Ken Jennings Reveals He’s Leaving Hosting Job

Ken Jennings is saying farewell to one of his hosting jobs.

While Jeopardy! viewers can rest assured that Jennings will continue dishing out trivia on the beloved game show, listeners of his Omnibus podcast were devastated to learn Monday that he would be exiting the show he hosts with John Roderick.

“I’m so proud of the eight years @johnroderick and I spent unearthing weird oddities of the past on our podcast OMNIBUS,” Jennings wrote on Instagram Monday. “But my travel schedule is making it harder and harder to keep up with the show, so we’re bringing in a cavalcade of guest hosts to help out.”

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“But my final show as a weekly co-host is going to be a big live extravaganza in Seattle on November 8!” he continued. “Music! Surprises! Many goods and cheese! Consult @townhall_seattle for ticket details. If providence allows, we’ll see you there.”

Every week on Omnibus, Jennings and Roderick “add a new entry to the OMNIBUS, an encyclopedic reference work of strange-but-true stories that they are compiling as a time capsule for future generations,” according to the show’s website.

Omnibus launched in December 2017 and has released more than 650 episodes to date, with topics including the 2021 salmon chaos incident, space contraband, the historicity of the ancient Oracle of Delphi, and the 2011 monkey selfie copyright dispute.

Omnibus listeners were devastated to learn that Jennings would no longer be a weekly co-host, with one person writing, “I feel like I’ve just been hit by a mail truck.” Another person quipped, “Travel schedule? Wait, do you do something other than the podcast?” Still another fan mourned the “true end of an era,” teasing that Jennings’ “puns have finally become just too much for John.”

Jennings currently commutes from his home in Seattle, Wash., to Culver City, Calif., where Jeopardy! films. The Jeopardy! icon, who broke records with a consecutive 74 wins during his original run on the show two decades ago, was named late host Alex Trebek’s successor in early 2021. Jennings served as a co-host alongside Big Bang Theory actress Mayim Bialik from 2021 until 2023, when he was made the sole host.

Jennings has brought in a new era of Jeopardy! following Trebek’s death in 2020, but he revealed candidly on the Aug. 10 episode of the Lovett or Leave It podcast that he admittedly finds a central tenet of the show “so cringey.”

“So, I have to admit,” Jennings confessed, “as a kid I found the Jeopardy! interviews so cringey that I would leave the room. That’s my Jeopardy! origin story.”

“These people mean well, but you make them stop playing Jeopardy! for a second to talk about their cat or their trip to Thailand or something, and they’re not there for that,” the game show host continued. “They just want to answer the little questions!”

“I try to make it the least bad it can be, and get out of there,” he said. “My promise to you, the viewer.”