At 9.25am every weekday for the last 14 years, an obnoxious and angry man has dominated the morning TV airwaves. The Jeremy Kyle show blasted through more than a million people’s TVs every day, showcasing working class people with relationship, drug or mental health problems, as well as a wealth of dilemmas and dysfunctions, being exploited for the entertainment of its viewers.
Styled on shows like Jerry Springer’s in the States, promising to resolve family conflicts and such, the Kyle show offered DNA testing and lie detector tests, so people could find out who the father of a baby was, or find out if someone had cheated. The host, the eponymous Jeremy Kyle, is a judgemental man who would shout at his guests and, let’s be honest, it made great TV. Many freelancers, shift workers and stay-at-home parents were keen viewers of the show, which was addictive and compelling in its own way. I shook the habit many years ago but I can see, weirdly, how some are hooked.
In 2007, a fight took place following a dispute on the show and ended up in court. The judge, Alan Berg, fined a security guard, David Staniforth who headbutted a bus driver during the show. In his ruling, Berg said,
“It seems to me that the whole purpose of the Jeremy Kyle show is to effect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people who are in some kind of turmoil,” said Mr Berg.
“It is for no more and no less than titillating members of the public who have nothing better to do with their mornings than sit and watch this show which is a human form of bear baiting which goes under the guise of entertainment.
“The people responsible for this, namely the producers, should in my opinion be in the dock with you, Mr Staniforth.”
Somehow, the show remained on air and the producers were not prosecuted. The ranty show continued.
Conflicts, supposedly to be resolved, were in fact exacerbated and guests – invariably working class people who were desperate in one way or another – were exploited. Those who did not know which of their partners was a child’s father could get a free DNA test if they were willing to wash their dirty laundry in public, and it was certainly made to be dirty laundry (as opposed to a simple, morality-free test denoting parenthood) on the show. People were shamed for having slept with more than one partner, and relationships were either confirmed or torn apart under Kyle’s watchful, shouty eye.
The lie detector tests were another matter altogether. After all, lie detectors don’t work. Unlike DNA tests, which are very accurate and scientific in identifying parentage, lie detectors are the stuff of pseudoscience, not allowed to be evidence in court because they are so unreliable.
But Kyle touted the tests as comparable to the DNA ones, and relationships fell apart when someone had been accused of cheating on their partner, or stealing from their mother, and the test seemed to “prove” their guilt.
Kyle has got away with this for over a decade until this week, when a man who had appeared on the show seems to have killed himself following a lie detector test that said he had cheated on his partner, who then left him. Of course, suicide is always more complicated than having one single cause, but to die by suicide just days after filming the show suggests more than a small connection. He apparently had also lost his job.
The Kyle show has now been pulled from the airwaves, despite being a massive viewer-magnet for ITV. It was taken off air the day the news about the former guest broke and the show committed to not ever showing the episode that this guest was featured on. However, it has now been decided that that is the permanent end of the Jeremy Kyle Show.
Good riddance.
Jeremy Kyle was known for shouting in his guests’ faces, for accusing them of things they have not done, and for stigmatising things like casual sex, single parenthood, drug use and being on benefits. He had no respect for the people who travelled to meet him, who often had no other options if they wanted to find out who a baby’s other parent was or who felt that identifying the person who had stolen an X Box or somebody’s savings was something the show could help with. In fact, where lie detecting was concerned, it simply guessed and shot.
Fans of the show are up in arms about its cancellation and, if it was the way they started their days every day, I can see that it’s a habit they might miss. But, like anything that turns out to be an entirely negative influence on the world, it can be improved on and something better (which at this point could be literally anything) will take its place.