A&E Viewership Tanks After TV Series ‘Live PD’ Cancelled

After shelving and cancelling the TV series “Live PD” earlier this summer, A&E has managed to lose nearly half of its prime-time viewers.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the network has seen a 49% drop in prime-time viewership between June 11 and July 19 when compared to the 2019 figures from market research firm Nielsen. Roughly 53% of the decline in viewership was from adults between the ages of 25-54.

A&E referred to its decline in viewership as a “temporary hit,” and anticipated recovering from it in the future with other programs, reports the WSJ. However, A&E’s non prime-time ratings have also been affected, albeit not as severely, with the journal noting a 36% drop in daily average viewership.

“Live PD,” originally designed to give viewers a more accurate picture of policing in near real-time, was unexpectedly cancelled on June 10 amidst the George Floyd protests.

“This is a critical time in our nation’s history and we have made the decision to cease production on Live PD,” A&E told Deadline in a statement in June. “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 day before “Live PD” was officially cancelled, host Dan Abrams assured viewers it would still return. The following day, Abrams said he was “shocked” and “beyond disappointed,” seemingly having been convinced the show would continue.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, the show “Cops” was also cancelled ahead of its 33rd season on the air, and some social media users have also called for the cancellation of the animated kids show “Paw Patrol,” which launched in 2013 and features a police dog.

Concerning the “Paw Patrol” cancel mob, The New York Times reported back in June:

It’s a joke, but it’s also not. As the protests against racist police violence enter their third week, the charges are mounting against fictional cops, too. Even big-hearted cartoon police dogs — or maybe especially big-hearted cartoon police dogs — are on notice. The effort to publicize police brutality also means banishing the good-cop archetype, which reigns on both television and in viral videos of the protests themselves. “Paw Patrol” seems harmless enough, and that’s the point: The movement rests on understanding that cops do plenty of harmAfter the White House Press Secretary Kaleigh McEnancy incorrectly said Friday during a press conference that “Paw Patrol” had been cancelled, the show tweeted that it was not, in fact, cancelled.

The tweet appears to be the first time the account has said anything since June 2, back when it announced it would be temporarily muting its own content for several days to “give access for black voices to be heard.”