19 Kids and Counting Canceled Following Josh Duggar Abuse Scandal
TLC has decided to cancel reality show 19 Kids and Counting following Josh Duggar scandal.
The channel is not moving forward with an 11th season of the reality show featuring Duggar family.
The show “will no longer appear on the air,” the network told The Associated Press on July 16.
“We spent the past month and a half in thoughtful consideration about what is the best way forward here,” said Marjorie Kaplan, group president of TLC, Animal Planet and Velocity networks.
In a move to redirect the attention and public outcry, TLC also announced it has teamed with two prominent child-protection organizations for an ongoing campaign to raise awareness about child abuse.
The multi-platform initiative will begin with a one-hour, commercial-free documentary likely airing in late August, the network said. It will include the participation of Jill and Jessa Duggar, two of the sisters Josh Duggar touched inappropriately, as well as other survivors and families affected by such abuse.
Since 2008, 19 Kids and Counting – TLC’s most watched, averaging 3.2 million viewers – had chronicled the family life of Arkansas couple Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their children, now numbering 19. It was pulled from the network in May when reports surfaced that 27-year-old Josh Duggar, the oldest child, had abused four of his sisters and a baby sitter a dozen years earlier, when he was a teenager. He has never been arrested or charged in connection with the molestations.
Josh Duggar apologized for unspecified actions on a Facebook post and resigned from the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, where he had worked as a lobbyist.
19 Kids and Counting had ended its 10th season when the scandal broke.