Fox begins cutting back on COPS

By Sean O'Neal | April 10, 2012 | 7:51pm

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Dismaying news for fans of domestic arguments, digitally distorted nudity, and dudes insisting they have no idea how that crack pipe got there: Fox has confirmed plans to place its long-running reality show COPS on the back burner, forcing aforementioned aficionados of those things to go back to finding them on the street. The move comes as Fox is reportedly planning to launch a new national sports network, which has led to their buying up hundreds of hours of live Major League Baseball, college football, UFC, and NASCAR programming to fill their Saturday nights—all leaving little room for the cat-and-drunk-and-occasionally-naked-mouse games of COPS.

The network has insisted that it’s not canceling the staple it’s aired in some form since 1989, although it has admitted that the 25th season will be reduced. And more importantly, with 28 of the next 32 weeks locked up by sporting events, it’s not clear yet when those new episodes will air. In the meantime, of course, you can still get your COPS fix in limitless reruns across basic cable, or by doing something dumb and illegal and then denying it, over and over again, despite the evidence being right there, come on, man.