This Is What Happens When You Don’t Pay Your Workers
Tabloid media has made sure to point out how “angry” Jeopardy! fans have been about how Season 40 is progressing. One major thing that I think a lot of people are missing—we are still in the midst of replacement programming that had to be committed to because the writers were on strike. We would not be in this position at all had the AMPTP made proper offers in April and May and not attempted to “starve out” the writers. So, if anyone, this anger isn’t really Jeopardy!‘s fault—it needs to be made clear to the higher-ups at Sony that this fan anger is at the AMPTP, and is a direct consequence of the AMPTP’s abject failure to provide adequate pay and working conditions to the writers. So, congratulations, Carol Lombardini—any fan anger with Jeopardy! right now is squarely on you.
A Reminder About Reddit Compared To The Viewership As A Whole
Millions of people watch Jeopardy! every night. I would venture that 1,000 of those viewers post their opinions regularly on Reddit. For media outlets to then take the viewpoints of a dozen angry fans out of those thousand and use them to illustrate that fans are angry is poor journalism and derelict of duty. I would, furthermore, urge anyone with any decision-making power within Sony and at Jeopardy! to go as far as to ignore what Reddit has to say completely; as I said in my column last week, it is my firm belief that much of the show’s diehard fans do not have the show’s future best interests in mind at this point. Following Reddit’s advice will very likely lead to the show lacking a viable airing platform within five years, and it is not worth sacrificing the show’s future into the 2030s to bring the show back to where it was in the 2010s.
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The Optics Of Monday’s Game
I think that Jeopardy! erred in allowing Burt Thakur to return in Champions Wildcard. While the letter of the rules that Jeopardy! set down certainly permitted his participation (the show issued a statement before Thakur’s appearance stating “Burt Thakur’s participation is within the parameters of the official rules of the show”), the fact that he has begun campaigning in Texas’s third district, even though it was before Texas’s filing dates, has certainly contravened the spirit of any regulations. The fact that Thakur already appears on Ballotpedia as a candidate for 2024 is certainly a red flag in my eyes; certainly, if I were running second or third in this primary approaching Super Tuesday, I would absolutely turn Thakur’s Jeopardy! appearance into an equal opportunity request to get some absolutely prime airtime on KTVT Dallas in the run-up to the primary.
In my opinion, this was a completely avoidable situation that is unnecessarily putting a brand-new affiliate into a potentially sticky situation in a couple of months.
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Tim Simons, And Something More Lighthearted
I very much enjoyed Tim Simons’ confusion on this week’s Celebrity Jeopardy as to the meaning of “True Daily Double”. As I posted on X/Twitter on Thursday, I certainly plan on using “Tim Simons bet” to refer to any Daily Double bet that’s the value of the clue going forward. I think that it’s a very apt way to memorialize Tim’s confusion, and certainly is indicative of the more lighthearted nature of Celebrity Jeopardy. I also think that more people should watch—the few comments that I did see from viewers were generally positive about this episode, and that they wished that more Celebrity episodes were like this one.
In closing
Week 5 of the strike replacement programming (though still Season 40) is next week.
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I did not know that KTVT Dallas is a brand-new affiliate. They could possibly be in a “bad publicity is better than no publicity” situation (concerning criticism for airing his appearance).
Would equal opportunity requests from opponents be that burdensome? Out of the actual 20 minutes per episode which are not commercials, how much true “air time” does a single contestant actually get? [Though I do realize that it varies depending on how well one is doing.] In the run-up to elections there is always a ton of advertising and quite a bit of interviewing by local talk shows of the many candidates. The FCC does not require a station to provide opposing candidates with programs identical to the initiating candidate, so couldn’t KTVT just “count” Thakur’s minutes of appearance on Jeopardy! among his airtime total from ads that is compared to airtime total from other candidates ads so if anything his appearance hurts him instead of helps him? IMO his Jeopardy! appearance will just be a wash with voters as some will be influenced by how many he gets right or wrong, some by how many he “doesn’t” buzz in on (with the implication that he didn’t know the answer rather than was just not fast enough on a buzzer), some by his apparent demeanor (positive or negative per each individual’s opinion), some by admiration he could even get on Jeopardy!, some by jealousy that he got on Jeopardy!, and some won’t care at all.
Come to think of it, since the FCC rules generally
means providing comparable time and placement to opposing candidates, couldn’t KTVT pre-empt his episode and either not air it at all or (especially if the SONY contract requires that they air it some time), do so at like 3am when being required to give some free ads [which I am not even sure they have to do free] would be pretty cheap?
Also, talk shows and other regular news programming from syndicators are also declared exempt from the rule by the FCC on a case-by-case basis, so this may not come up so often as to to make it difficult to submit a single episode for such consideration. I’d think if Thakur doesn’t mention politics in his “interview”, that episode should qualify for a case-by-case exemption.
Anyway, not being argumentative, just wondering.
Brand new-ish. J! aired on KTVT from 2005 to 2013, then switched to sister station KTXA from 2013 until this year.
Absolutely right — and also worth it to note that KTXA has been co-owned with KTVT since 2001, so neither station switch involved a change in who Jeopardy! is doing business with (in this case, CBS News and Stations).
That said, Andy’s original characterization of “brand-new” isn’t entirely off the mark; as today’s “Inside Jeopardy!” related, Ken Jennings and Sarah Whitcomb Foss were in Dallas last week to help promote the station change, including a visit to the Texas State Fair.