More than a year has passed since Ryan Murphy was named replacement host on Wheel of Fortune following Pat Sajak’s retirement, and he did indeed find the time in his schedule to take over for its Fall TV premiere. In the year ahead of his official debut, some fans had less than positive attitudes about the swap for one reason or another, but the first week of episodes went off without a hitch, save for all the complaints about the new set.
That’s underselling it, actually. Wheel of Fortune’s first week back for Season 42 earned some legitimately stellar ratings for the all-time great game show, which had to have been a big boost of positivity for Seacrest. (Who was readily confident about taking over very early on, to be fair.) Just how well did it do?
Specifically, according to Nielsen (via Deadline), Wheel of Fortune’s first ep with Seacrest brought in a wildly impressive audience of 9.63 million viewers. That’s the biggest audience of any season premiere going back nine years to the 2015 starter, and it absolutely trounced the Season 41 opener, whose viewership topped out at 5.68 million. It also rose far above the 18-49 demographic, beating out last year’s numbers by 63% (0.86 rating to 0.52 rating).
That large total didn’t hold up throughout the week, which is only natural, but the syndicated staple still celebrated much success. The first week of episodes ended with an overall average of 8.31 million viewers, as the four episodes that were telecast after the premiere averaged just under 7 million viewers. Such numbers cemented it as the best week of new WoF eps in the past five years. Those stats also made Wheel the #1 show in all of syndication for the week.
In direct comparison to the 2023 premiere week numbers, its average viewership marked a 21 percent increase, from 6.87 million to 8.31 million. Additionally, it enjoyed 10%+ lifts for all ratings for the key demographics.
It's unclear if the second and third week will see the viewership numbers dip a little more to settle into what they'll likely be throughout the season. But if the show features more attempts for million-dollar prizes like this, then the "s_y is the l_m_t."
To be fair to anybody out there who holds Pat Sajak in high esteem far above Ryan Seacrest, the former host's final syndicated episode drew in a bonkers 11.03 million viewers. So if he ever decides to come back and tag-team an episode with Seacrest, that could possibly break linear TV.
Pat Sajak will actually be back to hosting duties soon for ABC's Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, whose season was filmed ahead of his exit from nightly eps.
