Title:The Jeremy Kyle Show

Host:Jeremy Kyle

Guest Services (Medical/Mental Health) director: Dr. Janet Taylor

Format: One-hour daytime hot topics talk show.

Broadcast Information:The Jeremy Kyle Show is broadcast in syndication. Check your local listings to find out when the program is on in your area.

Production company: ITV Studios America, Debmar-Mercury

Premiere Date: September 18, 2011

Brief History:

Talk show host Jeremy Kyle is well-known in the United Kingdom, where his similarly titled The Jeremy Kyle Show is the No. 1 rated daytime talk show. The British version debuted in July 2005 and has steadily grown more and more popular season after season. It won the TV Choice Award for Best Daytime Series in September 2011.

The show's success overseas demanded that an American version be made, to see if that success would translate in the U.S. market. So, in September 2011, The Jeremy Kyle Show, American style, debuted.

Show producers wanted American audiences to see "a fearless daytime host who isn't afraid to confront his guests with a straight-talking blend of empathy, insight and humor that instantly cuts to the heart of the matter."

And though the show might seem like a traditional tabloid talk show, it does attempt to mix up the format by connecting guests with medical and mental health professionals on the back-end.

The show calls this is "guest services program," and in the U.S. it is led by Dr.

Janet Taylor, a prominent clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harlem Hospital and well-known media personality.

So in this way, The Jeremy Kyle Show is more of a "intervention" talk show, inviting guests to confront and resolve personal issues on the air. Much like an actual intervention, the show is fraught with conflict and drama, suggesting a potential to spin off its wheels at any time. This is part of the show's appeal, as well.

The U.K.'s Jerry Springer
The link to tabloid talk shows doesn't begin and end with Jerry Springer, but the connection is there, and it's a valid one.

Kyle's program was the first to truly challenge Springer in the U.K. market. It eventually toppled the long-reigning king of daytime television and hasn't looked back.

The show's success is often attributed to Kyle's interview style, which is considered aggressive in manner. Kyle speaks his mind, even if it incites his guests to violence - a trait that has also been pinned to Springer and tabloid talk show host Geraldo Rivera.

Comments have led to physical confrontation on the show and alleged indiscretions off camera as well (one guest is said to have pointed an air rifle at his wife after learning that she was having an affair). Criticism of the show includes the words of a judge, saying it existed only "to affect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people whose lives are in turmoil."

Kyle's defense is typically that he wants only to help his guests and that his aggressive style is meant to get to the meat of the issue - to bring everything out in the open so that it can be resolved.

While the show hasn't lit fires in the U.S. yet, it has done well enough to garner a second season. Back home, the show is moving into its eighth series, with no end in sight.