Live PD was frequently the most watched cable program on both Friday and Saturday nights.

Live PD was a valuable franchise, one that gave Americans a chance to see police doing their day-to-day work. Viewers got a chance to learn that policing is not a cross among Beverly Hills Cop, the Simpson's Chauncey Wiggums, and Hill Street Blues.

In May 2020, A&E ordered 160 new episodes of this cash cow. However, on June 6, A&E put the series on hold because of the anti-police riots. On June 9, the show's host, Dan Abrams, was still tweeting out, "To all of you asking whether #LivePD coming back. . .The answer is yes. All of us associated with the show are as committed to it as ever."

It took only one day for the show's producers, working with co-owners, Disney Media Networks and Hearst Communications, to make a liar out of Abrams (and, incidentally, in a time of virus shutdowns and economic loss, to wipe out the jobs of all the people who worked on the show).

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.

When the audience vanishes, so does the money. A&E just kissed goodbye around $292.6 million in advertising revenue,