Richard and Judy: Mr & Mrs

We've always loved them for their faults. So when television's sovereign couple had their knuckles rapped last week for a spot of over-zealous product placement, did it really matter?

Television's sovereign couple, star of Channel 4's eponymous daily teatime slot, are in the South of France. Last week, they featured on the front page of a tabloid, under the headline "Why so glum?". Given their willingness to discuss personal dilemmas and Judy's health problems on the box, devoted viewers will know that the cause of their temporary gloom isn't likely to be post-natal depression, or the aftermath of a hysterectomy, or the fallout from an absent-minded visit by Richard to a supermarket that was unfairly termed shoplifting. That's all been done.

The cause might relate to Judy's alleged desire to give up living on the celebrity front line, where she is constantly judged on how much she supposedly drinks, eats and fails to pay out for cosmetic surgery. Or, of course, the long faces could just be the result of a plain old-fashioned spat - there's nothing like a blissful holiday for poisoning the marital ecology. Then again, Richard and Judy could have something serious to worry about.

Channel 4 has been fined £5,000 by the regulatory body Ofcom for giving undue prominence to the energy drink Red Bull in an edition of Richard and Judy's show. Ofcom ruled that the programme breached its code on product plugging by allowing too many direct references to Red Bull. The item used sports personalities and an "expert", Louise Reyner, who allegedly received a research grant of £52,962 from Red Bull three years ago.

Why should Judy and Richard bother unduly? One answer is the commodity that is at the heart of their success - trust. In a pitch to attract advertising, Channel 4 has published qualitative and quantitative research on their audience. It revealed,for instance, that while 34 per cent of those polled trusted Richard and Judy on the controversial issue of the triple vaccination MMR, only 18 per cent trusted the General Medical Council.

In an era when all institutions are treated with suspicion, the fans of Richard and Judy appear to believe that the couple are the real, independent, deal. If they promote a book or a bottle of plonk, it's regarded as a personal endorsement, not a puff. What parts of the media fail to grasp is that it's precisely because Judy refuses to go under the knife and become, spookily, a woman 30 years younger than her chronological age, that she is rated so highly. Every photograph of her letting it all hang out simply strengthens her appeal.

At the same time, to critics, Richard Madeley is self-satisfied and shallow; immature rather than "boyish". But, to his followers, he's regarded as a sometimes irritating, cocky mate, with Peter Pan genes and a wife who keeps him in check. "You don't know when to shut up," Judy tells him not infrequently on air. And in the fake intimacy that is telly, the viewers agree.

Richard and Judy, in our allegedly classless society, are Mr and Mrs Meritocracy. They appeal to people across the board. Hence, the staggering success of their book club. Launched in 2003, it challenges the snobbery that suggests "lite" viewers don't do books. The couple's choice ranges from mental chocolate to tougher stuff. The sales of Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea, a tale of Irish immigrants, rose 350 per cent after the R&J benediction.

Contrary to much of the gossip-column fodder, it's not cynical voyeurism that pulls in the audience - what does he see in her? What does she see in ditzy Dick? When will his - or, perhaps, her - lovers emerge to tell all? It's that in the candyfloss circuit of anorexic, air-brushed celebrities, Richard and Judy appear to possess what others want most. That's not the Hampstead home and Cornish summer retreat; nor the £1m-a-year contract until 2007. What they appear to have is a relationship that works, however mysteriously. When Richard was challenged in Marks & Spencer by a man who hissed "Shoplifter!", Judy responded briskly: "You're a little wanker. Now fuck off." She may sometimes appear to have little faith in herself (another bond in common with several million women) but she clearly has faith in those she loves.

The duo bicker, disagree and clash on screen but unless they are very skilful counterfeiters indeed, there's affection, respect and tolerance on view, too - and that's after 19 years as husband and wife. Cupid should be on a 15 per cent commission.

Madeley and Finnigan first met in 1982, working for Granada Television. They were both married and Judy was the mother of twins, now aged 28. Born in Manchester, she studied English and drama at university then became Anglia Television's first female reporter. Richard Madeley wanted to be a pilot but lacked the maths. He worked on local papers in Essex and eventually moved to Yorkshire Television, where he was nicknamed "Mannequin". They married in 1986, had the first of their two children and, two years later, began presenting ITV's daytime magazine show This Morning from a set that resembled a Miami drag queen's sitting room.

The show was a success for 13 years, covering topics such as the first-on-air (but, thankfully, out-of-sight) trial of Viagra, as well as accumulating a group of experts that addressed viewers' problems - a virtual-reality extended family. What both their shows have deftly exploited is the cultural change described by the American academic Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death. He argued that presidents, surgeons and educators "worry less about satisfying the demands of their discipline than the demands of good showmanship". Everybody wants a place on the television sofa because, nowadays, "there's no business but show business".

A clutch of politicians - including the Blairs and the Clintons - and a stream of movie stars have subjected themselves to the couple's sometimes nervous (in Judy's case) and deferential (in both cases) interviewing. But Richard and Judy can also wield an occasional united flash of steel.

Their reign has witnessed some classic TV moments - not just Madeley's excruciating Ali G but, also, for instance, when the presenter Keith Chegwin admitted to his alcoholism. "You've got a lot of bottle," said Judy.

Five years ago, Judy, who says she is "a total feminist", objected to what she saw as the increasing sexism in the show (she did premenstrual tension; he gets the Dalai Lama), and both believed ITV management were edging them out. So they moved to Channel 4. Once the book club was launched, ratings - originally rotten - lifted. They now top more than 2.5 million.Will the Red Bull incident bruise viewer loyalty? Probably not - so long as the couple can be trusted not to turn plugging into a habit.

Unlike their posher predecessors as celebrity couples, Fanny and Johnny Craddock and Lord and Lady Docker, who became caricatures of themselves to make a name, Richard and Judy have grown famous - and very rich - from the business of being themselves. And that too, perhaps, says something about our times.