What’s new for Jeopardy’s upcoming season?

We are now at the half-way point of the 39th season of Jeopardy!, one of the longest-running quiz shows of all time. The second half of this season will air later this month but some are already looking ahead to an iconic 40th season of the show.

Speaking on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, producers Michael Davies and Sarah Foss revealed that they have some big plans for the show going forward. They highlighted some things that they got wrong this year that they want to amend, and promised to listen to fans’ suggestions and introduce a new structure for the twice-weekly episodes.

Here’s what to expect from the next season of Jeopardy!...

Expanded post-season will be first up

While many viewers tune in the regular episodes of the show every week, the ones that really draw the audience are the special ‘post-season’ shows that bring back some familiar faces. This includes “Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions” – also known as ‘TOC’ - and the “Second Chance Tournament.”

The current season is being aired in a split structure, with the post-season episodes being shown during a month-long break in the regular episodes. This, Davies said, needs to be changed.

“We had sort of slightly weird thing where we kicked off the regular season for five weeks, then we went into post-season, and we came back and went back into regular season again,” he said.

“I think what we’re going to do next season is we’re going to kick off the season with the post-season, and then go into regular season thereafter.”

Starting off with the post-season shows should draw in more viewers at the start of the run and prevents the regular season play being disrupted.

Jeopardy! Masters show to be introduced

Davies is clearly keen to take advantage of the huge interest in ‘specials’ of the long-running show and he has one big in idea in mind. He said that introducing a ‘Jeopardy! Masters’ show is his “fondest dream” for the programme and that he hopes to get it off the ground in 2023.

“We have these pro-level, elite level players, and our fans . . . tell us on social media all the time you watch the show through these people,” he said.

“I just look at the ratings, and when we have a super champion there in the mix, and suddenly when we had them playing against each other, the quality of the programs, the ratings of those programs, the social media interactions, the engagement with those programs, it was off the charts.”

Fans’ opinions will be taken into account for future changes

After more than 8,000 episodes spanning 60 years, the producers of Jeopardy! remain intent on keeping fans engaged in the show. Both Davies and Foss agreed that the audience wants to see more of the post-season action, which could see a shift in the show.

“We can expand the post-season, we can expand it to nine weeks, 10 weeks, 11 weeks, whatever we decide, eight weeks, there would be plenty of weeks for regular gameplay still,” Davies said. “I think we’re going to expand the post-season. I think it’s going to be a really important thing.”

He added that it “may mean we have less of some of the more traditional tournaments that we’ve had in the past, because we are hearing our fans and our players say they want more chances for people to have that first-time opportunity.”