Wheel of Fortune (1981)
Wheel of Fortune (1981)
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Plot.
Where to Watch.
Details.
Release DateJuly 21, 1981
StatusEnded
Seasons4
Episodes468
Running Time25m
Last updated:
This TV Show Is About.
Wiki.
Wheel of Fortune is an Australian television game show produced by Grundy Television until 2006, CBS Studios International in 2008, and Whisper North, in association with Sony Pictures Television and Paramount Global Content Distribution, in 2024. The program aired on the Seven Network from 1981 to 2004 and January to July 2006, aired at 5:00 pm from 1981 to 1989 and from 2004 to 2006 and at 5:30 pm from 1989 to 2003, and is mostly based on the same general format as the original American version of the program. The current Network Ten format premiered in 2024.
After Wheel of Fortune ended, the format was revived by the Nine Network in 2008 as Million Dollar Wheel of Fortune, until it was cancelled in June 2008 due to low ratings and following arguments from long-time host John Burgess concerning why he did not like the revamped format, which coincidentally was adopted in the United States later that year and has continued with the modified Australian format.
An earlier unrelated show also titled Wheel of Fortune had been broadcast on the Nine Network. That version had been developed by Reg Grundy as a radio game show before it transferred to television in 1959.
In 2010, hostess Adriana Xenides died after a long battle with illness; she had been listed in the Guinness World Records as the longest-serving hostess of a television game show until it was surpassed by her American counterpart, Vanna White in 2001.
The future of the show is in doubt because of current litigation between the production parties, Sony Pictures Television and Paramount Global (owners of Network Ten), in a United States court. This litigation is related to the agreement between the predecessor companies Merv Griffin Productions (now Sony) and King World Productions (now Paramount Global) in 1983 for Griffin's game shows that was agreed as an agreement in perpetuity.