Get woke, go broke.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving network. A&E panicked in the aftermath of the homicide of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and canceled all of its “Live PD” programming. Half of its viewers responded by canceling their A&E viewing, the Wall Street Journal reported today (via Instapundit): Ratings for A&E Network have plummeted since it canceled the hit police reality show “Live PD” on June 10, a sign of how much the network relies on law-enforcement programming. Average prime-time viewership for A&E between June 11 and July 19 was 498,000 people, down 49% from the same period last year, according to data from Nielsen. In the key demographics of adults 18-49 and 25-54, the declines are 55% and 53%, respectively. Those results in the younger demos demonstrate just how idiotic the decision to cancel the entire Live PD platform was. The point of the cancellation was, presumably, to demonstrate that A&E was down with the struggle by caving to demands from primarily younger activists to eliminate programming that painted police in a positive light. Rather than wait to see whether there was still a demand for the show, A&E apparently just assumed that the activists spoke for their audience.
