Question Time British National Party controversy is the flagship BBC Television political panel show, which began in 1979. The weekly show, hosted by David Dimbleby since 1994, takes place at locations around the country. Questions from a local audience are directed to a panel of invited guests, usually consisting of British politicians, alongside other public figures. The topics for debate during the programme are loosely defined by "set-piece" questions from pre-selected audience members. For each topic, the question is answered by each panel member in turn, followed by supplementary questions on the topic, time permitting. The show is pre-recorded a few hours before being broadcast, and
Question Time (TV programme) year-long sabbatical. Nicolai Gentchev, a former output editor of BBC Radio 4's "Today Programme", has been the editor of "Question Time" since March 2011. Viewers of the show can submit comments to the show via SMS; until October 2012 a selection of those comments was posted on Ceefax. Comments were edited and put to air by a team of four journalists based at Television Centre in London. The system displayed one message at a time, and usually showed several tens of messages throughout each hour-long episode. The system's popularity sprang from its mix of serious and light-hearted comments. On average,