Harry Friedman

Harry Friedman (born November 12, 1946) is an American television industry executive. He has been the executive producer of the syndicated game shows, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, since 1999. Initially he shared the title of executive producer with the shows' creator, Merv Griffin, but since Griffin's 2000 retirement, he has served as their sole executive producer.

Friedman has produced a combined total of more than 5,500 episodes of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Friedman introduced a number of new gameplay elements, theme weeks, and technological advances to both programs, and in 2006 he led both shows to make television history by becoming the first syndicated television series to broadcast in high definition.

Friedman was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He developed an early fascination with television programming and personalities, including Johnny Carson when he was a young local celebrity. Long before the conception of student internships, Friedman began working for Omaha's first television stations, doing whatever work management permitted.

In 1971, Friedman moved to Los Angeles, and without contacts he gave himself six months to find a job in the business. With less than 24 hours remaining on his self-imposed deadline, Friedman became a part-time question writer on the TV game show The Hollywood Squares, and continued with that show for eleven years, writing and producing thousands of episodes for three different versions of the show. He was also involved in the development of such other programs as Gambit and High Rollers.

Friedman became a producer of Wheel of Fortune in 1995. During his tenure with the show, Friedman has attempted to keep the show's gameplay fresh and exciting with many new additions to the rules. The new gameplay elements and rule modifications that were introduced to Wheel during Friedman's tenure, in chronological order based on their times of introduction, include the progressive cash jackpot wedge (in 1996), Toss-Up puzzles (in 2000), the increase of the bonus round's top value from its previous $25,000 to $100,000 (in 2001), the replacement of said round's former "W-H-E-E-L" prize envelope holder with the current "Bonus Wheel" (also in 2001), the Mystery wedges (in 2002), the Prize Puzzle (in 2003), the Wild Card (in 2006), the million dollar wedge (in 2008), the replacement of the long-standing Free Spin token with the Free Play wedge (in 2009), the ½ Car tags (in 2011), and most recently, retiring the jackpot wedge in favor of the new Express wedge (in 2013).

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