Save "America's Most Wanted" on Fox!

This is one bandwagon we're happy to jump on.  It was revealed this week that Fox will be effectively cancelling its long-running Saturday night series America's Most Wanted as of September, in favor of various show repeats and eventually four two-hour AMW specials over the 2011-2012 TV season.  The news of what is essentially the cancellation of the show has disappointed and outraged loyal viewers and motivated Florida resident Jim Sitton to start a campaign to keep the show alive.  Sitton has a personal reason for being an advocate of the show:  the killer of his six-year old daughter was caught with the help of AMW.  You can read all about Sitton's story in this story from The Palm Beach Post, here.

I'm sure many of us remember the traumatic story behind the creation of America's Most Wanted -- the horrendous murder of host John Walsh's little boy Adam in Florida almost thirty years ago.  Bringing criminals to justice has been Walsh's mission since that time, and he's worked tirelessly with government and law enforcement officials to keep victim rights at the forefront, especially through the America's Most Wanted series.  AMW has enlisted the help of viewers in tracking down the unfortunately endless supply of dangerous criminals and murderers since first going on the air in 1988, and with much success.

Fox is citing "cost of production" as the reason for cancellation, but we all know that budgets and production values can be adjusted, and that ratings have been more than acceptable for the show.  Even though The Flaming Nose realizes that TV is after all just a business, there are more than enough business reasons to keep this popular and important show on the air, and other even more important reasons to keep it going.  America's Most Wanted is the right thing to do, and if a huge media corporation like Fox can't find the coin to keep this one going, then Fox doesn't deserve your eyeballs.  I am also sure that many of the audience for Fox News probably also watches America's Most Wanted, and if you're one of them, get involved and leverage your loyalty to Fox to advocate for AMW. 

The success of Fox's other popular and incredibly lucrative franchises -- American Idol, anyone? -- make it possible for the network to carry America's Most Wanted.  It's an important TV show, and you can't say that about basically anything else out there.  Like it or not, accept it or not, Fox signed on for the long term when it started America's Most Wanted.  This is about more than ratings or the bottom line -- both of which are just doing fine over at Fox.  Keeping America's Most Wanted alive takes what amounts to chump change for Fox. 

We recommend that you get involved in the campaign to keep AMW on the air as a regularly scheduled series.  Jim Sitton has created a Facebook page here -- Save AMW! (America's Most Wanted) -- and you can go there to find addresses and links to online petitions and other suggestions to help in this quest.  There's another Facebook group here -- Save "America's Most Wanted" -- and you should join them both and encourage your friends to join, too. 

We'll keep you informed on any developments in this situation.  Check back here for updates, and please visit the embedded links in this post for more information.