Lifetime has the re-run rights to air ABC's "Wife Swap" but according to The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes Lifetime has elected to opt out of ratings gold. An episode featuring the Heene family that was previously scheduled to air next Thursday has been scrapped:
Next Thursday's rerun episode of "Wife Swap" was sure to attract a lot of viewers who had not seen the episode when it first foisted the Heenes on an unsuspecting public, back in October of 2008 on ABC.
And yet Lifetime now says it has scrubbed plans to run the episode and has no plans to reschedule it "in the near future, at this time." It was pulled, a Lifetime rep told The TV Column, "once we determined" the Heene family had perpetrated their stupendous hoax.
"Given the incident that occurred last week, we felt it was inappropriate to air at this time," the Lifetime rep said.
Moraes spends several paragraphs pondering Lifetime's decision.
dumbasses!
While it would have been great for ratings, I have a lot of respect for Lifetime. Good for them for not giving the Heenes exactly what they want, which is more publicity. It’s only a matter of time before they end up on some other crappy reality show, I hope the dad just goes to the gutter and competes on something like VH1′s I love Money. He’s a scumbag!
Even if these guys go to jail over their hoax, it will likely be worth it for all the money they are making/will make. A year in a low-security jail in exchange for a million dollars? I’d rather do that than a year-long deployment to Afghanistan anyday.
ABC should repeat the episode!
Wow, Lifetime showing some class, good for them. Of course the premise of the show itself is pretty low, but that’s true of most “reality” shows.
If they had aired this in primetime, and got the word out that it was on, it’d easily get 3 million, probably 5 million, if not more.
And don’t put it on the DVD either!
RE — “Even if these guys go to jail over their hoax, it will likely be worth it for all the money they are making/will make”
Possibly not in this case. There’s a law in Colorado that prevents convicted criminals from profiting from their crimes. Apparently any money they may make in the future related to these crimes (assuming they are convicted) can be confiscated, set aside, and used to pay restitution to either the victims of a crime (not really a factor here unless you somehow count all the folks who got hoodwinked by this caper) or the government (repayment of funds for use of resources involved with this lunacy). Not sure what happens to any excess that may be left over after restitution is paid. Not sure if “conviction” means any violation, either (i.e. Colorado or Federals).
Btw, this applies to all assets and income the balloon family may have or make. House, cars, wages — all of it could be slapped with liens, garnished, or otherwise attached until the restitution is settled.
oh NOW they have a problem with exploting people
I agree they shouldn’t show this episode. It would onlt give this sad pathetic family (kids not included of course) the publicity they so oddly crave. News etc should all just forget about them and let the authorities deal with them. This constant media attention is feeding their idiotic thirst to be on tv.
I think if the family makes any money off of this hoax, some should go to the farmer(s) whose fields were ruined by emergency vehicles plowing over the crops while in pursuit of that balloon. And of course, the expense caused by diverting police resources to this nonsense should be considered.
Okay, I see all these mature, objective responses to Lifetime’s decision, but c’mon … isn’t there anyone who will admit they would LOVE to watch the episode to see just how wacky this family is??
I’ll go out on that limb, even if I’m all alone. I wanna see it.