Lifetime Cancels America's Most Wanted!

I took down the thread about JWI debuting on May 29th because even though tvguide says it, Lifetime's website schedule had it listed but suddenly took it down and the website zap2it.com doesn't have it listed as well. I'm going to wait to see since maybe they pushed back the debut date.

Hi AJM,

Relatively speaking, AMW's ratings were still impressive for Lifetime. Their Friday night ratings went through the roof at one point. A lot of us speculate Fox's heavy license fees is the real reason Lifetime cancelled AMW.

There is some positive news in yet another newspaper is speculating about CMT possibly picking up AMW, but we will have to wait and see:

www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/starr_report_hAROKAaSPTa9NIHuc2biqI

The whole breaking news alert factor wouldn't make Netflix a good fit IMO.

the user took their post down. At least I hope it was the user. I'm remaining cautiously optimistic about mynetwork since the only two channels mentioned in legitimate media as potentially being interested are CMT and CNN, but I do find it weird how coy they are when asked about the possibility.

So I posted on this forum's Facebook group reminding people that it still wouldn't hurt to try to get Lifetime to change their minds, and Steve, the guy who runs MKTV actually replied and posted this:



"Ok. Having talked with the parties involved in GREAT detail about this subject, let me expressly state here that Lifetime *WANTS* to air more AMW.

Let me repeat that so that everyone reading this understands.

They WANT more AMW.

The problem does not lie with Lifetime, but moreso with Fox...or more specifically the economy, in general.

Lifetime (and Fox) cannot *afford* to produce AMW in this economy.

I have spoken with many representatives about this issue.

Lifetime has cut as many possible costs as they could to produce and distrubute AMW, even going so far as moving the offices of AMW a while back.

The problem lies in the fact that production costs (lighting, film costs, catering, producers salaries, etc.) even cut to the absolute bare minimum humanly possible would cost more money than AMW brings back in.

I truly wish this were not the case, but it is.

The *real* problem was that there was not enough support during the last year of AMW's existence on Fox by viewers who were more tuned into other shows. Neilsen records proved that statement.

It was only AFTER Fox announced they were cancelling the show, that most people began to notice and care."


This is interesting. And I agree pretty much (except I only half-agree about the Nielsen thing. AMW did not have Big Bang-Theory ratings its' last year as a weekly series on Fox, but it still won Saturday nights. However, the 2-hour specials did not perform that well after it was cancelled)

MKTV does a great service. And yes, perhaps the answer is plain and simple.


However, I just don't want to sit back and say "Ok, no one can afford AMW. Let's just give up and be quiet about it and not attempt to get the show that has done so much good and we've been watching for decades back." In other words, I just don't think the answer is to throw our hands up and give up and say well it was good while it lasted.

It might be a long shot and perhaps naive, but I am of the opinion the more people continue to *still* voice their opinion, the more perhaps it will inspire AMW and Lifetime to go back to the negotiating table and try to think of more creative ways to save money. Or inspire another network to pick up AMW.


Still, interesting insights there.

I still believe that Investigation Discovery can cover the financial costs of producing new AMW reenactments (if they pick it up) since the channel airs true crime cases all day. I don't know how much of their shows use reenactments but I presume it's the majority of them.