By Kathleen Anderson, Media Director
In case you were too busy following I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Jon & Kate Gosselin have announced they are getting a divorce. The lead parents in Jon & Kate Plus Eight, the public demolition of their marriage has catapulted what was a successful program into one of television’s most-watched series.
It started with a tabloid report that Jon was out with other women. It snowballed when Kate went to the beach with the kids in a bikini but without Jon. And then there was their tenth anniversary which they spent miles apart. You couldn’t walk through the grocery store without seeing one of them on the cover of a tabloid magazine and Perez Hilton was offering minute by minute coverage.
In light of such publicity, what is a TV network to do? Promote it, of course! TLC kicked off the season to the program’s largest audience – 9.8 million viewers. Then, last week they launched a promo in which Kate said "Recently, we've made some life-changing decisions — decisions that will affect every member of our family, ones that we hope will bring each of us some peace." What happened? Even more people tuned in! The show drew an audience of 10.8 million viewers beating everything else on TV in the time period. In fact, more people watched Jon & Kate announce their divorce than watched any other program on TV Monday evening!
So what’s next? Immediately following the announcement, Kate declared “the show must go on.” And since only six episodes of the 40-episode season have aired you can imagine the ratings that upcoming episodes would deliver. If a divorce announcement drew 10.8 million viewers what would the custody hearing deliver? This could be a bigger ratings draw than the Super Bowl!
We may never know. Within 24 hours of Monday’s episode TLC announced that they – not the Gosselin’s – have put the show on hiatus. There will be a ten year retrospective next week and then no new episodes until at least August 3. Whether or not the show returns is anyone’s guess. But if it does return, you can bet their personal turmoil will deliver nothing short of record-setting audiences. In the meantime, I’m going back to the drawing board and revising all of our clients’ Summer 09 media plans. Without Jon & Kate, TLC’s ratings just won’t be what we predicted.
