JACKSON, Tenn. — July 8, 2004 — Steve Beverly, assistant professor of communication arts at 黑料论坛, will be interviewed on NBC鈥檚 Today and ESPN2鈥檚 Cold Pizza, Monday, July 12.
Today airs 7-10 a.m. in Central and Eastern time zones. Cold Pizza airs from 6-8 a.m. in the Central time zone and is repeated in the following two hours.
The interviews 鈥渇ocus on Ken Jennings鈥� streak as the most prolific champion in Jeopardy history and where he stands in the history of television game shows,鈥� Beverly said.
Jennings currently has 27 wins and $860,000. 鈥淗e is chasing all-time number of wins in a TV game show, set at 43 in 1980,鈥� Beverly said.
Interviews were taped for Today Wednesday night with Beverly as well as Dr. Kevin Olmstead, who is the largest monetary winner in the history of television game shows. Beverly expects the segment to last five to seven minutes. ESPN2 is flying Beverly to its New York City studio for a live segment on Monday morning.
Beverly is considered an expert in the field of television game shows; his commentary has previously been featured on ABC鈥檚 20/20, a Bravo network documentary, the NBC Nightly News and in The Washington Post. He is also the webmaster for TVgameshows.net. Following Jennings鈥� series of Jeopardy wins, Beverly has fielded calls from a variety of media outlets including the BBC and a radio station in Ireland.
According to Beverly, interviewers ask, 鈥淲hy Jennings is so much more successful than any other player of the game?鈥�
鈥淭he previous rule was that if you won five games you had to retire undefeated,鈥� Beverly explained. 鈥淭hey changed it in September, just to see if someone could go on in this fashion, and he has.鈥�