the buzz log
Think of the Kids: Watching a Reality Family Break-Up
No intervention, no on-camera psychotherapy couch sessions. For the couple behind TLC's "Jon & Kate Plus 8," the ampersand will be removed. But what about the kids?
Not the Plus 8, Cara, Mady, Alexis, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Leah, and Joel. We're talking about the kids in the audience. After all, this is (was) a family show that started off when the twins turned six and the rest were toddlers. What youngster wouldn't find appealing the notion of multiples of oneself running about (even if they didn't look exactly like you)?
Before the first of the tabloid reports broke in early March, kids under 13 made up 23% of the reality series' searches on Yahoo!—nearly a quarter. While dad Jon Gosselin (tellingly) didn't get many Web lookups, supermom Kate Gosselin got her share (14%) of queries from pre-teens and younger.
Now, nearly four months later and a broken family later, their proportion has dropped to 7% of people looking up the show. By the way, that percentage is pretty close to their share (8%) of stomach-twisting "jon and kate divorce" look-ups.
The lower numbers probably don't mean the original young fans stopped following the Gosselins online. They simply got swamped by all the adults who tuned in to monitor the downfall. Basically, the kids got lost in the shuffle, but they're still there, watching.