News that a man has committed suicide following an appearance on Britain’s leading tabloid talk show, The Jeremy Kyle Show, has resulted in the program’s cancellation as of Wednesday. After failing a lie-detector test on the program in an attempt to discredit claims of infidelity, the man was found dead at his Portsmouth home only 10 days later. Following the incident, the episode will not be broadcast. Following two other suicides from contestants of another ITV show, Love Island, British members of parliament have launched an inquiry into the UK’s second biggest broadcaster, and its treatment of reality show contestants. A move that portends a long overdue culture change in UK broadcasting.

Known for its loud, and often violent interactions between warring guests, the program was seen as a British answer to The Jerry Springer Show in the U.S.; a place where the unfettered dramas of ordinary people were played out live for millions to see — a playhouse for some of humanity’s most pitiable moments. Those familiar with Kyle and his show will know that it was often crueler than its American counterparts, not unlike other British shows.

The format’s origins were decidedly higher-minded, however. New York-born Les Crane was perhaps the first to pioneer the kind of television that is now becoming so controversial in the UK. While Crane’s show was markedly different from the raucous incarnations that would later become mainstays of the genre, the early signs of what it would become were there. One episode featured the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald debating her son’s innocence with a famed attorney. On another, Crane became one of the first to interview an openly gay man on television.

This unique mix of sensationalism and topical conversation didn’t really hit its stride until The Phil Donahue Show, which debuted nationally in 1970 out of Dayton, Ohio — and was the first to become widely popular. Oprah Winfrey has credited Donahue with the beginning of her career: “If it weren’t for Phil Donahue, there would never have been an Oprah Show.” Donahue’s first appearance included “the most hated woman in America” Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the renowned atheist who had taken her battle to remove prayer from public schools all the way to the Supreme Court. In a deeply religious America, the decision to put someone so controversial on the television at 10:30 in the morning was bold, to say the least.

Boldness would become an increasingly dominant part of the genre’s format, and to the detriment of the more cerebral elements. It is safe to say that as the tabloid talk-show format evolved, so did its darker parts, and as the topical conversations faded into the background, the shouting, the screaming, the fighting, and the controversy exploded into full view. On one famous episode of The Geraldo Show (which broadcast between ’87 and ’98) a fight broke out among white supremacists, anti-racist skinheads, black and Jewish activists, and members of the audience. When the commotion subsided, the host, Geraldo Rivera, emerged beaten, flustered, and with a broken nose. Television had never been this unfiltered, and according to publications like Newsweek, it had never been trashier, either. Millions agreed and millions tuned in anyway.

By the 1990s, this kind of television had reached the UK, occupying the same flagship morning slot that had garnered such a great audience in the States. Before the advent of the now-cancelled Jeremy Kyle Show, Trisha Goddard, of the show Trisha, is perhaps the genre’s most memorable incarnation in Britain. A charismatic black woman with a history in television in the mold of Oprah Winfrey, Trisha was designed to replicate the same stratospheric success that Winfrey had achieved in the United States, employing controversial subjects — infidelity, drug dependence, cross-dressing, and other social taboos — to enchant a public eager for the soap operas readily available in the lives of ordinary people.

While the “tabloid talk show” has a recognizable formula — a host who eagerly unpacks the emotive troubles that the assembled guests have become embroiled in, all in front of a baying studio audience — they are not all identical. Despite being far more traditionally tabloid in her early days, Winfrey slowly developed a social conscience in her programming — often peppering her shows with kooky and quasi-spiritual references to “The Spirit” and lessons on self-improvement. By comparison, the ethos of The Jeremy Kyle Show was far darker.

While early Oprah and Jerry Springer played the role of interested moderators, Jeremy Kyle was as much a part of the proceedings as the contestants he lectured. Descended from the brutal personas made infamous by early-Simon Cowell, only with more snark, more shouting, and heaps of vitriolic moralizing, his loud, visceral outbursts were just as much a staple of the show as the problems unveiled on his sofas. Kyle’s deft switches between vicious berating and (what seemed like) genuine compassion, is a key hallmark of abuse, yet until very recently, it sat uncontroversially as the signature style of a show that commanded over a million regular viewers.

Prepping the Participants

One former staff member on Trisha has written for The Guardian recently about her time on the show. She recalls scouring pubs, hairdressers, cafes “always in the most deprived areas” in search of those in need of Trisha’s help. Vulnerable, without much money, legal advice, or knowledge of how to access key services that might otherwise alleviate their struggles, many were susceptible to offers of a free meal, a night in a hotel, and the chance to meet one of daytime telly’s famous faces. “Do you really want your life to stay the same?” they would often ask. Mental health checks were conducted, and while previous attempts at suicide were a disqualifying factor, this could be remedied by asking the contestant whether it was “just a cry for help.” For the purposes of the show’s producers, a simple “yes” would suffice.

The problems really come when the guests arrive in the studio. Former staff members of The Jeremy Kyle Show have claimed the guests were routinely riled up and manipulated. Producers were trained in neuro-linguistic programming to learn the subtleties of manipulating guests — all in an effort to get the best results for TV. Another who worked with the show said he was stunned by how the producers “ruthlessly broke” those who came on the show, mentioning real gossip, and often “complete lies,” all in an effort to stir the emotions of those involved — all before they entered the stage.

Once in the presence of Jeremy himself, things would only descend further. Many of the people who appear on the show are current or former drug addicts whose past moral lapses were dragged up for Kyle to lacerate them with, regardless of how they directly they impacted the situation at hand. In a world where we are far more understanding (and compassionate) about the trials of drug addiction, Jeremy Kyle was a relic of the dark ages, where addiction is a symptom of profound moral weakness.

During this time, contestants can be rushed into signing contracts without adequate time to read them. Contestants who may come to regret their time on the show (which is almost always unflattering) are then made to face the possibility of having their experience cut up and spliced for a YouTube video; immortalizing their time on the show. For most of The Jeremy Kyle Show’s run, the psychologist Graham Stanier was a key part of the backstage “after care” program, in which contestants that still had problems to work through, or had taken part in a particularly grueling episode, would be offered help. Despite what was shown on screen, former staff say in fact most contestants never saw Graham. Occasionally, four appointments with a local therapist were paid for.

It is noticeable that amidst all of the alcoholism, domestic violence, and adultery, professionals and the middle class are almost nowhere to be seen. The show’s contestants were, in most cases, not just poor, but among the poorest of the poor. Often long-term unemployed and from single-parent families. Despite the fact that the problems exhibited on the show are not exclusive to the poor, the middle classes and above have apparently been better equipped to steer clear of what is — to most people watching — a blatant attempt to embarrass for entertainment.

Why are people in the poorest economic and social conditions far overrepresented in these kinds of programs? For some of the very poorest, many of whom have never met a psychologist, or been to a therapist, the kind of “after care” offered by Jeremy, Graham, and their team probably does look like a genuine attempt to help and to heal. Ignorance of lie-detector tests (a regular feature of the show) may lead people to go on the program in the false belief that they can definitively clear their name.

It is notable that the show seemed to be most popular with the kinds of deprived folk who graced Kyle’s shows every weekday morning. For fans of this kind of television, years watching Jerry Springer, Trisha, and then Jeremy Kyle may have skewed perceptions of how real problems — relationship issues, domestic and substance abuse, serial adultery — are fixed in the real world. Let’s not forget, also, that the “help” offered by these kinds of shows is free-of-charge. A tantalizing offer to anyone with little money, big problems, and a modicum of hope that things might turn out better for them.

Beyond the Box

This kind of television has implications for our politics, too. Shows like Jeremy Kyle and Jerry Springer — whose bread-and-butter is sitting the working class and social problems together in the same room — have helped make the associations between the two an enduring one. The worst of the post-1990s tabloid talk show paints a picture of the working class — but especially those on social welfare — as feckless, idle, morally repugnant individuals whose lot in life is the result of their poor behavior and nothing more.

It is not surprising that terms like “welfare queen” reached their apex in popularity in the late ’80s and ’90s when many of these programmes were at their peak. When politicians referred to ne’er-do-wells abusing the system, images of who it was they were talking about were readily available in our minds. Bill Clinton’s attempt to reconcile his liberalism with the politics of “responsibility,” and the promise to “end welfare as we know it” were an admission that the tabloid talk shows’ message had amassed a staggering power.

Whether or not you saw it, we should all be glad that the likes of The Jeremy Kyle Show, and many programs like it, are no longer being broadcast. Popular television shows and those who work on them, can still be incredibly powerful, even in the digital age. The worst excesses of the tabloid talk show were an example of how that power can be abused, and with disastrous consequences. More than anything, it offers the chance — in the UK at least — to stride towards a more compassionate kind of television, where the trials and tribulations of those less fortunate are not paraded around for sport. Three cheers for that, at least.