Lingo (Dutch game show)

Lingo
François Boulangé hosted Lingo in the 1990s
Presented by	Lucille Werner
Country of origin	The Netherlands
Production
Running time	20 minutes
Release
Original network	Nederland 2 TROS
Original release	5 January 1989–2 October 2014
External links
Website

Lingo was a Dutch television game show produced by AVROTROS (earlier VARA, later TROS). Lingo is a word game that combines the games Mastermind and Bingo. Two teams of two contestants each try to guess and spell words, after being given a letter in the word and the length of the word. The length of the word that has to be guessed varies from five to eight letters, and depends on the round.

The game show aired daily starting in 1989 on one of Holland's public television channels. On July 30, 2014, it was announced that Lingo would stop producing new episodes starting in September 2014 due to declining ratings. The final episode aired on the October 2, 2014.

The original version of the American-Canadian game show Lingo debuted in syndication in 1987 with Michael Reagan as host and Ralph Andrews as executive producer. Though it ran for only one season, international versions subsequently appeared in French-speaking Quebec and several European countries.

Among these European countries was the Netherlands, where a Dutch version, brought to the country by Harry de Winter (who bought the rights to the show), became a massive hit. De Winter later used his earnings from the Lingo series to start .

Robert ten Brink was the first host of the show. He was already well known for hosting the youth news show Het Jeugdjournaal. When Ten Brink eventually decided to leave the show, he was succeeded by François Boulangé, the show's editor. Boulangé thought hosting was not very important, seeing himself as a judge, rather than a host.