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CBS’s Final Jeopardy & Studio Ghibli’s A.I. Warning

Courtroom observations on Sony’s takeover of Jeopardy! distribution; the Dominion strategy to put the screws to Newsmax; and what’s significant about a Blade Runner v. Elon Musk ruling.

pat sajak alex trebek
Sony now has the green light to renegotiate licensing deals with stations , control ad sales, and do whatever it pleases with Jeopardy! and Wheel, which generate 8 million nightly viewers apiece. Photo: M. Phillips/WireImage
Eriq Gardner
April 15, 2025

It’s been several days since a Los Angeles judge ruled that Sony can inform the world that CBS no longer holds distribution rights to Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. If that sounds like a big deal, that’s because it is. The entertainment business runs on licensing. Relationships last decades, fortunes are made in the fine print, and it’s exceedingly rare—almost unprecedented—for a contractual hiccup to become grounds for outright termination. And yet, without even a trial, that’s precisely what’s happened here.