Sony scores win in battle of ‘Jeopardy!’ and ‘Wheel’ distribution rights, CBS vows to appeal

CBS Media Ventures has, at least preliminarily, lost the rights to distribute the highly popular syndicated game shows “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune,” according to an April 10, 2025, court ruling.

A Los Angeles Superior Court denied CBS Media Ventures’ request for a temporary injunction to halt Sony Pictures Television from taking over distributing rights to the show.

The ruling, however, is subject to appeal and CBS Media Ventures indicated it plans to immediately do so.

“This is only a preliminary ruling based on partial evidence, not the outcome of the full case. We’re confident once all the evidence is heard at trial, we will prevail on the merits. In today’s ruling, the court itself recognized the balance of harm tips in CBS’s favor, so we will ask the appellate court for a stay pending our appeal,” the division of CBS said in a statement.

At stake are millions of dollars in distribution revenue that Sony paid CBS Media Ventures to handle distribution of the shows, essentially adding a third-party middleman between Sony, which produces the shows, and the stations that buy rights to air it across the country.

Sony opted to take over distributing the show itself in February 2025. It claims CBS Media Ventures ended up selling the shows at lower rates and a series of layoffs instituted by CBS parent Paramount Global also affected its ability to manage distribution at the level required by their agreements. 

CMV, on the other hand, countered by suggesting that Sony is simply attempting to get out of its contract. It also said, in legal paperwork, that it has “mostly” complied with the terms of its agreements with Sony. It was not clear if those deals allowed some leeway in how functions were carried out or what, if any, penalties may be in place for an alleged violation.

Ostensibly, it could make sense for Sony to want to cut out CBS so it could cut out a layer of costs as most television shows are seeing dips in revenue from advertising and licensing fees, though that specific issue hasn’t been addressed directly by the courts.

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The original style of a production company paying a distribution company to handle the syndication rights of a show has been falling out of favor.

CBS Media Ventures itself has also arranged deals to distribute shows produced by entities it owns, such as “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which is produced by CBS Studios subsidiary Big Ticket Studios and distributed by CMV. CMV also distributes “Inside Edition.”

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Sony’s shift to bringing distribution in-house may also have been at least partially driven by its desire to get the shows onto streaming platforms, though, again, that has not been confirmed. 

Sony did, separately, announce it hopes to begin offering next-day streaming rights as early as later in 2025. Its agreements with its syndication partners already allow for this.a

All of the “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” deals end in 2028, at which point Sony hopes to offer the shows to streamers on a same-day basis. It was not clear if the show would continue to air on linear TV or become a streaming exclusive.

The respective production companies for “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel” both already also work with other parties. It sells primetime specials, including celebrity-driven and a variety of high-profile tournaments for “Jeopardy!” to ABC. Prime Video has a deal for “Pop Culture Jeopardy!”

CMV itself has roots in King World, which was founded in 1964 to re-edit and sell the rights to “The Little Rascals” to TV stations. It has served in the roles of both production company and distributor over the years for various shows.

The company rose to prominence after inking deals with “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel,” both produced by Merv Griffin. Its growth was also fueled the Prime Time Access Rule, a now-defunct regulation that required commercial TV stations to air non-network programming during select times of the day. A key intent of the rule was to encourage local productions, but a loophole made it possible for stations to instead buy syndicated programming to fill their schedules since they were not network-produced.

CBS bought King World in 1999. In 2006, CBS Paramount Television’s syndication division merged with King World to become CBS Television Distribution Group, or CTD. The King World brand was kept around for about a year after this as its vanity card continued to air at the end of shows. CTD changed its name to CBS Media Ventures in 2021, citing an effort to emphasis that it was not just involve in syndication. 

This isn’t the first time CBS Media Ventures has been hit with a lawsuit from one of the shows it distributes. It was previously embroiled in legal wranglings between Big Ticket, Rebel Entertainment and various CBS divisions as well as “Judge Judy” host Judith Sheindlin over profits from the hit show as well as fate of the court show’s library.