Kate Plus 8 Specials Get Killer Ratings

When Kate Gosselin confirmed that she and husband Jon had decided to get a divorce and see to their separate lives, many believed that was the end of TLC’s “Jon & Kate Plus 8.” Even when Jon moved to block production on the show saying it exploited the children, skeptics believed that was the end. According to Entertainment Weekly, the show still has a long life to live.

Kate Gosselin and the 8 children are not going anywhere, ratings for the first specials, airing over the weekend, clearly indicate. Granted, the figures are not as high as they once were, but for a show that saw so many ups and downs and of which many said it was merely dragging along, “Kate Plus 8” certainly did fare wonderfully. In fact, the two specials did even better than some of the episodes from the Jon “era.”

“The premiere of the first of two Kate Plus 8 specials was a boon to TLC on Sunday: The episode titled ‘6th Birthday Surprise’ averaged 3.4 million viewers while ‘Inside Kate’s Worlds’ attracted 3 million. Both episodes not only posted triple-digit gains over TLC’s second quarter averages in the time period but earned double-digit ratings and delivery gains over the November 2009 airings of Jon and Kate Plus 8,” EW informs.

“The Kate Plus 8 specials – which focus on the divorced mom’s complicated home life – are different from Twist of Kate, a new TLC series debuting this fall in which the mother of eight will travel the country to meet families with challenges at work or at home and attempt to ‘walk a mile in their shoes.’ It’s unclear how many specials TLC will produce, but the next one airs July 11,” the same report further says.

As also noted above, “Twist of Kate” aims to present only Kate Gosselin as she is in real life, when the children are not around. In fact, the kids will hardly appear on the brand new show, which will focus mostly on Kate interacting with real people and offering them advice from her own experience, TLC says.