“The Pat Sajak Show” had a brief flicker of glory before rapidly nosediving. As Sajak himself said, the show didn’t try to be too different. “We set out just to make a good, solid talk show,” Vulture quotes. “There are a limited number of things you can do.” CBS put a lot of trust in Sajak, who left the daytime version of “Wheel of Fortune” in 1989, signed a two-year deal for $60,000 a week (over $150,000 in 2024), and got a new $4 million studio (over $10 million in 2024). There was an opening monologue that showed Sajak at his least comfortable, although once behind his desk and interviewing people he settled well into the role. And, the show was 90 minutes — a choice that revealed a huge crack in the show’s armor.
Because “The Pat Sajak Show” was 90 minutes long, it aired at an odd timeslot of half-past the hour. That half-hour overlapped with “Late Night with David Letterman,” so if folks wanted to watch “The Pat Sajak Show” they’d have to ignore Letterman for 30 minutes or switch to Sajak halfway through. Plus, “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” was still on the air, and would be so until 1992, at which point it rolled over to Jay Leno. Plus, the “Arsenio Hall Show” debuted just six days before Sajak’s show. “The Pat Sajak Show” couldn’t compete. Two months after its first show it went from first to last place in the ratings, and after 10 months on the air, its runtime was reduced to 60 minutes.
