Hosting quandaries for $2,000; the answer: "Both of them"

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Brad Beam

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Jul 25, 2022, 8:12:57 PM7/25/22
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With the planned Sunday celebrity expansion in the fall, the folks at Trebek Studios have decided to keep both Blossom and the Professor at the podium.

https://ew.com/tv/mayim-bialik-and-ken-jennings-will-continue-to-split-jeopardy-hosting-duties/

 

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PGage

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Jul 25, 2022, 10:34:52 PM7/25/22
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I am not a big fan of Celebrity Jeopardy, so I would have been happy for her to that and Ken do regular. But looks like the plan is to keep mixing and matching both hosts in both formats? 

One thing that has been increasingly clear this year is how much more enjoyable the show is when Ken is hosting. Still, like Pizza and Sex, even when it’s bad Jeopardy is still pretty good.

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Brad Beam

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Jul 25, 2022, 11:39:30 PM7/25/22
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From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of PGage

>I am not a big fan of Celebrity Jeopardy, so I would have been happy for her to that and Ken do regular. But looks like the plan is to keep mixing and matching both hosts in both formats? 

 

At the start of the season, the plan was for Mayim to do the special primetime events (e.g., February’s College Championship); dropping Richards after the first week changed that.

 

Based on my spreadsheet: of this season’s 230 syndicated shows, she hosted 115 and Ken 110. That’s basically 50/50. And since she also did the 9 hour-long episodes this season, I don’t see that next season’s celebrity episodes would affect the nightly split.

Bob Jersey

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Jul 26, 2022, 9:14:40 AM7/26/22
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Only due to "Bang" repeats on WPHL does my J!-watching brother tolerate Dr Bialik...     B

Brad Beam, to PGage, July 25th:

Tom Wolper

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Jul 26, 2022, 10:33:40 AM7/26/22
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This EW story has the worst elements of entertainment journalism. They haven’t done any reporting, they just scraped a Variety article. At least they link to it rather than pretending they did all the work.

The EW article says nobody has been signed yet while the Variety article says they have been signed. Or, if I misread it, Sony has made them an offer, but Sony PR wouldn’t let that out if signing weren’t guaranteed. The big news came from two paragraphs Michael Davies gave to Variety in their daytime Emmy wrap up: Jeopardy needs two hosts because of planned expansion. So one host will get Jeopardy Classic or Original Recipe or whatever, and the other host will get a spinoff.

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PGage

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Jul 26, 2022, 12:42:27 PM7/26/22
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Okay, thanks Tom for the pointer to backtrack to the original Variety article. My interpretation now is that a better headline would be:

“Ken Jennings will be the Host of Jeopardy! Next Season.” 

With subtitle: 

“Mayim Bialik will host Prime time and Celebrity Jeopardy!”

I think original, syndicated, regular Jeopardy will always have to just have the title of “Jeopardy!”, and Jennings will now be “The Host of Jeopardy”, not just “Hosting Jeopardy”. Any other flavor of Jeopardy will have to include some kind of modifier, and Bialik will be the host of that (I suppose they can easily relieve each other as needed.”

If this indeed is what they are doing then it is a step in the right direction.

Brad Beam

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Jul 27, 2022, 3:41:15 PM7/27/22
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The EP clarifies the schedule (somewhat)….

PGage

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Jul 27, 2022, 4:00:03 PM7/27/22
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One wonders why they are being so opaque about all of this. Here is the obscure part (through January it sounds like a simple “Ken hosts Jeopardy, Mayim hosts Primetime and special Jeopardy”:

“When she takes over from Ken in January, the current plan is to have her host a couple of new tournaments as well as the Jeopardy! National College Championship and as many weeks as she can manage with her other primetime commitment to “Call Me Kat.” We know you value consistency, so we will not flip flop the hosts constantly and will keep you informed about the hosting schedule.”

This might mean Mayim takes over regular Jeopardy, but it also might mean more like she will host special Jeopardy tournaments.





Tom Wolper

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Jul 27, 2022, 4:36:38 PM7/27/22
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I see it a bit differently. Jeopardy built and maintained its level of consistency by being in a silo for decades. Same host, same EP, same director, etc. Davies, the current EP, comes from outside the silo and got a year to implement a new vision and measure results. And the results are outstanding: the show is in the national conversation again and the ratings are up where other syndicated shows, including Sony shows, are in decline.

So for Sony investing in more Jeopardy equals more viewers equals more money and investing in other shows leads to diminishing returns or even outright losses. So Sony went to Davies and told him they want more Jeopardy: possibly another syndicated version and possibly more prime time shows. The natural limit Davies would be up against is hosting capacity and with two hosts under contract they can go ahead and expand the franchise.

PGage

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Jul 27, 2022, 4:55:58 PM7/27/22
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I don’t dispute most of that (not sure about the attribution of ratings increase to the hosts, as opposed to say the factors that have gone into the number of super champions).

Clearly I don’t like Bialik as a host, but that is not germane to the point here, which is the ambiguity around hosting assignments starting in January. Davies himself acknowledged that fans don’t like the constant back and forth between hosts, yet at the same time seems to be keeping that going.

I am not opposed to other flavors of Jeopardy (though I don’t see myself becoming a regular viewer of them) as long as they respect the priority and exclusiveness of the original p.

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