Ratings of TV show ‘Jeopardy!’ soar after death of host Alex Trebek

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Trebek, who died at the age of 80 on November 8, continued working on the show while being treated for advanced pancreatic cancer.

Washington: The ratings of the Syndicated game show ‘Jeopardy’ drew the biggest audience in the last seven months during its first week after the demise of its long-time host Alex Trebek.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Trebek, who died at the age of 80 on November 8, continued working on the show while being treated for advanced pancreatic cancer.

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The viewers will get to watch the episodes he taped through early January, giving them a couple of months to view his final on-camera work.

In the week following November 9, ‘Jeopardy’ saw a 24 per cent jump in the viewership with an average of 10.05 million daily viewers for its weekday episodes in comparison to the show’s season average of 8.1 million.

‘Jeopardy’ led all syndicated programming for the week, with the show ‘Wheel of Fortune’ topping at the second-place by about 870,000 people.

With a rating of 6.0, ‘Jeopardy’ led the syndicated rankings among households too, with ‘Judge Judy’ edging with a rating of 5.9. The last time ‘Jeopardy’ had topped 10 million viewers in a week was in April.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Trebek’s final episodes are set to be aired in the week of January 4, followed by two weeks of repeats of some of his best works on the show.

The Sony-produced show has yet not announced any permanent host to take over Trebek. The winningest player in the show’s history will be the first in a series of guest hosts starting January 11.