U.K.’S GEORDIE SHORE: IT’S JERSEY SHORE ALL OVER AGAIN

A British MTV TV show, Geordie Shore, based on America’s MTV show, Jersey Shore, is eliciting the same sort of local scorn in the north of England that the U.S. show did in New Jersey. More even. The London Sun reported today (Thursday) that some 25,000 people have signed onto a Facebook page, R.I.P Geordie Pride in which they voice their contempt for the show and demand that it be banned. One recent poster remarked, “The people of Newcastle are not gonna watch it cause we know it is not a true representation of how we live, and all the other people in the country for some strange reason can’t understand us, the ignorant s****s!!!” Nevertheless, the Sun article suggests that the show is experiencing the same sort of ratings success in the U.K. that Jersey Shore did in the U.S. — probably helped by the controversy. Its season premiere attracted 330,000 viewers, MTV UK’s largest audience in three years. (It averages 79,000.) One cast member, 21-year-old Sophie Kasaei, predicted that fellow Geordie-ites will eventually feel proud of the show’s success. She told the Sun: “I honestly think once people watch it, they will love it.”