![]() broadcast networks (the other was CBS’s 48 Hours Mystery). It was one of only two remaining first-run primetime programs that aired on Saturday nights on the four major U.S. Read Starting With Florida’s Broward County The show was called Primetime Cops in promos for a number of years. The program debuted on March 11, 1989, and by 1991, it went prime time, with two episodes in the 8 p.m. Burt Lancaster was brought in to voice a brief introduction for the pilot episode. Ho/Los Angeles Times/Getty Imagesįox, however, didn’t completely abandon the notion of star power. That’s when the then-novice Fox Television network picked up the show at a low cost, since it had no union writers. “Suddenly, a show with no actors, host, script, or writers sounded pretty good,” Langley said. With the 1988 strike, Langley’s lack of scripted elements sounded appealing. Langley and Barbour tried for several years to get a network to pick up the program. Little did they know.) It Was Originally Called Primetime Cops He was repeatedly told that no show would succeed without a narrator, music, or plot. Langley’s concept was technically simple, but no one seemed to share his enthusiasm. It’s safe to say that American television has never been the same since. So, a sort of perfect storm birthed COPS. Networks were in dire need of unscripted programming. At that time, Hollywood was suffering a Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. Despite the poor outcome of that show, Langley was able to come up with this new idea. Langley was also inspired by the poorly-received series American Vice: The Doping of a Nation – a show hosted by Geraldo Rivera that Langley had worked on. The working title at that point was Street Beat. He thought of creating a no-frills chronicle of police officers’ everyday encounters. In the project’s research phase, Langley went on ride-alongs to several drug busts, which is what gave him the idea for COPS. John Langley and Malcolm Barbour conceived the idea of COPS while working on their 1983 documentary series Cocaine Blues. When producer John Langley assigned camera crews to film “on location with the men and women of law enforcement,” for the COPS debut on Fox on March 11, 1989, The Simpsons was still eight months away from premiering, and Reagan had only been out of the White House under two months. So, if you (like us) just can’t get enough of those foot chases, domestic incidents, and the overall insanity of the day-to-day law enforcement drama, then stick around. Then, in 2018, Spike became the Paramount Network, which kept airing new episodes every Saturday. When Fox canceled the show in 2013, Spike picked it up. In the 30 years since it premiered, COPS has barely skipped a beat. Source: / Photo by Todd Oren, Getty Images / Source: / FOX ![]() ![]() It’s the opposite, actually the craziness we see on our screens is exactly what goes on in front of the camera. But that doesn’t mean that things didn’t go awry or that the behind-the-scenes facts are any less interesting. It happens to be a reality show that is more “real” than most. The decision was made by A&E, which is jointly owned by the Hearst Corporation and Disney, and MGM's Big Fish Entertainment, which produces the series, and just a month after the network renewed the show for an additional 160 episodes.Since 1989, COPS has provided American families with some real drama on Saturday nights. And with that, we will be meeting with community and civil rights leaders as well as police departments." "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. "This is a critical time in our nation's history and we have made the decision to cease production on 'Live PD.,'" the network said in a statement. Ambler died in custody.įootage of the encounter never aired and was destroyed. Javier Ambler was stopped by police in Texas for failing to dim his headlights in March 2019 and was later held down and tasered four times while a crew from "Live P.D." filmed. News of the cancellation follows reports from Monday that "Live P.D." had filmed an incident between police and a 40-year-old black man that ultimately resulted in that man's death.
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