Do you feel like The Learning Channel exploits these families for profit? Are the families complicit in the exploitation?

I’ve never watched more than one episode of 3 of these shows. I’ve never heard of the others.

TLC may be showing these shows for ratings and profits…isn’t that the idea? But, these families are not exploited without their permission.

I think that those shows aren’t exploiting those families. One is because they agree to do the show, and they know whats going to be aired to everyone. I watch most of those shows, and it actually makes me not want to have a life like that, and sometimes i even appreciate not being a little person, or 500 pounds, or having so many kids to stress about. Hm, i dont know, maybe it is all for profits.

I don’t think anyone is to blame except the families, at this point. Maybe at the beginning of reality TV they couldn’t have known, but now there is no excuse. People who decide to put their lives on this type of show are fame seekers, and the ones who inflict this on their young children are especially sick.

These are people (I mostly mean the ones with children) who decide that money, privilege, and the cover of a magazine holds greater importance than privacy and the right to go through normal childhood stages and mistakes without the world watching.

People are provided opportunity to hurt themselves and their children every day, and the smart ones say no. I don’t blame TLC for exploiting families any more than I blame McDonald’s for making people fat.

@Likeradar Here’s another way to think about it. You have eight kids and a normal job. You spend too much time at work and not enough with your kids. You are barely making ends meet due to the expense of raising those eight kids. Suddenly The Learning Channel, not Fox, not MTV, not CBS who you know exploit people, but the Learning Channel who ought to be a little better, comes to you and says they want to make a show about your life. You’ll get paid well, you won’t have to compete a la survivor with a bunch of nutjobs, just live your life, let the cameras in, and suddenly you won’t have to worry so much about supporting your family. You can take more time off to spend with your kids. But then it turns out that being on TV isn’t so great. You find yourself getting your priorities twisted, suddenly your family is torn apart. Who was supposed to see that coming? Who was supposed to turn down that offer? Just maybe there was a little exploitation going on. I don’t think the networks can be held blameless, and I think the people who tuned in every week to watch a family destroy itself is as much to be blamed as an audience at a medieval bear baiting or a modern dog fight.

@Snarp I definitley see your point, but I don’t think anyone can claim ignorance about TLC anymore. The Gosselins (Jon and Kate) have been in the news too much for anyone to not be aware of the negative aspects of putting your family on display. I can definitley see how enticing the offer could be, but anyone who would make a decision to put their children’s potty training, flus, crushes, etc on without some serious soul searching and research just because if finances need to get their priorities in some serious order.

I don’t blame Jon and Kate for doing it at the beginning, since they were essentially the first of their kind. And I can’t comprehend the emotional and financial stress those people were under. But anyone who would subject their family to that now is far, far from stable or my version of a good parent.

Yes, I have always thought that. Regardless of how the families get compensated the network sees an abnormality and takes advantage of it, and they always get more than what they family does.

They are paid for being on the show, only person doing any exploiting is the parents

Kate and Jon Gosselin are in the tabloids because they had issues before TLC ever came to them. The show just made them visible, like an x-ray machine. For starters, Kate has an Asian fetish and Jon never wanted all those kids. I only saw one episode and that was perfectly clear within 5 minutes.

I don’t ever hear about these other families in the gossip press, and I only hear about the Duggars when they pop yet another sprog. This says more about how these families conduct their lives off camera than it does about TLC.

I have heard people ar always fighting to get on these shows. Wasn’t that part of ‘balloon boy’?

@faye that family did say the stunt was a way to bring publicity and get them a reality show!

I don’t think anyone on American tv gets exploited as that is too strong a word – the families get money for this…