Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) is an American game show host, former contestant, and author. He is best known for his work on the syndicated quiz show Jeopardy! as a contestant and later its host. Jennings was born in Edmonds, Washington but grew up in South Korea and Singapore. He worked as a computer programmer before he tried out for Jeopardy! in 2004. During his initial run, Jennings secured a consecutive 74 wins, setting the record as the highest-earning American game show contestant (a title he held for more than twenty years) and bringing significant media attention and viewership.
Jeopardy
Before 2003, Jeopardy! contestants were limited to five consecutive wins. At the beginning of the show’s 20th season in 2003, the rules were changed to allow contestants to remain on the show as long as they continued to win.[14] After this rule change, and until Jennings’s run, the record winning streak was set by Tom Walsh, who won $186,900 in eight games in January 2004.[15] Jennings took the contestant exam for Jeopardy! in 2003, but did not hear back from the show for a year. He was given three weeks to prepare for his taping, and he prepared extensively, using a couch as a podium, his young child’s toy as a buzzer, and having his wife use flash cards and keep score.[16][17]
Jennings’s run began during Jeopardy!‘s 20th season with the episode aired on June 2, 2004, in which he unseated two-time returning champion Jerry Harvey, and continued into season 21. In that first episode, Jennings’s entire winning streak nearly ended before it even began. The Final Jeopardy! answer was, “She’s the first female track and field athlete to win medals in five different events at a single Olympics.” Jennings responded with “Who is Jones?” using only the last name of Marion Jones (who was not stripped of her medals until December 2007). Host Alex Trebek said, “We will accept that, in terms of female athletes, there aren’t that many.” If the response had not been accepted, Jennings would have finished in third place, and challenger Julia Lazarus would have won the game instead.
His historic streak then underway, Jennings had taped 48 episodes before a single one made it to air.[16]
His last program was taped in September, but did not air until November 30, 2004, timed to coincide with the end of television sweeps month.[18] His reign as Jeopardy! champion ended when he lost his 75th game to challenger Nancy Zerg.[19] Jennings responded incorrectly to both Double Jeopardy! Daily Doubles, causing him to lose a combined $10,200 ($5,400 and $4,800, respectively) and leaving him with $14,400 at the end of the round. As a result, for only the 10th time in 75 games, Jennings did not have an insurmountable lead going into the Final Jeopardy! round.[20] Only Jennings and Zerg, who ended Double Jeopardy! with $10,000, were able to play Final Jeopardy! as third-place contestant David Hankins failed to finish with a positive score after the Double Jeopardy! round. The Final Jeopardy! category was Business & Industry, and the clue was, “Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year.” Jennings appeared perplexed during the time allowed to write a response, while Zerg finished her response quickly. Zerg responded correctly with “What is H&R Block?” and wagered $4,401 of her $10,000, giving her a $1 lead over Jennings with his response still to be revealed. Jennings incorrectly responded with “What is FedEx?” and lost the game with a final score of $8,799 after his $5,601 wager was deducted from his score.[18] After his response was revealed to be incorrect, the audience audibly gasped, and Zerg appeared to be shocked after realizing that she won. Jennings was awarded $2,000 for his second-place finish, which gave him a final total of $2,522,700 for his Jeopardy! run. Zerg, whom Jennings called a “formidable opponent”, finished in third place on the next show. The audience gave a standing ovation in honor of both contestants, and Alex Trebek called Zerg a “giant killer” as Jennings embraced her.[21]
Overall, Jennings answered over 2,700 questions correctly on the program.[21] Jennings’s run was interrupted by the off-season break (July until September), 2004 Kids’ Week, the Tournament of Champions (aired from September 20, 2004, through October 1, 2004), the 2004 United States presidential election (Tuesday, November 2, 2004, when no first-run episode was scheduled; the remaining episodes of the week aired from that Wednesday to Saturday), and the College Championship (aired from November 10, 2004, to November 23, 2004). As a result, he went the entire five months without a loss. Jennings did not participate in the Tournament of Champions, as invitations are extended only to champions (4 wins or more) who have been defeated (with the exception of the winner[s] of the College Championship). On December 1, 2004, the day after his defeat, Jennings made a guest appearance at the start of the broadcast, during which host Alex Trebek acknowledged his success and enumerated the various game show records he had broken.[22]
Impact and television ratings
It took a span of 182 calendar days to broadcast Jennings’s 75 matches. His run on the show brought significant media attention and television ratings. According to the Nielsen TV National People Meter, Jeopardy!‘s ratings were 22 percent higher during Jennings’s run than they were during the same period the previous year.[23] For several weeks of the winnings’ streak, Jeopardy! was ranked as TV’s highest-rated syndicated program,[24] with ratings 30 percent higher than before his appearance.[15] By the end of Jeopardy!‘s 20th season several weeks later, the show had surpassed sister program Wheel of Fortune in the ratings, though Wheel still benefited from the streak in markets where Jeopardy! is its lead-in in the common scheduling tactic for both shows.[25] Jennings was credited with boosting the program’s popularity as a whole, which at that point had been on the air for two decades but primarily attracted an older demographic.[21]
The attention changed Jennings’s life overnight, turning him into a household name.[15] Jennings guested on several television programs, including The Tonight Show, Nightline,[21] Live with Regis and Kelly,[23] Sesame Street,[26] and the Late Show with David Letterman, where he read the Top Ten List of Ways To Irritate Alex Trebek.[27] Publicists for the program reportedly divided his appearances evenly between ABC and CBS—the former a frequent affiliate for the show and the latter a sister company to the show’s syndicator.[21] Taking advantage of the notoriety of Jennings’s losing Final Jeopardy! answer, H&R Block offered Jennings free tax planning and financial services for the rest of his life,[28] with a senior vice president for the company estimating that he owed about $1.04 million in taxes on his winnings.[29][30] BBDO created an advertisement for FedEx in the USA Today newspaper three days after his final game, stating “There’s only one time FedEx has ever been the wrong answer” and congratulating Jennings for his streak.[31] Barbara Walters named him one of her 10 Most Fascinating People of 2004.[32] In a 2011 Reddit AMA, Jennings recalled how in 2004 the Democratic politicians Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid unsuccessfully asked Jennings to run for the United States Senate from Utah. He commented, “That was when I realized the Democratic Party was [screwed] in ’04”.[33] At the end of the decade, Entertainment Weekly put his run on its “best of” list: “Answer: A software engineer from Utah, he dominated the quizfest for a record 74 shows in 2004, amassing $2,520,700. Question: Who is Ken Jennings?”[34]
Jennings donated ten percent of his winnings to the LDS Church.[18][23] His streak made an impact backstage at the show as well, with the producers implemented some changes during his run. Normally, players only get a short time to practice, but more rehearsal time was added so that the new players could get comfortable with the buzzers. Additionally, the person who managed the buzzer system was changed.[16] In his book Brainiac, Jennings says that the consistency of the original manager’s timing had given an increasing advantage to continuing players, and that the change made a noticeable difference in the second season that he was on the show. At one point, announcer Johnny Gilbert stopped announcing Jennings’s total wins during the show’s opening.[citation needed]
His losing episode can be seen on the 2005 DVD release of Jeopardy!: An Inside Look at America’s Favorite Quiz Show. In 2023, Jennings’s entire run was made available for the first time, streaming on Pluto TV.[35]
Tournaments
Jennings returned to the program several times over the years as a contestant in its tournaments. He first rejoined the show for the 15-week, 75-show Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005. The field totaled 145 players including Jennings, who, unlike the other competitors, was automatically placed in the finals. In the final round, Brad Rutter decisively defeated Jennings and Jerome Vered, with respective final scores of $62,000, $34,599, and $20,600. Jennings won the $500,000 prize for second place, but as a result of the Ultimate Tournament, Rutter temporarily displaced him as the highest overall winner of money on game shows.
He returned for the 2011 Jeopardy‘s “IBM Challenge”, which featured the company’s Watson against Jennings and Rutter in two matches played over three days, the first man-versus-machine competition in the show’s history.[36] The winner of the competition was Watson, winning $1,000,000 for two charities, while Jennings was second and Rutter was third, receiving $300,000 and $200,000, respectively. Jennings and Rutter each pledged to donate half of their winnings to charity. At the end of the first episode, in which only the first match’s Jeopardy! round was aired, Rutter was tied with Watson at $5,000, while Jennings was in third with $2,000. After the second episode in which the first game was completed, Jennings remained at third with $4,800 while Rutter at second had $10,400.[37] The competition ended with Watson with $77,147, Jennings with $24,000, and Rutter with $21,600.[38] Below his response during the Final Jeopardy! round, Jennings wrote on his screen “I for one welcome our new computer overlords.” It was the first time Rutter had been defeated against any human player, although the defeat is not on Rutter’s Jeopardy! official record, as the competition was deemed an exhibition. Jennings wrote about playing against Watson for Slate.[39]
He participated in the 2014 Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades tournament, where he made it to the finals along with Brad Rutter and Roger Craig. Jennings placed second, winning a $100,000 prize, and Rutter won first place, securing a $1,000,000 prize. In the 2019 Jeopardy! All-Star Games, with 18 former champions, Jennings was one of six captains, choosing 2015 Tournament of Champions runner-up Matt Jackson and 2012 Jeopardy! College Champion Monica Thieu (who coincidentally eliminated Jennings in a 2016 episode of 500 Questions) to complete his three-person “Team Ken.”[40] Team Ken finished second to the team captained by Rutter, with Jennings winning $100,000, one-third of the $300,000 second-place prize.[40] In January 2020, ABC aired the Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time tournament between Jennings, Rutter, and James Holzhauer. Jennings won the championship to be crowned with the “Greatest of All Time” title and a first-place prize of $1,000,000,[41] bringing his lifetime Jeopardy!-related winnings to $3,522,700.