Jim Thornton is new permanent Wheel of Fortune announcer

[JohnHolder]

An announcement on Wheel's FB page:

It's official. Veteran radio announcer Jim Thornton is the new voice of Wheel of Fortune.
“We are delighted to welcome Jim Thornton into the Wheel of Fortune family,” said Executive Producer, Harry Friedman. “Jim’s rich, friendly voice and engaging personality are a great fit for our show and its tradition.” Fans have already heard Thornton’s voice as one of the guest announcers during Season 28, and he will take on the position full-time when Wheel of Fortune begins broadcasting its 29th Season on September 19.

[JerseyBob]

Jim Thornton is fine, but I really preferred Rich Fields and Johnny Gilbert.

[WooWho]

It's funny, whenever Jim's announcing and he does the opening "Ladies and gentlemen..." announcement, if I'm not listening carefully I SERIOUSLY think it's Charlie O.!

Congrats Jim!

[Wayoshi]

September 19? Week later than expected, hmm...

[GSB92]

Most of you were rooting for Rich Fields but Jim Thorton sounds alot like Charlie-O. Thats why they picked him

[Todd]

Jim Thornton is way better than Rich on Wheel. Glad they chose him.

[temptation1979ga]

Most of you were rooting for Rich Fields but Jim Thorton sounds alot like Charlie-O. Thats why they picked him

We were? I instantly thought Jim would be a perfect fit for Wheel. Rich just didn't have the right voice presence for the show. I also disagree that the producers picked Jim Thornton simply because he "sounds a lot like Charlie." He has a great deal of voice talent in his own right, and saying he was picked simply because he sounds like someone else is a little bit of a slight, even though you probably didn't mean it that way.

[priceguy]

During the auditions, I thought Rich was better than Jim.  But once Jim unofficially got the job (as reported a couple months ago) his style improved greatly.  Jim was the perfect choice for announcer.  Congratulations, Jim!

[tpirfan28]

Excellent pick.  Good voice for the program.

September 19? Week later than expected, hmm...

Get ready for that to be a busy premiere day...TPIR/Deal should be premiering that day as well.

[John92]

First Jim was a guest announcer for Price is Right after Roddy's death. Now he won the WoF Announcing job.

As for Rich, he can still be seen on KCAL 9 doing the weather.

[The_Great_Butler]

I've liked Jim since he tried out for Price back in 2004. I would have picked him over Rich, actually. Always thought his voice just had a presence to it, I guess.

I'm glad to see he's got such a gig now. He deserves it.

[trytobecharming]

September 19? Week later than expected, hmm...

I do wonder why that is. The WOF and J! premieres were in the second week of September through 1986(although WOF's first season started airing in late August 1983 on some stations, and J! premiered on 9/10/84 in some cities and 9/17/84 in others). From 1987-2004, the season premieres were on Labor Day. From 2005-2010, they were back to the second MOnday in September, probably to avoid preemption from Jerry Lewis or whatever. Unless they're cutting back on the number of episodes produced, which would be unusual(J! originally did 195 episodes, and increased it to 230 starting in 1986-87)

[temptation1979ga]

Could it possibly have anything to do with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks? I know the date falls on a Sunday, but I could definitely see some of the network newscasts being an hour long around that time for sure. Pushing the premiere back a week would avoid all of that. Obviously, I don't know the real reason, but that's about all that came to mind off the top of my head other than "they just wanted to start later this year," which isn't so helpful.

[Ccook]

I've alyways enjoyed hearing Jim on Los Angeles' KNX radio. He'll be fine.

[trytobecharming]

Assuming J! also starts its season on September 19th this Fall, and does its standard 46 weeks of new shows a year, first run episodes would air in August for the first time ever. The current season bowed on September 13th and the season finale is July 29th. 46 weeks after September 19th will be August 3rd(leap year in 2012). Rarely have syndicated game shows shown new episodes in August. $100K Pyramid had new episodes in August from 1986-1988 and the Challengers might have in 1991(though that show was supposed to run 52 weeks a year with no repeats, when the show was known to be cancelled, they did show some reruns during the Summer, but not sure how many weeks of reruns were shown).