Tom Murphy

IT produced a remarkable 3,320 episodes across 16 series, exploring issues related to family relationships, romantic relationships, sex, drugs and alcohol.

It was ITV’s most popular daytime show, reaching audiences of one million viewers.

But now there is a Jeremy Kyle-shaped void in the broadcaster’s repertoire.

And rightly so.

The show thrived on invading personal details of someone’s life - airing their privacy to the public.

You have to wonder why anyone would agree to go on the show?

Especially those who knew they would be found out to be a cheat or a liar.

Sadly, its popularity only fuelled more series.

But it was brought back down with a crash after the news broke about one of its guests being found dead after failing a lie detector test.

While we do not know the details about the case, questions must be asked about what after-care, if any, guests receive.

And do we need to be looking at other programmes also?

A former contestant in hit show Love Island has called on that to follow the same path as Jeremy Kyle.

Speaking to a national newspaper, she claimed two ex-contestants have taken their own lives in just three seasons, throwing the show’s aftercare procedures and mental health evaluations into question.

As the taboo around mental health continues to be broken down, now is the time to re-evaluate how we look after our most vulnerable citizens.

Peter Grenville

If you’d asked me this a couple of weeks ago, I would have undoubtedly have said yes.

I’d only caught a few snippets of the show over the years, and in those brief moments was pretty horrified at what I saw. From my very limited viewing, I rapidly formed the opinion that this wasn’t my kind of show.

Why would anyone choose to go on TV to air their dirty laundry, and potentially discover something hideous about another person? Wife slept with your brother? Your sister is in love with your best friend’s killer? Sure – find that out in a TV studio in front of a live audience.

Apart from my bemusement as to why anyone would want to put themselves through that, I couldn’t grasp why anyone would want to watch that happen. Voyeuristic, ghoulish, gaining enjoyment from other people’s misery? I didn’t get it.

But much as I watch F1 and others love the Footballs, we’re all different. It was the most popular of ITV’s daytime shows. It ran for 14 years. So, not for me, but it was certainly essential viewing for many.

After Steve Dymond was found dead a week after taking a lie detector test on the programme, the show was first suspended by ITV and then axed, with an inquiry launched by MPs into the question of adequate support for the sometimes vulnerable people taking part, who often lived out their worst nightmares for the entertainment of others, unable to foresee the consequences.

And that’s the very nub of this –shows like these are taking already damaged people, and making life unbearably worse for them.

So my answer to the original question is now based on a very different set of knowledge to before, but it’s still a yes. It was right to cancel this show... and it should have happened a long time ago.

Louise Allonby

What a sad indictment on modern culture that it has taken the death of a participant to make the powers that be realise that a programme such as the Jeremy Kyle Show should not be given airspace.

This obnoxious show was predicated upon the humiliation and shaming of the people taking part; and it is hard to disagree with those observers who have likened it to the Colosseum of ancient Rome – for it has become a televisual version of weak people being fed to lions or being pitted against each other in a fight to the death, all for the entertainment of a public who should know better.

Right-thinking people despise animal abuse in the form of bear or badger baiting and yet modern television has, until now, accepted this in its human form. It is only a small wonder that a death related to this programme has not happened earlier.

Sadly we live in a world where abuse and shaming of our fellow humans has become the accepted norm, thanks to the unceasing march of social media. Sites such as Twitter and Facebook facilitate aggression, goading and rabble-rousing. It has become the norm for too many people to think it is acceptable behaviour to attack via their keyboards people they often don’t even know. And programmes such as the Jeremy Kyle Show are guilty of perpetuating this horrendous and cruel behaviour which shames a society which believes itself to be civilised.

The Jeremy Kyle Show hasn’t passed its sell-by date; it should never have been allowed to exist in the first place. There is no place in a so-called civilised and sophisticated society for freak show programmes where vulnerable and damaged people are encouraged to parade their private problems and anguish in front of a baying studio audience. Good riddance to this detestable programme.