Kardashian Boycott: Will Petition Affect the Kardashian Brand?
Although more than 100,000 people have signed a recent petition boycotting E!'s popular reality shows featuring the Kardashian family, insiders doubt that the movement will even put so much as a dent in the Kardashian empire.
"It'll make no difference to E! at all," Newsday television writer Verne Gay told Fox411. "Of course if this were to somehow hit 5 million signatures, then they'd probably take a closer look. But the only thing that's going to sink the Kardashians and their various and assorted programs on the network are ratings; when those go south, then so do the Ks."
However, with the high amount of publicity stemming from Kim Kardashian's split from husband Kris Humphries after only 72 days of marriage, ratings for the upcoming season of Kourtney and Kim Take New York are not expected to decrease at all.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"Over two nights in October, 10.5 million people watched the Kardashian wedding extravaganza," wrote The Washington Post. "Season 2 of 'Kourtney & Kim Take New York,' premiering Nov. 27, will be the first post-divorce ratings indicator. Previews promise glimpses at the unraveling of Kim’s marriage, which, like it or not, will probably attract viewers and keep the Kardashian family on TV for the time being."
The boycott petition, organized by Cyndy Snider, began just two weeks ago and is asking the E! network to pull the plug on all of the Kardashian reality shows. It will close on Nov. 30.
"We feel that these shows are mostly staged and place an emphasis on vanity, greed, promiscuity, vulgarity and over-the-top conspicuous consumption," she said in a statement. "While some may have begun watching the spectacle as mindless entertainment or as a sort of 'reality satire,' it is a sad truth that many young people are looking up to this family and are modeling their appearance and behavior after them. I'll remind you here that the Kardashian family fame largely started with a 'leaked' sex tape."
However, the Kardashian family has been going on despite the boycott – putting out two new books and opening a new shop in Las Vegas in the past two weeks.
