Duggar Family News: Spin-Off Show Continues to Lose Sponsors; Cancellation Inevitable?
Ever since the Josh Duggar molestation and cheating scandal broke off last year, the Duggar family of the canceled TLC hit reality TV series "19 Kids and Counting," has been struggling to keep the franchise relevant in television.
The recent report from In Touch Weekly indicated that the aforementioned show's spin-off series "Jill & Jessa: Counting On" is now in danger of being cancelled after only airing a few episodes from its first season. This is despite the fact that the new show is raking high viewer ratings. However, a lot of big companies including Wrigley, Choice Hotels, and UPS, just to name a few, are now pulling out their sponsorship for fear that they might get tied in with the family's tainted name.
"Wrigley no longer advertises on television programs featuring the Duggar family; and any ads that have recently aired during TLC shows featuring the Duggar family were done so in error," Wrigley said in a statement. "It is never our intent to endorse content that could offend our consumers."
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Choice Hotels, meanwhile, clarified that they "are not a sponsor or an advertiser on any TV shows or specials about the Duggars."
"If any ads run, it is an error of the network as our advertising agency has directed them to remove our advertising from the show," the establishment further clarified.
In the same vein, UPS said that they have already made arrangements with the network indicating the company's disassociation with the show or any of its related programs.
Several other firms like Combe Inc., RCN Corporation, Whitewave Foods, Verizon Wireless, and countless others have also dropped their statements expressing the same issue.
With the current situation, there are now speculations that TLC will more likely to unplug the program.
"Jill & Jessa: Counting On" debuted last year featuring the titular Duggar sisters. It has been reported that Jill and Jessa who are now married to Derick Dillard and Ben Seewald, respectively, were victims of Josh's molestation back when he was still a teenager.
