A challenge to the BBC’s Oxbridge bias

Imperial College London will face University College London in this year’s final of University Challenge. Photograph: BBC

What’s going on? Despite the BBC’s best efforts, there’s no Oxbridge college in next Monday’s final of University Challenge. This year the BBC allowed nine Oxbridge colleges out of a total of 28 (32.1%) to compete, and still they did not win.

What’s happened to effortless superiority? Will the BBC now belatedly accept that academic ability is widely distributed among British students and is not concentrated on Oxbridge?

I doubt it, because for more than 30 years the BBC has been favouring Oxbridge by allowing between eight and 13 teams to compete out of 28. This is a flagrant breach of the BBC’s royal charter, which stipulates impartiality. The two teams in the final, UCL and Imperial, each had to knock out three Oxbridge colleges to reach the final. This blatant favouritism has to stop.
Frank Coffield
Brancepeth, County Durham

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