Reelz is holding on to its highest rated series for another year.
The independent cable outlet has ordered 90 more episodes of On Patrol: Live, the police ridealong series from the team behind A&E’s similar Live PD. The order will extend the show through January 2024.
“Since the July 22 premiere of On Patrol: Live, our audience has increased every month and we expect that trend to continue into 2023 and beyond,” said Reelz CEO Stan E. Hubbard. “On Patrol: Live viewers come together to create a massive, engaged audience for three amazing hours every Friday and Saturday night.”
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Recent episodes of On Patrol: Live have averaged better than 800,000 same-day viewers, leagues ahead of the audience for other programming on Reelz. The show typically leads Friday and Saturday nights among adults 25-54 as well.
The series was born out of Live PD, which A&E canceled in June 2020 in the wake of nationwide protests against police violence after the murder of George Floyd and amid controversy over the production’s handling of footage from a 2019 case in Texas, in which Javier Ambler died after Williams County Sheriff’s deputies used tasers on him multiple ties. A Live PD crew was embedded with the deputies, though it wasn’t transmitting live and video of Ambler’s death never aired.
A&E has also sued Reelz and the producers of On Patrol: Live, claiming in court papers that Reelz engaged in “bad-faith strategy of capitalizing on AETN’s reputation, trading on AETN’s goodwill, and passing off On Patrol: Live as the same product as Live PD.”
Dan Abrams hosts On Patrol: Live with Sean “Sticks” Larkin and Curtis Wilson; Abrams and Larkin also hosted Live PD and Wilson appeared on the former show occasionally. Half Moon Pictures, a unit of the MGM-owned Big Fish Entertainment (which made Live PD), produces the show; Abrams, Dan Cesareo, John Zito, Lucilla D’Agostino, Paul Gordon and Joe Venafro executive produce.
