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James Holzhauer’s 22-game Jeopardy winning streak continues to push the show’s ratings higher.
The syndicated game show drew its best household rating in 14 years in the week of April 29. Jeopardy‘s 8.3 mark among households was its highest since March 2005.
Jeopardy averaged 13.28 million daily viewers for the week. That was better than the same-day audiences for every Nielsen-rated show in primetime, including CBS’ broadcast leader The Big Bang Theory (12.49 million viewers) and the initial tune-in for HBO’s Game of Thrones (11.8 million, not including streaming).
Jeopardy‘s ratings have climbed steadily during Holzhauer’s streak. In his first full week of shows (April 8-12), the show averaged 10.09 million viewers. It grew to 10.67 million the week of April 15, then 11.97 million and 13.28 million — a gain of almost 32 percent over those four weeks. Household ratings have gone up by nearly 30 percent (6.4 to 8.3) in the same time frame.
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Holzhauer has been accumulating prize money at an unprecedented rate during his winning streak. As of May 3, the contestant had won nearly $1.7 million, an average of better than $77,000 per game. He holds the 10 highest single-day winnings in the show’s history.
Ken Jennings remains the all-time Jeopardy money leader in regular play with more than $2.5 million, but it took him 74 games to amass that total. Holzhauer has amassed his winnings by dominating game play and making aggressive bets on Daily Double and Final Jeopardy clues.
Holzhauer is creeping up to Jennings in terms of ratings, as well. During the latter’s record-shattering run in 2004, household ratings improved by 22 percent over the previous year. During the four full weeks Holzhauer has been on the show, ratings have risen nearly 20 percent year to year. (If the week including Holzhauer’s first two wins is included, that gain shrinks a bit to 16 percent.)
Jeopardy is in the midst of its two-week Teachers Tournament, which wraps Friday. Holzhauer will try to continue his streak starting Monday.
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