More than 10,000 people audition each year to get on Wheel of Fortune, and about 26 million tune in every week, according to Sony. Ryan Seacrest is the man who now greets them. The BBC reported in 2023 that he would take over the show in 2024, and Seacrest began hosting in September 2024, replacing Pat Sajak.
Sony announced the change in a statement on a Tuesday in late June 2023. Seacrest signed a multi-year agreement and will also be a consulting producer. Co-host Vanna White is staying. Sajak, 76 at the time, stays with the programme as a consultant, producers said.
“I’m truly humbled to be stepping into the footsteps of the legendary Pat Sajak,” Seacrest said. He praised the outgoing host for how he “always celebrated the contestants and made viewers at home feel at ease”.
A busy resume
Seacrest, 48 when the news broke, was not new to national television. He keeps his job on American Idol, where he has worked since 2002, and he spent six years as co-host of the morning talk show Live with Kelly and Ryan before leaving it. He also hosts American Top 40 and On Air with Ryan Seacrest, and he has fronted Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve since 2005. He became its sole host after Clark died in 2012.
The man he replaced
Sajak started on Wheel of Fortune in 1981. By 2018 he was the longest-running game show host in US television, passing The Price Is Right’s Bob Barker.
The show began in 1975 as a TV version of the pencil-and-paper game Hangman. Contestants spin a wheel and solve word puzzles to win prizes.
A British version is also coming back. ITV announced at the same time that Graham Norton, the Eurovision and Graham Norton Show presenter, would host eight new episodes in 2024 on ITV and its streaming service ITVX. The original UK run lasted from 1988 to 2001.
