14 DAY TRIAL // Now that the news that TLC canceled 19 Kids and Counting has finally sunk in, both with the fans and its stars, the first reactions are emerging online and in the press. Admittedly, the Duggars are very upset that they will no longer be on TV because they’d gotten used with the attention. They also feel as if they’d been dealt a bad hand in all this.
The Duggars were TLC’s biggest brand until earlier this year, when documents from a 2006 police investigation were made public, revealing that the eldest son, Josh, had molested 5 minor girls when he was a teenager. At least 2 of his victims were his sisters, and 1 of them was 5 years old at the time.
Even though the scandal played out in the media for weeks and the backlash against the Duggars was severe, TLC waited until last week to cancel their show. They were still holding on to hope that something of it could be salvaged.
The Duggars’ star is no longer shining
According to a new report in the Daily Mail, the Duggars have come upon hard times, compared to how they were regarded in their community before, before all these details on Josh were dug up and made public.
Right now, they’re being accused of hypocrisy and they’re seeing their former supporters within the community question their preaching. They’re also targeted by those who don’t believe their version of the events in the Josh molestation case, blaming them for ruining the victims’ lives by sweeping the scandal under the rug and not dealing with it accordingly.
The kids, in particular, are taking the cancelation badly because, one insider says, they “loved” being on TV and in the spotlight just as much as they loved walking down the street and being recognized. They didn’t imagine the day would ever come when they weren’t reality TV stars.
TLC should have done more for them
As per the same report, the Duggars are also finding fault with TLC for the way it handled the scandal, even if, in all honesty, they got more support than anybody expected they would.
Not only did TLC resist pressure to cancel the show but they also gave the Duggars plenty of opportunities to state their case and defend Josh and their own actions after they found out what he’d done.
TLC even considered giving Jill and Jessa, the eldest daughters, their own spinoff, but their father Jim Bob fought against the idea because he wanted to remain in the spotlight. He was convinced TLC wouldn’t cancel the series, so he thought he was in an advantageous position from where he could negotiate.
Now that TLC decided against bringing the Duggars back, they’re blaming network bosses for the scandal.
“[They] think TLC should have stuck by them. They just didn’t get a lot of sympathy. They attacked everyone as part of their PR strategy, minimized what Josh did and turned it into an even bigger PR disaster,” says a spy.
As much as the Duggars liked to call TLC their home, they didn’t understand that TLC is not a friend, but a business partner. When advertisers started dropping like flies from 19 Kids and Counting, TLC’s only option was to axe it, because this was a business partnership that no longer returned a profit for them.