A&E And Reelz Settle Their Lawsuit Over Live PD and OP Live

One of the big conundrums of the woke interlude just past is A&E's cancellation of its top show, Live PD, in the wake of the George Floyd riots. According to Wikipedia,

At the time of cancellation, Live PD was the most watched show on A&E and the most watched show on cable during prime time on Friday. After the cancellation of Live PD, A&E's viewership went down 49% in the following months.

On June 10, 2020, A&E canceled the show. Over succeeding months, the host, Dan Abrams, wko is also a News Nation anchor and the host of other programs still on A&E, put out vaguely worded statements about efforts to restart the program.

Variety reported that A&E executives felt they had no choice after Paramount Network canceled Cops, even though they thought Live PD was a very different show

Abrams appeared in several media outlets after the show was canceled, defending the show and its portrayal of police. He said he was "shocked & beyond disappointed" about its cancellation and added, "To the loyal #LivePDNation please know I, we, did everything we could to fight for you, and for our continuing effort at transparency in policing. I was convinced the show would go on.

.. . On June 8, 2022, it was announced that a new program, On Patrol: Live, with a similar lineup of producers and hosts and a nearly identical format, would debut on the channel Reelz. The new program was universally described in media outlets as a revival or return of Live PD. On August 30, A&E Networks filed suit against Reelz and Big Fish, alleging that the new program violates A&E's intellectual property rights in the Live PD name and format

It's hard to attribute this saga to anything but the groupthink, short-sighedness, and stubbornness of legacy media. One odd factor is that Abrams himself appears to be a card-carrying member of the generally leftist media elite, but even he saw that A&E was simply leaving big money on the table.

A&E contended that although it had canceled the show, it hadn't relinquished its intellectual prolperty rights, and Reelz and Big Fish Entertainment were using them without authorization. A&E demanded punitive damages and a share of the profits from the new show. But as of Friday,

A+E Networks has settled its “Live PD” dispute with Amazon-owned Big Fish Entertainment and Reelz. As part of the settlement, A+E and Amazon have struck a new multi-year licensing deal on A+E programming.

“A+E Networks and Amazon have agreed to significantly expand their commercial relationship in a multi-year agreement that will amplify the reach of A+E Networks’ brands and content on Amazon’s Prime Video service,” A+E, Big Fish and Amazon said in a join statement. “In connection with that agreement, the legal dispute between A+E and Big Fish Entertainment and Reelz concerning ‘Live PD’ has been resolved.”

This is the first I've seen that Amazon owns Big Fish Entertainment and appears to have been the power behind the deal -- Reelz was likely a bit player, as was probably Abrams as well. While the terms of the settlement are typically confidential, it looks like A&E dropped any demand for punitive damages and a cut of the profits, and Amazon offered A&E some sort of business deal that allowed A&E to save face, while Amazon would still turn a profit on it.

I don't think it's a coincidence that this comes so soon in the wake of Trump's November 5 election victory. That victory might on one hand be seen as a win for the common man, but Ferdinand Lundberg of The Rich and the Super-Rich would, I believe, also see this as a realignment among the finpols,

a politico-economic elite of elites, which is a "closed" elite. It is closed because something other than personal ability is required to belong to it. The main although not exclusive qualification for membership, it is here contended, is money. This elite has been referred to as the moneybund-- the complex of finpolities. Its leading members, I suggest, are finpols. This moneybund is different from C. Wright Mills's "power elite," which is a somewhat fanciful and highly personal embroidery upon the old-established basic idea of a moneyed elite. Take the money crowd away and Mills' "power elite" crumbles into verbal dust.

The message being sent from Mar-a-Lago isn't so much that MAGA has taken over, but that the world's richest men are beginning to align themselves with MAGA because it presents a serious oporuntity to make money. This is why Elon Musk is cavorting with his kids in the halls there, other finpols like Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett are sending subtle signals that they're on board with this, and indeed finpolitan institutions like Comcast are moving to dump MSNBC, which is losing momey, while finpol Jeff Bezos reinstated Live PD because it made money.

I don't think Lundberg foresaw a realignment within finpolity. but I don't think it conflicts with his basic view, that there is a limited clique of people who can control public life. What I think is occurring is that an older generation of finpols, made up primarily of those descended from the post-Civil War robber baron families that had been primarily aligned with the New Deal, the Great Society, the Bush-Clinton uniparty, and neoconservative foreign policy, is being supplanted by newer money, exemplified in particular by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, which is now aligning itself with Trump.

TRhe finpolitan old guard at this point would include Alex Soros, Bill Gates, Laurene Powell Jobs, and the Hololywood-legacy media establishment. I don't think it's a coincidence, though, that one small skirmish in this ongoing war was over Live PD.