Kim Kardashian (XPUSEDPPAP)
The Kardashians are getting longer.
Despite fan grumbling over Kim Kardashian’s quickie divorce from NBA star Kris Humphries last fall, E! is supersizing the new season of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
Starting May 20, the half-hour reality show is being bumped up to a full hour for the season. (The network has also ordered 18 episodes, making it the show’s longest season ever.)
A full hour of “Keeping Up” is “a big risk,” says Us Weekly senior writer Eric Andersson, since last season’s premiere and finale ratings were lower than the previous season.
Between the ratings and the 72-day wedding debacle, Andersson says “There is a little backlash — but people are always going to be curious about this family.”
Yesterday, word leaked out that cameras have been recording Kim’s latest romance with rapper Kayne West.
But, notes Andersson, “Keeping Up” is more than “just about Kim.”
There’s pregnant Kourtney; Khloe, who moved to Dallas when her husband, Lamar Odom, was traded to the Mavericks — and now is apparently moving back to LA — the increasing visibility of younger sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner.
“That family is like the gift that keeps on giving; there’s always something,” says Andersson, who claims his magazine still sells well with the Kardashians on the cover.
Which is precisely why expanding to a full hour seems like a smart idea for the network.
“There’s probably more footage to mine, and there’s all this stuff that’s going on, that interest in them has never been higher than it is now,” Andersson says.
“For however many people who don’t like them,” he says, “there are just as many, if not more, that still want to watch them, still want to read about them, still want to know more.”