Ryan Seacrest, the dexterous Hollywood grasp of ceremonies, can be named the subsequent host of “Wheel of Fortune,” succeeding the longtime host Pat Sajak in 2024, in response to two folks conversant in the plan.
The immediate choice of a star like Mr. Seacrest, made simply two weeks after Mr. Sajak introduced he would step down subsequent yr after greater than 4 many years on the job, is an enormous guess on “Wheel of Fortune.” The present has demonstrated outstanding sturdiness at the same time as conventional tv has declined within the wake of streaming leisure.
The swift choice by executives at Sony Pictures Television, which produces the present, additionally means that they’re hoping to keep away from the succession fiasco that just about overwhelmed their different hit sport present, “Jeopardy!’
Vanna White, Mr. Sajak’s longtime “Wheel of Fortune” co-host, is beneath contract for an additional yr, and is in negotiations to proceed with the present, mentioned one of many folks, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of the talks have been confidential.
In changing Mr. Sajak, Mr. Seacrest will face a take a look at: He’ll be changing a number who’s just about synonymous with the present, like Bob Barker was with “The Price is Right” or Alex Trebek with “Jeopardy!”
Mr. Sajak, a former Los Angeles weatherman, in addition to Ms. White, got here to “Wheel of Fortune” within the early Eighties, and turned the present into a significant hit. Within a couple of years, “Wheel of Fortune” spawned board video games, video video games, on line casino slot machines and, finally, a prime-time spinoff, “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.”
Though Wheel of Fortune hardly holds the identical spot it as soon as did in American tradition — at its top within the Eighties, “Wheel of Fortune” had a nightly viewers of greater than 40 million viewers — the sport present stays probably the most common leisure applications on tv.
In the latest tv season, “Wheel of Fortune” averaged 8.6 million viewers an evening, only a shade behind the 9.1 million that watched “Jeopardy!,” in response to Nielsen. Those audiences are almost as massive as something on prime-time TV, except for soccer video games.
Hosting a well-liked sport present, which requires little quite a lot of days of labor a month, is among the most coveted jobs in all of leisure. Landing the job provides one other notch to Mr. Seacrest’s résumé, which has included stints as a daytime speak present host, competitors sequence host, purple carpet interviewer, radio host and New Year’s Eve grasp of ceremonies.
Mr. Seacrest left “Live,” the morning present mainstay that he hosted with Kelly Ripa, this yr after a profitable six-year run as co-host. Mr. Seacrest continues to host ABC’s “American Idol,” which garnered an viewers of greater than six million this previous tv season, in response to Nielsen.
When Mr. Sajak introduced on June 12 that he can be leaving the present, many within the leisure business thought the seek for his alternative may take months. Still, succession hypothesis started instantly, and on social media, many “Wheel of Fortune” followers known as for Ms. White to take over as host.
Underscoring simply how a lot superstar entertainers covet the place, Joy Behar remarked on “The View” two weeks in the past that her co-host Whoopi Goldberg had curiosity in internet hosting “Wheel of Fortune.”
“I want that job,” Ms. Goldberg replied definitively, to the cheers of the studio viewers. “I think it would be lots of fun.”
After Mr. Trebek died in 2020, Sony trotted out a rotating forged of potential “Jeopardy!” successors, who crammed in as visitor host for every week or two at a time. In 2021, Sony introduced that Mike Richards, the present’s government producer, would take over internet hosting duties at “Jeopardy!”
But inside a matter of days, studies surfaced that Mr. Richards had made a sequence of sexist and offensive remarks years earlier, and, amid a public uproar, he was pushed out of the job — first as host, after which as government producer of the present. It took almost one other yr for Sony to announce that Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik can be the everlasting hosts of “Jeopardy!”
Over the final yr, the drama surrounding “Jeopardy!” has settled down significantly, and the present has sustained its robust scores.
Two weeks in the past, Mr. Jennings was requested on the “The View” who ought to take substitute Mr. Sajak.
“That’s an interesting question,” Mr. Jennings mentioned, including: “Hopefully, ‘Wheel’ has got an envelope somewhere that says, ‘What to do when Pat packs it in.’”
Source: www.nytimes.com