More than a year and a half after Alex Trebek’s death, “Jeopardy!” has reportedly reached a decision on who will host the quiz show permanently.
“Jeopardy!” will reportedly carry on as it has for most of Season 38, with Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik splitting hosting responsibilities, multiple media outlets are reporting. Throughout this current season, Jennings and Bialik have each taken turns hosting the quiz show for several weeks at a time.
According to Variety, Sony Pictures Entertainment is finalizing “long-term deals” for Jennings and Bialik to continue splitting hosting duties. Entertainment Weekly reported that deals have not yet been signed, and Sony has not yet issued a statement on the matter.
The Deseret News has reached out to Sony for comment.
The reports come about a month after “Jeopardy!” Executive Producer Michael Davies — who took over after the Mike Richards scandal — said the show would “need multiple hosts to represent the entire audience, to represent the entire country, in order to take this franchise forward,” the Deseret News reported.
Jennings and Bialik — who have both expressed an interest in hosting permanently — have been splitting the responsibility since the second day of filming for Season 38. The season’s first five games were hosted by Richards, who abruptly stepped down when past controversies — including his “offensive language” and disparaging remarks about women’s bodies on a podcast that resurfaced in a report from The Ringer — came to light, per Deseret News.
“The scandal was, as we call it at ‘Jeopardy!,’ ‘the awkward months,’” Davies recently said at the Daytime Emmy Awards, according to Variety. “But it showed the power of our audience and how passionately our fans care about the program, which is just so important.
“What’s happened over the course of the season — Matt Amodio, and Amy Schneider and Mattea (Roach) and Ryan (Long) — really made us just remember how incredible the game is. The stars of our show and Mayim and Ken have done an incredible job hosting.”
The current season of “Jeopardy!” runs through July 29, and the show is expected to make an official announcement regarding the host around that time, the Deseret News reported.