They Killed Ken!

kwings writes "SF Gate (via the AP) is reporting that your pal, Ken Jennings has been beaten after his 75th(!) game. I fully expect Mr. Trebek to hold a wake, or to keep calling the champion 'Ken' for the rest of the season. :) Since they're only up to airing game 41, it will be an interesting few months (or 34 shows)."

Comments

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[tuxter]

Some info here.

The losing Final Jeopardy question of Ken Jennings

[jkottke]

Thanks to a tipster, I broke this story on my site yesterday morning...AP and /. have no love for weblogs? ;). This morning, that same tipster has provided the Final Jeopardy question/answer which cost Ken his streak. If you don't mind the spoilers, click through to find out.

Don't count on it Indeed

[MarkPNeyer]

Everyone should RTFA here - big time. This whole thing is based on something that showed up on this 'TV Week' website, and the company is not confirming the story...

Re:Bummer.

[Kombat]

No doubt the ratings have shot thru the roof, as well as the advertising revenue.

Jeopardy doesn't get the ad revenue; the TV stations do. Jeopardy is a syndicated TV show, which means that networks sign a contract at the beginning of the season. $3 million for 100 shows, or something like that. If the ratings go up during the season, that's great for the network (because they can charge more for advertising time), but the producers of Jeopardy don't see any of that. They've already signed their contract, and are delivering the agreed-upon number of shows for the agreed-upon sum of money.

Now, next season, the show's producers may be able to cite the increased ratings as a factor in requesting a higher-paying contract this time. However, given that the whole "Ken" thing is really just an unusual, one-time curiousity, it'd be hard for Jeopardy's producers to convince the networks that the increased ratings will stick for the entire upcoming season.

What I'm saying is, the networks are profiting from this much more than the show itself, so no, it wouldn't make much sense for Jeopardy producers to "rig" the show to keep Ken around. The networks would have a lot more motive for such manipulation than the producers, but the networks have no control at all over how the show is produced, so it'd be impossible for them to carry out such meddling.