‘Jeopardy!’ Fans Say They’re Bored With Recent Mega-Champ Winning Streaks
Jeopardy! has seen a string of mega-champions over the past year, from Matt Amodio to Amy Schneider and Mattea Roach. Now some fans say they are beginning to tire of the dominant winning streaks.
One of the game show’s long-time viewers posted a thread on the Jeopardy! Reddit on Saturday, July 9, asking, “Does anyone else enjoy new champions on the regular?” While the fan noted that mega-champs are “great,” he added that he enjoys “seeing a daily or regular turnover of champions,” pointing to Yungsheng Wang’s recent short tenure as champion and how it “made the whole game more enjoyable.”
Wang, a Public Defender from Los Angeles, California, won just three games before he was knocked off the top spot. Despite Wang’s brief run, the series has seen several mega-champs in recent months, starting with Yale doctoral student Amodio, who amassed 38 wins and more than $1.5 million in prize money last year. This was quickly followed by engineering manager Schneider who went on a 40-day winning streak, taking home a whopping $1.3 million.
Canadian tutor Roach won 23 consecutive games, bagging herself $560K in winnings, and just days later, rideshare driver Ryan Long went on a 16-game streak, earning $299K.
In response to the Reddit thread, one fan explained how the mega-champs happening so close together made the show boring. “I like mega champions every now and then,” they wrote. “Matt, Amy, and Mattea happened so close to one another that I ended up itching for more of a turnover. Had there been more space between each run, I think I would have been more excited over it.”
Others agreed, with one commenter writing, “I get bored with mega-champs after a while. Runaway after runaway gets boring,” and another adding, “I like seeing competitive games. Longer running champs tend to mean less competitive games, so I usually like them less.”
However, not everyone was on the same page, with some still enjoying the streak of mega-champs. “I enjoy watching mega-champions who are extremely good at the game win in fair competition over challengers,” said one viewer.
“Personally I like having champions of at least medium term because it adds a little drama and gives you someone to root for or against, but it’s not a strong preference,” wrote another.
And for some, the contestants and winning stats don’t seem to play a factor at all, as they just enjoy playing along at home. “I usually don’t even notice scores until final jeopardy I’m too busy guessing incorrect answers on every question,” commented one fan.
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For the last few weeks, I have had no interest in watching due to Mayim hosting. It apparently coincided with the fall of another superchampion, Mattea Roach, but the champion streaks are not the primary driver of whether I watch.
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I think the producers are now aware that superchampions alone are not predictive of ratings success. Ryan Long won 16 games yet ratings were down 18% during his run, which amounted to a 4.8 share (source: TVNewsCheck). There could be several reasons for this, but it is known that the vast majority of his episodes were not preempted or interrupted due to major news events. Viewers are simply less interested in Jeopardy! when Mayim Bialik is hosting.
Let's see how positive regression hits when Ken comes back next Monday.
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Ratings also go down during the summer. That's why networks had "summer reruns" for years, and more recently, cheap reality, game, and stunts programming rather than wasting the "A" material.
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Sources such as Showbiz411 have noted that the show lost to reruns of Family Feud (with Jeopardy falling out of first place for the first time since February I believe), which actually gained in viewership in the same period during which Jeopardy lost part of its audience. So it can't be chalked up simply to lower ratings across the board when other shows are either increasing or staying steady.
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Apparently Pluto TV will have a 24/7 Jeopardy streaming channel so I would rather watch that than any new Mayim episodes. If she's named the permanent host, I'm switching to the streaming channels exclusively and for good.
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I have no objections to winning streak's. It’s interesting to see how far they can go.
Would prefer that Mayim go because she makes to many errors plus she lets to much slide by like incomplete answer
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There are two ways they can screw this up further: 1) Choose Mayim as the host of the everyday episodes. 2) Continue rotating hosts between Mayim and Ken. Either way will make the producers look desperate for Mayim considering that the majority of the audience wants Ken. It's not my opinion, the ratings show this plainly!
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No, Mayim Bialik takes the enjoyment out of the show. Somewhere Merv Griffin and Alex Trebek are shaking their heads in dismay.
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IMO This was a calculated maneuver to keep viewers tuning in during the Mike Richards aftermath. It's easy to manipulate by taking high scorers on the test and pitting them against lower scoring qualifiers, then putting up boards that play to that person's strengths. It isn't rocket science, and it worked. I'm fine with it.
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And it sparks interest in the tournament of champions, which I hope will be hosted by Buzzy Cohen again. I routinely use CC when Mayim hosts because I can't tolerate her condescending singsong voice. Buzzy should replace her on whatever segments they've assigned her and she should disappear from Jeopardy entirely.
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I sgree but am not fine with it, I like competition and there wasn’t much during those long runs.
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That's when I compete against the boards and keep my own score.
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I agree! The winning streaks themselves are a bit boring, but when every game is a runaway, it's so dull. The longer a champion is on, the more their advantage grows because they are more comfortable onstage and more practiced with the buzzer.
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They've more or less promised to announce their decision by the end of this month. Otherwise there's going to be a backlash.
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Long winning streaks can be fun to watch, but not when they involve day after day of runaway games. Single-player Jeopardy is not enjoyable. If there’s no competition, what’s the point in watching?
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To see if you might have outscored the contestants? I watch every day and jeep my own score.
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The entire board is posted the next day. There’s no reason to be bored to tears watching someone play Jeopardy alone.
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That’s why I stopped watching
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I thought I heard that, but I wasn't sure. I thought someone backstage would have hit a buzzer if that happened.
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I can't stand watching her/him, I feel tricked still.
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Someone Has to tell me if I’m crazy!!!
On 7/7 episode did the current champ answer TWO questions in Double Jeopardy without putting in form of questions?
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It's possible, chaos reigns when MB is steering.
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No, you're not crazy. Actually, one time it happened during the first round, during which the contestant is allowed to get away with phrasing without being penalized for it, but in Double Jeopardy he made the same mistake and Mayim did nothing about it. She often has displayed her unfamiliarity with the basic rules and the judges should have stepped in. It's incredible how much she's allowed to get away with.
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I don't know if you're crazy, but you are definitely mistaken. With all the judges, lawyers, and federal compliance officers on the set, nobody's getting away with violating the rules. If there's any doubt about phrasing, they've got very precise and sophisticated audio equipment which they can play back if there's any doubt. (And players are supposed to challenge if anything is wrong.)
Sometimes the "what is" is very soft, or nearly gets swallowed before the rest of the response. But in those cases, what we do hear sounds like it's in the middle of a sentence, suggesting the phrasing was there.
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It's also possible that it was edited out due to time constraints and because it didn't affect the ultimate outcome.
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I don’t know if Mayim Bialik let these things slide. I can’t watch when she hosts. But it makes no sense that for time constraints they edited out something that created a question. Putting responses in the form of a question is at the core of Jeopardy.
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Maybe sorting it out on camera would have caused an overrun.
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I know for a fact that they edit for time constraints. Probably a lot. The point is they have many things they can edit. Editing something that is the essence of the game and making it seem like a bad judgment call makes no sense at all. Words that create a question would never be edited.
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Well, considering the fact that they haven't had their ducks in a row since Alex passed, nothing would surprise me.
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Possibly, but time constraints would be a terrible excuse to let it slide when the premise of the show literally revolves around contestants providing questions to answers. It's truthfully more likely incompetence on one or a few people's part.
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I like long winning streaks
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a handful of random peoples’ non-important opinions does not a newsworthy article make. stop using twitter and social media as a measure of what people actually think
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The one Redditor said it exactly, about liking mega-champions "every now and then." Once a winner's streak hits about 7 or 8 games in a row, the show gets boring (to me).
And NO, it's not some sort of scam or "calculated maneuver" by the show's producers.
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Naivete' I presume.
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Are Jeopardy fans EVER happy? If they're not complaining about the host, they're complaining about the mannerisms of a champion (Mattea). Or the fashion choices of the host. Or making up conspiracy theories about the producers stacking the deck in favor of mega-champions. And now complaining because some really, really good players go on a winning streak. Absolutely ridiculous.
This article never mentioned the host, yet the mob out to destroy Mayim Bialak wasted no time jumping in and continuing their hateful comments about her.
For crying out loud, this is a game show, not a Presidential debate. The host of Jeopardy! will not affect the lives and safety of everyone in America. As a great actor by the name of Warren Oates once said to an obnoxious soldier in the great comedy "Stripes" -- "Lighten up Francis ..."
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You're right that the host neither affects my life and safety nor others. But it absolutely affects how much I am able to enjoy the show.
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Are you unclear about the constants in our lives that help us cope with what life throws at us? For many of us 5 million plus fans who watch Jeopardy on a daily basis, it's a comfort and a constant where we can put the rest aside for half an hour. When a distracting factor alters that routine, it's annoying and takes away from our sanctuary. There's a disturbance in the force and Mayim is causing it.
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Perfectly stated, Theo; and I loved the Star Wars analogy.
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Jeopardy is how I decompress, Mayim is ruining that.
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Really, an actress serving as a game show host whose so-called "faults" are the clothes she wears and the perkiness she displays is causing a "disturbance" in your life??
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Why are you assuming that Theo is referring to her appearance as the cause of the disturbance? Her hosting style is off putting and challenges long-standing norms that the audience has come to get used to for nearly 38 years! It is uniquely a Mayim problem and has nothing to do with reasons out of her control.
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Her "faults" aren't so-called and therefore do not have to be placed in quotes. They are serious impediments to the flow and structure of the game.
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Her style choices are odd and unflattering, but I haven’t seen anyone claim they make her unqualified to be host. Her “perkiness” is a cartoonish attempt to **act** like a host because she is incapable of actually **being** a host.
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Her demeanor is like that of a salesperson who works on commission. "Will that be cash or charge?". Big false smile.
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I agree! Game shows are entertainment and fun!
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When an incompetent host like Mayim Bialik constantly distracts and disrupts the flow of the game, it is no longer entertaining or fun.
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