Post by HeadMarshal on Jan 22, 2017 10:40:07 GMT -5
As we've seen from the excellent ratings for The Hunt With John Walsh and it being on the air for an upcoming fourth season, I think there is a substantial interest still for crime-fighting TV shows focusing on unresolved fugitive and missing people stories. This means that sometime in the future, a new TV series similar to AMW might come back either as a replacement for The Hunt or alongside the CNN show.
When AMW was put back on the air in November 1996 after the first cancellation, it was revamped as America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back with a more modern style. This was done probably to solve some of the decline in ratings that the first era of AMW (1988-1996) had. That worked for a long time it seems like but eventually around the cancellation in 2011, FOX decided that they weren't making enough money off of the low ratings. It didn't help with John Walsh going around the world in the last season along with the Saturday night airings of AMW.
So what do you think would need to be done for a similar series (remember it can't be called America's Most Wanted, otherwise FOX will charge licensing fees like what they did against Lifetime), to survive over the long run? Here are some of my suggestions.
#1: Choose something other than Saturday night. For the first few seasons on FOX, AMW was actually on Friday and Sunday nights. Saturday nights were chosen in the later seasons for AMW to air alongside COPS but that wont be a factor any longer depending on which channel would get the series.
#2: Get a qualified, credible host. John Walsh will likely be doing his last years on television working on The Hunt, so we would need a host for AMW. I would imagine another victims advocate or crime reporter who also looks for victim's rights would be the best role. The host could make or break the new series (ex. we really don't want Nancy Grace hosting a new AMW-like show).
#3: Do not travel around the world for episodes. I imagine this probably won't be an issue, but hopefully this new series doesn't repeat the mistake of the 2010-2011 season with travels to Japan, Europe and Cambodia. That is very costly and feature stories that took place in those countries don't have to involve taking the entire production crew there.
Any other suggestions?
When AMW was put back on the air in November 1996 after the first cancellation, it was revamped as America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back with a more modern style. This was done probably to solve some of the decline in ratings that the first era of AMW (1988-1996) had. That worked for a long time it seems like but eventually around the cancellation in 2011, FOX decided that they weren't making enough money off of the low ratings. It didn't help with John Walsh going around the world in the last season along with the Saturday night airings of AMW.
So what do you think would need to be done for a similar series (remember it can't be called America's Most Wanted, otherwise FOX will charge licensing fees like what they did against Lifetime), to survive over the long run? Here are some of my suggestions.
#1: Choose something other than Saturday night. For the first few seasons on FOX, AMW was actually on Friday and Sunday nights. Saturday nights were chosen in the later seasons for AMW to air alongside COPS but that wont be a factor any longer depending on which channel would get the series.
#2: Get a qualified, credible host. John Walsh will likely be doing his last years on television working on The Hunt, so we would need a host for AMW. I would imagine another victims advocate or crime reporter who also looks for victim's rights would be the best role. The host could make or break the new series (ex. we really don't want Nancy Grace hosting a new AMW-like show).
#3: Do not travel around the world for episodes. I imagine this probably won't be an issue, but hopefully this new series doesn't repeat the mistake of the 2010-2011 season with travels to Japan, Europe and Cambodia. That is very costly and feature stories that took place in those countries don't have to involve taking the entire production crew there.
Any other suggestions?
