For a few years, much of the prime time output of the channel was instead given over to FHM TV, based on another magazine (also by EMAP), which specialised mainly on female R&B and pop groups. However in October 2007, the FHM TV block on Q was dropped and Q regained its full hours.