14 DAY TRIAL // The latest season of “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” the reality show about a married couple and their life as parents of no less than eight children, can be seen as a clear indication that, soon enough and if things continue to progress like this, audiences will be spared of the Gosselin drama. As ratings continue to plummet, it’s time to consider the staying power of the show, industry insiders say for Us Magazine.
And the truth about this is that “Jon & Kate Plus 8” really doesn’t have that much staying power anymore. As a matter of fact, judging by the ratings it barely managed to pull with this Monday’s episode, so early after the premiere, one might easily conclude that the show will not last for much longer in this format, unless TLC goes and do something to make it interesting again, says the mag.
Monday’s episode, for instance, got only 3.5 million viewers to watch it, Us reports, which is down by approximately 4 million from the previous week and, more notably, miles away from the record rating of 10.6 million back in June, when the two announced their separation. This has prompted industry insiders to conclude that, if the network does not do something quick to make the series appealing to audiences again, chances are high the Gosselins will not even have the opportunity to finish the current season.
“I don’t know if the show can make that new transition [from two parents raising eight kids to one parent raising the children]. It’s like if The Cosby Show, mid-season, suddenly became Married With Children.” Robert J. Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, tells Us Magazine. Unfortunately, Mr. Thompson is not the only one to see things this way and be utterly convinced that audiences are starting to lose interest in the once-popular reality show.
Marc Berman, senior television editor at Mediaweek, echoes the sentiment – “Once all of this dies down and Jon and Kate aren’t in the news anymore, this could be a problem for the show. They divorce, they move on with their lives and so do the viewers.” Mr. Berman even compares the Gosselins to Sonny and Cher, where each got their own reality show after divorce, and estimates that this might not work either because their appeal relied in that they were a couple, not as separate individuals.