The Mike Richards debacle reveals Jeopardy! is facing an "existential crisis"

Slate

Richards' hiring and his exit from the Jeopardy! hosting job amid a slew of scandals is "an indictment of Sony’s vetting process, yes, but it also reveals how confused the studio has been about its goals all throughout the process," says Myles McNutt. "Even before Richards’ hiring, the discourse around the search for a new host reinforced how Jeopardy!’s place within the television industry and popular culture is fraught with uncertainty. As the show’s producers—who, at least as of this writing, still inexplicably include the tarnished Richards—return to a carousel of guest hosts, they do not just need to decide who should be the host of Jeopardy! They need to decide who the show’s audience is, and who it will be." As McNutt points out, Jeopardy! is facing a "demographic reality" since its audience is mostly older viewers -- viewers who don't reflect the LeVar Burton-preferring younger viewership on Twitter. "In an especially risk-averse corner of an already risk-averse industry, pleasing the show’s exuberant but small online fan base is a lower priority than keeping regular TV viewers from changing the channel," says McNutt. "However, while Jeopardy!’s audience may not be extremely online, the campaign around Burton and the general Twitter dissection of the revolving podium reinforced that the show’s audience is not a couch-bound monolith, despite Sony’s attempt to treat it as one. The choice of Richards revealed that Sony looked at the challenge of replacing Alex Trebek and believed the best option was a cipher: a completely generic figure with zero public reputation who could slip into the role without upsetting an imagined, generic, average viewer of the show. And while Claire McNear’s reporting at the Ringer revealed that Richards had far too much baggage to be the cipher they wanted, it doesn’t mean their logic for bypassing the other candidates has changed. Based on the industry’s continued positioning of white men as neutral—as opposed to symbols of a regressive norm—choosing Richards was an attempt to answer questions about the future of Jeopardy! with a resounding 'No comment.'" McNutt wouldn't be surprised if Sony ended up finding a "less-problematic version of Mike Richards that keeps them from having to face the existential crisis the show is facing as linear viewing shrinks with each passing year. The fact is that there’s a logical argument against any consequential decision Sony might make in choosing a new host. If Jeopardy! fans are already invested in the show, why bring in a former contestant to host when you can at least try to expand the audience with a different selection?" He adds: "The death of the linear television industry is not imminent, but it is nonetheless in progress, and the selection of a new host for a game show has emerged as a definitive moment in its timeline. As a venerable institution, Jeopardy! is a bellwether for how legacy programs will be able to adapt into the future, and the Richards debacle showed that Sony has no immediate desire to face the music of the television industry’s Final Jeopardy."

ALSO:

• The people in charge of Jeopardy! don't know what they have, squandering a highpoint of goodwill: "The game show has, in recent years, been the beneficiary of a unique outpouring of goodwill — with successful primetime specials, resurfaced episodes on Netflix, and the sorrowful loss of late host Alex Trebek all keeping the show in the public consciousness," says Daniel D'Addario. "The show’s farewell to Trebek was movingly, thoughtfully conducted. And the publicly-conducted search for a new emcee made for engaging, even exciting television, as viewers got the chance to envision different ways a TV show might subtly remake itself. Some of those possibilities made more sense than others. One that did not, really, was handing the series to an unready producer with a history of speaking freely and loosely in a manner lacking a certain dignity. Trebek had a mind of his own and could speak off-the-cuff in ways that sparked occasional pushback, to be sure; he also generally evinced an attitude of basic respect. This attitude of Trebek’s, incidentally, was the subject of Richards’ episode-ending monologue each time he hosted the series; it suggested an unnecessary burnishing of Richards’ own image. Trebek didn’t need to preach about kindness on a daily basis to make viewers feel it. Richards’ tributes to Trebek feel especially hollow given just how quickly he’s thrown into disarray what Trebek spent his career helping to build. On a long enough timeline, there will eventually be a permanent host of Jeopardy!, and, after a disruption, the guest-host rotation will continue. But it’s hard not to feel a concerning sense that those in control of Jeopardy! don’t understand what they have. It can be a little too easy to describe the show in lofty terms as a place where knowledge is celebrated, but that has the benefit of being true; it’s also true that the show has one of the most rock-solid formats in entertainment. Jeopardy!, 60 Minutes, Saturday Night Live: These are shows that could potentially run forever, with periodic alterations. The importing of a Hollywood-slick smooth talker suggests that those in power at Jeopardy! value the potential it has to be pushed to some hypothetical next level of entertainment that they don’t realize how easy it would be to destroy something that’s worked for decades."
• Mike Richards will one day become a business school case study: "Richards’ ascent probably evoked familiar feelings in a lot of people who have been passed over for jobs in the past, or seen qualified candidates rejected in favor of a spicy vanilla guy who goes golfing with the boss," says Erin Gloria Ryan. "There’s a Dick Cheney or a Mike Richards in every office, who may be outwardly committed to pushing things in an exciting new direction but is always inwardly committed to staffing the top jobs with people as similar to themselves as possible. It’s just easier to hire yourself over and over, rather than move over to make space for people who shouldn’t have been shut out in the first place. Mike Richards went for the Jeopardy hosting job with the hubris of a Jeopardy! contestant betting all their winnings on a Final Jeopardy topic they knew nothing about. He could have left well enough alone. He could have leaned out. Richards had a plum job as executive producer of one of the most enduring game show brands in the US. Had he simply stayed in his lane and picked a new host from the stable of qualified candidates, all that embarrassing stuff out there about him would have stayed obscure. How hard is it to not try to get a job? But he, as they say on TikTok, chose violence. He either remembered what he’d said on his old podcast and in the lawsuit and was confident that nobody would ever find out or care, or he’d forgotten about it. One day, Mike Richards will be a business school case study that helps MBA students learn how not to conduct an executive search."
• For many people, Richards came to represent something more than just an unpopular host on a beloved TV program: "He briefly became the white-hot apotheosis of everything unfair in this world," says Joe Berkowitz. "Another victory for men. Another victory for white men. Another victory for insider elites. Take your pick. The distaste for Richards was intersectional. Perhaps what made rooting against him feel personal and important, though—even for people like myself who haven’t watched Jeopardy! in 20 years—is that unlike the actual complicated catastrophes plaguing our world right now, this battle seemed eminently winnable. Each new awkward fact revealed about Richards inched us one step closer to the 'grand opening, grand closing' scenario many on the internet actively clamored for. It is impossible to convince staunch nativists that Afghan refugees should be welcomed in America. It is impossible to convince legions of avowed anti-vaxxers to collectively change their minds. But if enough people were Mad Online about Mike Richards at once, perhaps America could get the Jeopardy! host it preferred—or at least not get the one it didn’t."
• Richards remaining as executive producer is baffling: "For me, the kinds of remarks he repeatedly made only a few years ago on his podcast suggest a person ill-suited to run this show or pick its public face," says David M. Perry. "I hope he, his colleagues and Sony Pictures take some time to consider what exactly made Trebek so special as a host. I think it was his kindness and humility. He stepped aside to make winners seem brilliant, without ego, but could also encourage losers to be good sports and understand that whatever happened in the game, knowing things was pretty cool. In moving past this debacle, the show has a second chance to reinvent itself around its unique strengths. It doesn't have to find another Trebek -- that's not going to happen. But it does need to recognize that a show about knowing things, a show that is still watched by everyone from kids to elders, is special. This is not a place for a bland game show host in a nice suit, but a real person with whom viewers can connect. It's an opportunity to entertain, but also project the value of learning."
• Here are the five best Jeopardy! candidates now that Richards is out