Kate Gosselin’s reign of reality television may soon be over. Finally.

Cue the celebratory music. Gosselin will finally be out of sight, out of mind.

Sunday’s ‘Kate Plus 8: Alaska, Here We Come’ special pulled in only 1.3 million viewers, the lowest ratings of the show’s entirety. Sunday’s low ratings prompted TLC to pull the show from its Sunday night lineup for the second time this year.

If the name Kate Gosselin means nothing to you, if the order of the names Cara, Mady, Alexis, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Leah and Joel bare no significance on your life and if you still want to name your future child ‘Jon’ despite its negative connotations, consider yourself blessed.

Gosselin and her eight offspring have owned TLC’s airways since the network picked up ‘Jon and Kate Plus 8,’ their original show, from Discovery Health in 2008. The premise was simple: Husband and wife Jon and Kate Gosselin have eight children, so let’s get a camera crew together and film their lives because most of us won’t ever have to reproduce eight times over. The Gosselin family story was seemingly unique and embarrassingly addicting. 

I, along with the rest of America, loved ‘Jon and Kate Plus 8.’ The parents were in love, the children were cute and, to top it all off, the family had two friendly German shepherds, Nala and Shoka. How could I not tune in every week?

After four solid seasons, disaster struck and/or Jon gained some common sense. In May of 2009, rumor spread that Jon was hanging out with college girls and was ready to leave Kate. Despite family turmoil, the show went on to entertain an average of 5.5 million viewers per episode during its fifth season.

The news of Jon’s affairs quickly led to my allegiance of Team Kate. That was until Kate sleazed her way into every lowly reputable magazine, popularized a tasteless haircut and pushed her eight offspring in any direction she thought she’d make a buck in.

The fifth season would be the final season in which the show would bear the name ‘Jon and Kate Plus 8.’ Once the Gosselin divorce was finalized in December 2009, Jon refused to continue filming, allowing Kate to headline her own series, ‘Kate Plus 8.’ She reportedly gets paid $250,000 per episode of ‘Kate Plus 8,’ an amount big enough to fund a few more plastic surgery procedures she will undoubtedly deny.

The low ratings of ‘Kate Plus 8’ are finally getting the long overdue message out to Kate: America does not care about you. Your kids grew up, your husband left you, and you already made your has-been appearance on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ so please stop riding out your 15th minute.

It was also reported that Kate was in talks with TLC about a second series spinoff titled ‘Twist of Kate.’ Thankfully, the low ratings of ‘Kate Plus 8’ have halted plans for the second show. To make certain that Kate is never seen on the airways again, I beg of you, please leave your TV on a different channel when you leave for Thanksgiving break.  

Amanda Abbott is a junior geography and IST major. She is the assistant opinion editor at The Daily Orange, where column appears occasionally. She can be reached at aeabbott@syr.edu.

Published on November 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm