text: In Los Angeles, KCBS-TV picked up Jeopardy! to air at 4:00 p.m. as a lead-in to its local news at 4:30 p.m. Five weeks later, however, due to low ratings, KCBS replaced Jeopardy! with reruns of Quincy, M.E.. Effective January 7, 1985, Jeopardy! was picked up by then-independent station KCOP-TV, where it was paired with Wheel of Fortune. Jeopardy! later returned to KCBS on September 4, 1989 along with Wheel. Then three years later, both game shows were picked up by KABC-TV, where they remain since then.
  Prime Time Access shakeup
  WABC added Oprah to its lineup in the fall of 1986, and placed it at 10:00 a.m., following its locally produced talk show The Morning Show. Having its roots in a local morning show at WABC's sister station in Chicago, Oprah was an immediate success and in December 1986, WABC decided to move it to the 4:00 p.m. timeslot. The move, which turned out to be permanent as Oprah remained at 4:00 p.m. for the next 24-plus years, displaced the game shows airing there; Jeopardy! at 4:00 p.m. and a syndicated edition of Card Sharks, hosted by Bill Rafferty at 4:30. Like previous shows that aired in the 4:30 p.m. slot following Jeopardy!, Card Sharks proved unable to retain a good percentage of its lead-in's audience, and WABC moved it to 12:05 a.m. following Nightline. Moving Jeopardy! to a similar slot was not an option due to its success in the ratings, and all other non-network slots were spoken for on WABC. WABC, however, had another idea.