14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, TLC pulled its highest-rated reality show, 19 Kids and Counting, from its schedule after news broke that Josh Duggar, the eldest son of the Duggars, had molested 5 minors, including some of his sisters, when he was 14 and 15.
The decision to cancel the show altogether has not yet been made, but various voices are already saying that this is the only possibility still left, as the Duggar scandal is gaining more attention. Should that come to happen, TLC has a new plan: launch a spinoff with just Jessa and Jill Duggar.
Spinoff with the girls is TLC’s best chance right now
TLC executives have already understood that their predicament is not the kind that can be solved as easily as they thought at first, when they were still hoping this would blow over and the Duggar show would lose neither fans nor advertisers.
As we speak, more and more advertisers are dropping 19 Kids and Counting like flies, which means the show’s future is uncertain. It’s so uncertain that network bosses have already given up on their backup plan, that of removing just Josh from it and continuing where they had left off.
Both Deadline and People magazine cite inside sources as saying that a Jill and Jessa Duggar would be, right now, the only thing that could still save the Duggar legacy in reality television. Their reputations have remained intact and they’ve shown to be huge crowd pleasers when they got their own specials, which remain the highest-rated episode in the series.
More importantly, Jessa and Jill are neither Josh nor parents Jim Bob and Michelle, as these 3 are the most affected by the scandal: one for molesting minor girls and the other two for covering up and lying to the authorities about it.
Jill and Jessa Duggar bring in the huge ratings
Jill and Jessa, on the other hand, are a proven hit with audiences. Jill’s wedding to Derick Dillard, which saw them share their first-ever kiss and frontal hug, brought in 4.4 million viewers and made TLC the “No. 1 cable network of the night in total viewers and among all key women demos,” Deadline says.
Meanwhile, the Jill special, which saw her go through a 70-hour delivery before welcoming her first child Israel David, was watched by over 3.6 million viewers, People notes.
Both were highlights of the series.
“The show had begun to focus more and more on the next generation of Duggars, anyway - mainly Jill and Jessa and their marriages and babies,” a production source reveals for the latter publication. “That's when the show got its highest ratings,” and that’s the direction TLC is considering going after the Josh Duggar molestation scandal.