Posted on 07/26/2020 11:26:19 AM PDT by Signalman
Cable television ratings for A&E Network have plummeted since it canceled the hit police reality show, “Live PD” on June 10, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Following the death of George Floyd and riots led by “Black Lives Matter” across the country, A&E Network capitulated to demands to cancel the law enforcement show saying in a statement:
“This is a critical time in our nation’s history and we have made the decision to cease production on Live PD. Going forward, we will determine if there is a clear pathway to tell the stories of both the community and the police officers whose role it is to serve them. And with that, we will be meeting with community and civil rights leaders as well as police departments.”
The woke move turned out to be a devastating financial mistake. Average prime-time viewership for A&E between June 11 and July 19 of this year was 498,000 people, which is down 49 percent from the same period last year. Additionally, for key demographics of adults 18-49 and 25-54, the declines are 55 percent and 53 percent, respectively. Before A&E pulled the show, its prime-time viewership was up 4 percent from the same period in 2019.
Ironically, the show promoted police transparency, one of the reforms championed by BLM and others, by following officers on their rounds in cities across the country. “Live PD” averaged about 1.9 million viewers for its Friday and Saturday night episodes and re-aired episodes on other days. It inspired several successful spinoff shows, which A&E also canceled.
When you include the now-canceled sister shows of Live PD, “Live PD: Police Patrol” and “Live PD Presents: PD Cam,” the Live PD universe accounted for more than 85 percent of A&E’s daily programming.
In 2019, the “Live PD” empire brought in $292.6 million in advertising, according to ad-tracking firm Kantar Media. For the first quarter of 2020, the programs sold $95.8 million in advertising.
A&E told the Journal they expected this “temporary hit in the ratings” given the success of “Live PD” and that it has been mostly replaced by reruns. The network expressed its confidence in being able to “find new hits and reinvent ourselves.”
“Live PD” fans, self-named “Live PD Nation,” have been actively encouraging a boycott of A&E until “Live PD” and it’s spin-offs return to the network.
Last month, Paramount Network canceled “Cops,” another police reality show following officers. There are even cries to cancel “Paw Patrol”, one of the most popular kids cartoons of our day, a show about six pups including Chase, a German Shepherd police dog. The show’s intent, according to Nickelodeon, is to promote safety, heroism, and show children what it’s like to work together with a team. However, critics expressed concern about the positive image of law enforcement projected by the kids animated series.
Networks and production companies have become hyper-aware of their portrayal of law enforcement since the BLM riots. Media reinforcing positive perceptions of law enforcement are now seen as dangerous by the woke leftist mob’s narrative of systemic racism, particularly regarding criminal justice.
The movement to defund and even abolish police departments has gone from a radical, fringe idea to a culturally acceptable, if not mainstream idea in progressive cities and in the Democratic party.
Cowardly Democrat scum.
Get Woke and go Broke!
Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do.
NOTHING.
“A&E was close to a very successful programming mix, before...”
...their university-indoctrinated Marketing, HR and VPs with their “we’re gods” MAs got control and went SJW.
looks that way yes
Good, let it die. This is what happens when you kowtow to rioters.
Here is hoping somebody picks up Live PD, if A&E will let it go. Looks like they are woke enough to hold on to it and kill it off. We’ll see next fall.
Yet First 48 goes on and on. What is the difference? Live PD and First 48 both follow cops chasing criminals. By a wide margin, most of the homicide perps and victims on First 48 are black. Why kill Live PD and not First 48?
Liberals are particularly extreme hypocrites.
I am surprised Blue Bloods hasn’t been cancelled yet either. The entire main cast is lilly white, saying grace before meals, and generally upholding conservative values. At least there are no flaming liberals among the central cast that I can see.
I am surprised BLM as not run them off CBS on a rail yet. They portray police sympathetically and generally as the good guys. Here is hoping it doesn’t get cancelled either.
I was just on their Facebook site. The comments section is filled with angry messages.
They threw away some $400 million and counting and for what?
Those pats on the head by other stupid people must make up for it.
Back in the eighties, HBO used to do Friday Night Fights. It was boxing. I always watched it. Some feminist group complained that the card girls walking around between rounds were sexist, so they quit showing them. After that, I watched it once, but it was so annoying to watch them cut to pictures of a boxer spitting in a bucket so they could avoid showing a woman, that it was the last time I watched. The movie that immediately followed boxing was R rated, and opened with a bunch of people getting their throats slit, burned with flamethrowers, etc. I think the movie was the Exterminator, but not sure. The opening sequence told me I didn't want to see that movie.
It was an early "cancel culture" on the boxing, where feminists, who don't watch boxing, got HBO to alienate the audience that did watch boxing, and as soon as they got their scalp, they moved on to the next target.
The weird thing with cancel culture, is the people complaining are never the audience for the show. It's where the phrase, "Get woke, go broke" comes from.
With Star Wars, they were happy to cancel their old fans, thinking they'd pick up new, woke fans. Also, Kathleen Kennedy and her buds thought people would buy anything that said Star Wars on it, and they did for one woke movie.
Just saw the original 3 Star Wars films on TNT today.
So much much better then what came after.
The pacing and the colors and the plot way better. The next film they are showing right now is ‘Solo: A Star Wars story’ and it is plodding and they have the dull bluish colors instead of technicolor. Even the title is bad.
I switched off to another channel.
Hopefully the same happens to Hallmark.
A & E leadership = Assholes & Enemas.
Yes, and they were even better before Lucas went back and "fixed" them.
Going to go off on a little George Lucas rant here. His first wife, Marcia Lucas did the film editing of "A New Hope," which was a mess before she cut a lot out and changed some things. She won an Oscar for editing. After they got divorced, Lucas went back and re-edited the first three movies, claiming they weren't his original vision when first released.
In reality, he was just vindictive, and wanted to erase her. He did the same thing to David Prouse, who was the body actor for Darth Vader. In an interview, Prouse said fans would finally get to see his face, so Lucas went back and reshot the scenes with a different actor.
Lucas caught lightning in a bottle with the first two Star Wars movies. Return of the Jedi was when they started viewing it as a platform to sell toys, rather than as a movie series. That's why they included the Ewoks. They wanted Ewok teddy bear sales.
They're almost as bad as Fox in dropping decent shows. A&E off the top of my head: Nero Wolfe, The Glades, Longmire, and Hornblower.
#54 I think a video game where Ewoks are the targets would sell well.
Bonus points for Jar Jar Binks.
Maybe they can get everyone back by doing the “live” cop shows with symphonic music - maybe cymbals clashing and drums pounding with the blows of the billy clubs and such...
They jumped on the anti-police bandwagon and cancelled it.
Insane, isn’t it. You wish they would be punished or go out of business but somethng keeps them afloat.
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