A small Maryland-based cable channel and a large Pennsylvania family have improbably teamed up to supplant Hollywood starlets such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton as the new epicenter of our celebrity-obsessed pop culture.
TLC, which began in 1980 with the educational mission implied by its title as The Learning Channel, has a megahit on its hands with the fifth season of Jon & Kate Plus 8, a no-holds-barred reality TV series about a suddenly unhappily married husband and wife, Jon and Kate Gosselin, and their eight children (sextuplets and twins). Divorce is on the table, and the all-seeing cameras are offering viewers an unprecedented ringside seat.
For the past month, the couple has been on the cover of virtually every magazine at the grocery checkout stand, and ratings for the season opener Sunday drew 9.8 million viewers - more than any other show on cable or network TV that night.
But the Silver Spring network known mostly for adapting British makeover shows like What Not to Wear is not exactly crowing in celebration. Executives know the same forces that are making the show such a cultural phenomenon could also derail the series. They are hoping the show can ride the cultural tidal wave without getting sucked under by marital strife.
"As theater and ratings, if I'm running a network, the trouble in the marriage of Jon and Kate right now is the best thing that could possibly happen," says Sheri Parks, associate professor of popular culture at the University of Maryland, College Park.
"But as a parent and a viewer, I think it's a shame that this family that America has come to associate with happiness and joy for several seasons looks like it is going to demolish itself right before our eyes. I don't know if I can watch that."
Despite almost a decade of reality TV redefining notions of public and private, viewers said they felt uncomfortable during Sunday's season opener during which husband and wife could barely bring themselves to sit on the same couch to be interviewed.
The marital ugliness is turning off Lori Pleasant, a Baltimore mother of two and part-time marketing consultant. Pleasant, who has watched the show for years, can't see herself giving much more of her time to what has essentially become a painful, ugly soap opera.
"I'll definitely start tuning out if it's all 'he said, she said' and 'we're splitting up.' I don't want to watch that," she said. "Let's show some positives, some reconciliation."
