Jeremy Kyle for Prime Minister?

Earlier today I had the priviledge(?) of attending a guest talk hosted by none other than outspoken chat show host and self professed honest guy, Jeremy Kyle.


If you don’t have time to read my whole review, the quotes below summarise the general tone of today’s talk...

“Put something on the end of it”
“Anyone want a DNA test?”
“The show is about conflict/resolution”
“Participants know what it’s about before they go on the show”
“I might like to go into politics one day”
“We have filmed a thousand shows”
“The one thousandth show airs on Thursday”
“My new book comes out in June”
“We have made a thousand shows”
“Did you know I’ve written another book?”

This media master class, entitled “The tawdriest hour in daytime television or television with a social purpose?” frankly seemed to skim over the nitty gritty of this debate in favour of the ins and outs of ‘Jezza’s’ contentious political views, the state of ‘Broken Britain’ and the downsides of living in the media spotlight. “I can’t complain about anything ever again” he said. It’s a hard life eh Jez?

I was surprised to discover that Jeremy has actually only been gracing our screens for 5 years, but he has certainly made a significant impact on Brit culture in that time, particularly it seems amongst his greatest audience demographic, students.
Kyle was hired as Trisha’s predecessor for the coveted 9.25 til 10.30 slot in 2005, after then head of ITV Daytime Television Dianne Nelmes heard him on his late night Capital Radio show ‘Jezza’s Confessions’. The executive decision was then made to refer to Jezza as Jeremy Kyle, and from that moment on an institution was born...

Responding to the inevitable questions and comments that The Jeremy Kyle show is exploitative, immoral and is purely for entertainment purposes, Jeremy reeled off some very rehearsed sounding answers, but made some fair(ish) points. According to Jeremy, people know exactly what the show is about before they apply to go on and they are inundated with applications every year, turning 80% down. There are strict checks in place to ensure that candidates are suitable for the show and there have been times where stories have been cut as little as 5 minutes before filming commences because of concerns from the legend that is Graham. Kyle insisted that nobody is paid to go on the show, it is providing a kind of service which may be the ‘last resort’ for some participants and there is a high standard of aftercare and continued counselling after filming has taken place. (All of these points were reiterated again and again).

Interviewer Dianne flagged up a quote from Manchester District Judge Alan Berg after a fight on the show resulted in a court case.

"I have had the misfortune, very recently, of watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. It seems to me that the purpose of this show is to effect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people whose lives are in turmoil"

Jeremy’s response to this was that Alan had clearly never watched the show before, the incident of violence was never aired on ITV (due to strict OFCOM rules) and most notably argued that the reason why people are so uncomfortable with the show is that they do not want to acknowledge these situations are really happening in society, and made reference to the recent buzz phrase ‘Broken Britain.’ He went on to argue that there has been a collapse of family values, all kids do is sit infront of computer screens and are not taught what is right and wrong.

Jezza was then subjected to a grilling from Newcastle Uni’s media students and some of the questions definitely made him squirm. Some highlights included “Are you aware of the Jeremy Kyle drinking game?” “Would you go on the The Jeremy Kyle Show if you weren’t Jeremy Kyle?” and “What would you do if you were a politician?” Not exactly the serious debate it was advertised as, but definitely an entertaining afternoon.

If you’re interested in hearing all of Jeremy’s points about the ‘dumbing down’ of British television, his foray into American television and his tabloid trashing, the whole master class is scheduled to appear on the Newcastle University website very soon.

Don't forgot the 1000th show on Thursday!!