338 - The Jeopardy! Map of the US

jeoparmap “A popular game show in which contestants need to answer trivia questions on a variety of topics that has been running on US tv for nearly 45 years, and has been syndicated around the world.”

“What is Jeopardy! ?”

Jeopardy! debuted on NBC in March 1964 and the quiz show has been a top-rated fixture of the American television landscape ever since.

Contestant Ken Jennings holds the record for greatest amount of prize money won in one day ($75,000, on 23 July 2004) as well as the longest winning streak (182 calendar days) and greatest overall amount won ever ($2,522,700).

Jennings (b. 1974) has since become a minor celebrity in his own right (in the world of quiz nerds and trivia buffs, anyway) and has written two books on trivia and continues to be active in the quiz/media world. He also runs a blog, and posted this curious map a while ago.

It was published at the show’s 35th birthday (in 1999) and shows exactly where in the US Jeopardy! at that time was popular and where it was not (or less so).

Trebekkies (after the host Alex Trebek) watch the show most avidly. These are concentrated in South Dakota and Mississippi (whole state covered), Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, Vermont, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Montana.

The most trivia-challenged states are Utah (entirely) and (for a large part) California, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Minnesota, Indiana and Ohio.

Jennings, for once, doesn’t have an answer for the discrepancies in this map. To be fair, it’s quite unclear how the data on this map were collated. Anyone?

Many thanks to Kathleen Mikulis for sending in this map.