To host this show, Pat Sajak left the daytime network edition of Wheel of Fortune (1975). His last show aired on January 10th, 1989. He stayed on the nighttime syndicated Wheel of Fortune (1983), which moved production the CBS Television City, where this show was recorded.
When the show began its run, it was 90 minutes long. After low ratings, CBS reduced it to one hour.
When Sajak changed the set, TV Guide described it as "the bachelor from hell" studio.
CBS got most of its stations to carry Sajak, and sent the host off to a roaring start with a 6.2 rating, a full point higher than The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962). Less than a week later, Sajak was sinking through the 3 rating level. The show had trouble getting audiences to come to the studio for tapings. Yet Sajak didn't change his demeanor, or his show, at all. Rod Perth came to regard Sajak as one of the least ambitious people in show business. He would come in at noon, tape his show from 5:30 to 6:30, and be out the door by 6:45. The show was collapsing around him, stations left every week, and the distribution system was canceling him before the network did, yet Sajak remained unmoved.
In 1988, with Wheel of Fortune (1983) a smash hit in syndication, CBS late night executive Michael Brockman saw Pat Sajak as CBS's first hope in a generation to get something started in late night. The strategy was simple; get Sajak, who had lots of experience as a funny weather guy in Los Angeles, on the air, let him settle in behind The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) in the ratings, let him grow until Johnny Carson finally retired, and CBS would have a show in place, ready to take command of late night. Sajak would present no threat at all to Carson, especially to the young viewers Carson was apparently losing.
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