The following blog post is a bit difficult to read considering the subject matter and the heated debate of whether a cancellation of a show is a good thing. For Jeremy Kyle fans who are curious though, you can read this blog post that I written. But for non-Jeremy Kyle fans (or those who haven't heard of Jeremy Kyle that much or at all), if you think you can handle reading this, read this as much as you can. If not, please don't read any further or not read at all.
I'm still reeling from the death of a guest on a show that led to the abrupt cancellation of this said show in Britain, "The Jeremy Kyle Show".
ITV, a terrestrial channel in the United Kingdom, suspended the airing and production of one of its talk shows on Monday and then two days later, outright cancelled it. But the first time I heard the cancellation was when I was rediscovering what I know about TV and start thinking about remembering those trash TV shows a brief bit so when I'm on Wikipedia, I start looking up Maury Show, Jerry Springer. Then I moved on to the "See Also" section of the latter article, and click on "The Jeremy Kyle Show" and I found that the show got cancelled two days earlier. Which is kinda a little bit shocking a little bit sad that a long-running show or a show that you love, a person that you love or a place that you love is gone away or gonna be gone.
But then my reaction of the Jeremy Kyle cancellation went from shocking to stunned as the cancellation turned out to abrupt because of some thing that politicians say that the show might play a role in it. So stunned that I actually have to do look deep into the news stories of how it happened and when whether things go back to normal on ITV (spoiler alert: it's not gonna be the case).
(I actually only look for the "ABC World News Tonight with David Muir" Twitter page for news, that was it; I didn't go to news sites that much or YouTube news videos at all; this Jeremy Kyle story has never been reported on this Twitter page and not even on Deadline.com as of this writing)
The guest in question was Steve Dymond a 63-year-old man who confess to his girlfriend Jane Callaghan that he's really faithful to her and did nothing wrong to hurt her. According to accounts from a few audience members, he's already in tears when he first join the stage with his girlfriend, Jane Callaghan. He wants to tell her that he hadn't cheated, hadn't done things that even she doesn't care, and etc. When Jeremy ask the audience if Steve is telling, almost 99% of the audience confirming yes through either nodded their heads or raised their hands. And it's quite astonishing: when Jeremy read the lie detector results, it said that Steve was a liar. Steve collapsed while Jane walked off and into the backstage. Needless to say, the audience went into a complete shock. After they got entertain with the first two stories with funny results when this taping (or recording, that is) start, this story of Steve being a liar to his girlfriend wound't came across as entertainment of the audience, who don't know how to react and felt they shouldn't be here. Even if the crew start cheer the audience up, the mood suddenly changed.
Two days after that recording, Steve kill himself afterwards, which led to ITV suspended the airing and production of the talk show he appeared and round up a group of politicians and mental heath doctors who pressure ITV to axe the show completely and those people got wish immediately: ITV cancelled "The Jeremy Kyle Show" two days after that suspension.
For me, even I never been to the UK and not much of a talk TV watcher on a regular basis (in terms of conflict talk shows, it's not the confrontational nature of them, it's more to do with the fact I stayed away from television and movies as a whole for awhile because of frustrations on a really completely different matter and that's a different story; I do enjoy Maury, Jerry Springer, and other American talk shows when I was little and still do through several video clips online), and while I do respected their opinions, I think that the cancellation is just unfair to me. But what's really unfair to me and Jeremy Kyle fans is that all of the videos, social media accounts have all vanished just minutes/hours after the cancellation wiping the show off the internet. (I actually have a YouTube hyperlink of a Jeremy Kyle clip on one of my LiveJournal posts...that link is now broken but you can look that up on the Wayback Machine as much as you can; not all videos have been archived there, I just want to let you know). It's like as if the show exists for 17 years (the show has been around since 2005) and then all of a sudden wiped off of its existence and started pretending to be non-existent.
What's more interesting about this cancellation is that Steve's daughter didn't blame the show for his death; she claimed the show's producers contact him a lot as much as they can but received no response and, later when three notes emerged after his death (I don't want to say the S word on this blog and don't want use related hyperlinks to this blog post because I think it's not commercial-friendly on this site host I'm blogging on), none of which blamed the show in any way and even Jane doesn't get why ITV cancelled the show (even I know I might think the pressure from politicians and mental health doctors is the reason). This also led to petitions to reverse the decision and bring back "The Jeremy Kyle Show" back on its schedule with one woman claiming that Steve's death tells the truth that he lied to his girlfriend and that he and his family didn't blame the show.
Yet, there are a number of horrifying stories of ruined lives and manipulation and what really goes on behind the scenes emerging that nevertheless linked to that show and the debate of whether the show could be back on the air grew more heated.
Even some ITV executives are not found of the show and try to figure it out a way to rid of it, even though it had good ratings and Kyle being happy with the succession of ITV bosses being fine with the show. (If they really want to get rid of it, why can't they have a discussion with Kyle before?) They viewed it as a redheaded stepchild on it's weekday morning schedule, probably because it skewed a younger audience (even the show have older guests) while it's morning line up skewed an older audience. Granted, they may be right because it does not fit between "Good Morning Britain" (whose one of the anchors, Piers Morgan, defended "The Jeremy Kyle Show") and "This Morning" (whose co-hosts send condolences to Steve and his family as well as Jeremy Kyle and his production crew). But I think it somehow fit in terns of format - talk shows with interviews of real people and (sometimes in the case of Kyle) celebrities - it's just that it didn't fit tonely (Jeremy Kyle was over the top dramatic as other conflict talk shows but even more outrageous than any of those conflict talk shows while Good Morning Britain and "This Morning" were news programs that are soft and gentle even in both cases without a studio audience)
Still, I think that the cancellation is just unfair to me and the fans (who might be still fans or not). I think they could tone it down or even retool the show and have better care of these guests and former guests (and even make apologies). That way their lives wouldn't changed negatively. I feel real bad for all of them. I feel bad for Steve and his family, I feel bad for all those people who think the show has ruined their lives, I feel bad for ex-employers who couldn't handle working on the show, and I feel bad for Jeremy Kyle and his production crew of his show for the brunt of this cancellation. But regardless I respect ITV's decision even though I never watch the show on a regular basis online and never been to the UK.
(I should let you know that there was an American version of "The Jeremy Kyle Show" around 2010 - 2012; yeah it was short-lived)
Still this story will never deter me from watching conflict talk shows, even if this aspect of the talk show genre (and the genre itself in general) was in decline. Though I would keep up to date with this story and I would post an update if this new information is significant. As of right now, ITV is keeping the production staff and maybe moving most of the staff into other places to work while the British network is coming up with ideas to take over The Jeremy Kyle Show's timeslot. Meanwhile the inquiry has just begun and a lawyer has begun representing the Dymond family and they and ITV have to determine whether the show play a role in Steve's death (even if Steve's family doesn't think so). Though I believe that ITV may start investigating even more aforementioned stories alongside this one. Again, I'll keep up to date with this story and post an update.
Written by Malcolm Franokuski.
I'm still reeling from the death of a guest on a show that led to the abrupt cancellation of this said show in Britain, "The Jeremy Kyle Show".
ITV, a terrestrial channel in the United Kingdom, suspended the airing and production of one of its talk shows on Monday and then two days later, outright cancelled it. But the first time I heard the cancellation was when I was rediscovering what I know about TV and start thinking about remembering those trash TV shows a brief bit so when I'm on Wikipedia, I start looking up Maury Show, Jerry Springer. Then I moved on to the "See Also" section of the latter article, and click on "The Jeremy Kyle Show" and I found that the show got cancelled two days earlier. Which is kinda a little bit shocking a little bit sad that a long-running show or a show that you love, a person that you love or a place that you love is gone away or gonna be gone.
But then my reaction of the Jeremy Kyle cancellation went from shocking to stunned as the cancellation turned out to abrupt because of some thing that politicians say that the show might play a role in it. So stunned that I actually have to do look deep into the news stories of how it happened and when whether things go back to normal on ITV (spoiler alert: it's not gonna be the case).
(I actually only look for the "ABC World News Tonight with David Muir" Twitter page for news, that was it; I didn't go to news sites that much or YouTube news videos at all; this Jeremy Kyle story has never been reported on this Twitter page and not even on Deadline.com as of this writing)
The guest in question was Steve Dymond a 63-year-old man who confess to his girlfriend Jane Callaghan that he's really faithful to her and did nothing wrong to hurt her. According to accounts from a few audience members, he's already in tears when he first join the stage with his girlfriend, Jane Callaghan. He wants to tell her that he hadn't cheated, hadn't done things that even she doesn't care, and etc. When Jeremy ask the audience if Steve is telling, almost 99% of the audience confirming yes through either nodded their heads or raised their hands. And it's quite astonishing: when Jeremy read the lie detector results, it said that Steve was a liar. Steve collapsed while Jane walked off and into the backstage. Needless to say, the audience went into a complete shock. After they got entertain with the first two stories with funny results when this taping (or recording, that is) start, this story of Steve being a liar to his girlfriend wound't came across as entertainment of the audience, who don't know how to react and felt they shouldn't be here. Even if the crew start cheer the audience up, the mood suddenly changed.
Two days after that recording, Steve kill himself afterwards, which led to ITV suspended the airing and production of the talk show he appeared and round up a group of politicians and mental heath doctors who pressure ITV to axe the show completely and those people got wish immediately: ITV cancelled "The Jeremy Kyle Show" two days after that suspension.
For me, even I never been to the UK and not much of a talk TV watcher on a regular basis (in terms of conflict talk shows, it's not the confrontational nature of them, it's more to do with the fact I stayed away from television and movies as a whole for awhile because of frustrations on a really completely different matter and that's a different story; I do enjoy Maury, Jerry Springer, and other American talk shows when I was little and still do through several video clips online), and while I do respected their opinions, I think that the cancellation is just unfair to me. But what's really unfair to me and Jeremy Kyle fans is that all of the videos, social media accounts have all vanished just minutes/hours after the cancellation wiping the show off the internet. (I actually have a YouTube hyperlink of a Jeremy Kyle clip on one of my LiveJournal posts...that link is now broken but you can look that up on the Wayback Machine as much as you can; not all videos have been archived there, I just want to let you know). It's like as if the show exists for 17 years (the show has been around since 2005) and then all of a sudden wiped off of its existence and started pretending to be non-existent.
What's more interesting about this cancellation is that Steve's daughter didn't blame the show for his death; she claimed the show's producers contact him a lot as much as they can but received no response and, later when three notes emerged after his death (I don't want to say the S word on this blog and don't want use related hyperlinks to this blog post because I think it's not commercial-friendly on this site host I'm blogging on), none of which blamed the show in any way and even Jane doesn't get why ITV cancelled the show (even I know I might think the pressure from politicians and mental health doctors is the reason). This also led to petitions to reverse the decision and bring back "The Jeremy Kyle Show" back on its schedule with one woman claiming that Steve's death tells the truth that he lied to his girlfriend and that he and his family didn't blame the show.
Yet, there are a number of horrifying stories of ruined lives and manipulation and what really goes on behind the scenes emerging that nevertheless linked to that show and the debate of whether the show could be back on the air grew more heated.
Even some ITV executives are not found of the show and try to figure it out a way to rid of it, even though it had good ratings and Kyle being happy with the succession of ITV bosses being fine with the show. (If they really want to get rid of it, why can't they have a discussion with Kyle before?) They viewed it as a redheaded stepchild on it's weekday morning schedule, probably because it skewed a younger audience (even the show have older guests) while it's morning line up skewed an older audience. Granted, they may be right because it does not fit between "Good Morning Britain" (whose one of the anchors, Piers Morgan, defended "The Jeremy Kyle Show") and "This Morning" (whose co-hosts send condolences to Steve and his family as well as Jeremy Kyle and his production crew). But I think it somehow fit in terns of format - talk shows with interviews of real people and (sometimes in the case of Kyle) celebrities - it's just that it didn't fit tonely (Jeremy Kyle was over the top dramatic as other conflict talk shows but even more outrageous than any of those conflict talk shows while Good Morning Britain and "This Morning" were news programs that are soft and gentle even in both cases without a studio audience)
Still, I think that the cancellation is just unfair to me and the fans (who might be still fans or not). I think they could tone it down or even retool the show and have better care of these guests and former guests (and even make apologies). That way their lives wouldn't changed negatively. I feel real bad for all of them. I feel bad for Steve and his family, I feel bad for all those people who think the show has ruined their lives, I feel bad for ex-employers who couldn't handle working on the show, and I feel bad for Jeremy Kyle and his production crew of his show for the brunt of this cancellation. But regardless I respect ITV's decision even though I never watch the show on a regular basis online and never been to the UK.
(I should let you know that there was an American version of "The Jeremy Kyle Show" around 2010 - 2012; yeah it was short-lived)
Still this story will never deter me from watching conflict talk shows, even if this aspect of the talk show genre (and the genre itself in general) was in decline. Though I would keep up to date with this story and I would post an update if this new information is significant. As of right now, ITV is keeping the production staff and maybe moving most of the staff into other places to work while the British network is coming up with ideas to take over The Jeremy Kyle Show's timeslot. Meanwhile the inquiry has just begun and a lawyer has begun representing the Dymond family and they and ITV have to determine whether the show play a role in Steve's death (even if Steve's family doesn't think so). Though I believe that ITV may start investigating even more aforementioned stories alongside this one. Again, I'll keep up to date with this story and post an update.
Written by Malcolm Franokuski.
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