NYT’s Wordle will become a TV game show

The New York Times is betting that the Wordle craze isn’t over yet. The Times announced Monday that it will turn the hit mobile word game into a televised game show on NBC.

“Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie will host the issue, while The Times and The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon will be producing partners. Guthrie and Fallon announced the news on the “Today” show broadcast at 8:00 a.m. Monday, where they shared that the game show has been in development for the past two and a half years.

The show, which will begin airing on NBC next year, is described as “fast-paced” and a “great family game.” This seems a bit different from a mobile game, which often requires long periods of thought as users work through possible options.

This will be the first time The Times has teamed up with a TV broadcaster for an entertainment-based program, marking another shift in the media company’s pivot to building a sustainable digital subscription business as print revenues continue to decline.

Wordle began life as a popular online word puzzle game after being released in October 2021 by Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn. In January of the following year, it was recognized by The New York Times for its growing gaming business, and almost immediately brought “tens of millions” of new users to The New York Times. As of last year, NYT Games says users played more than 11 billion puzzles across all of its games over the course of the year, up from 8 billion in 2023.

NBC will begin filming episodes of the game show this summer and is currently looking for contestants.