Have I Got News for You was originally hosted by Angus Deayton, with Ian Hislop and Paul Merton acting as regular panel members and opposing "team captains." Hislop and Merton are each joined by a new guest participant every week, thus forming two teams. The guests are generally familiar figures from British popular culture: politicians, musicians, actors, or comedians.

     The show is always recorded the night before transmission for maximum retention of essential topicality (older programs are rerun under the title Have I Got Old News For You). The format was gleefully lifted from Radio 4's The News Quiz and given an anarchic make-over. The show presents a no-holds-barred attack on the powerful, famous and simply famously irritating. The modern-day equivalent of a traditional, grotesque-laden political cartoon, the show delights in the most base and insulting comment. Indeed, the oft­ repeated and feebly inapt tag-line of "allegedly!" after the most nearly libelous comments has not only become a by-word for the program, but has seeped into the national consciousness.

     Scripted and mocked proceedings were steered through the muddy waters of political intrigue and scandal by the host Angus Deayton until October 2002. He adopted a pseudo-John Cleese loftiness, and his quick comic manner is not averse to the odd, spontaneous gem. During an episode first aired in 1995, when the discussion lightly turned to thoughts of a possible Beatles reunion, Member of Parliament Teresa Gorman commented on the stupidity of the story: "isn't one of them dead?". Looking directly into the camera, Deayton muttered: "You heard it here first!"

     The rival team captains are Ian Hislop, editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye, and Paul Merton, who had performed impressively on Hat Trick's Whose line ls It Anyway? Merton was given his own Channel 4 sketch show and, for a brief period in 1996, was tempted away from the program entirely.

     The rounds are designed to allow for as much mocking of political figures and events as possible; actual score-keeping is a secondary concern. Innuendo, implication, and mockery of Deayton himself were high on the agenda, with the missing-word round having produced such Merton quotable classics as "Queen Beats Spice Girls in Lesbian Mud Bath" and "Any Fool Can Host a TV News Quiz." In later seasons, the mix has been boosted with the regular feature of "this week's guest publication" which could deal with anything from egg-cup collecting to pig farming.

     Politicians and celebrities in the news are not the only objects of ridicule. Perhaps the most hard-hitting (and, in terms of viewing figures, attractive) element of the program is the unbridled lampooning of the guest panelists themselves. The guest players are generally divided into two clear camps: the professional wag, and the newsworthy target. Journalists and critics valiantly attempt to beat the regulars in the laughter-generating competition, sometimes with breath-taking and dexterous results. The newsworthy targets, on the other hand, are simply sacrificial lambs, there for the sake of a joke. Almost immediately cut down to size by Mer­ ton's charming, lackluster observations or Hislop's less complicated, forthright abuse, they are ritually humiliated throughout the program. Some, such as Princess Diana's beau James Hewitt, survive by charm and polite manners, while others, such as Sir Elton John, avoid humiliation by not turning up at all. However, these guests then risk facing the equally humiliating situation of a hired look-a-like to sit in his place and play the game. The show's most celebrated and lauded guest of this type was the infamous tub of lard which replaced the Labour Member of Parliament Roy Hattersley, who got cold feet at the last minute and canceled his planned June 4, 1993 appearance on the show. The presence of the tub of lard as a stand-in for Hattersley was explained as logical, because "they possessed the same qualities and were liable to give similar performances." Finally, some guests, such as the late Paula Yates, miss the satirical slant of the show completely, and take it far too seriously (her furious condemnation of Hislop as the "sperm of the devil" has passed into television history).

     In 2002, host Angus Deayton became the recipient of the most mockery when it was widely reported that he had engaged in drug use with prostitutes. Hislop and Merton teased Deayton mercilessly on the show, and in October of that year he was asked to resign. The show has been hosted by a different guest each week since Deayton 's departure.