BBC axes Crimewatch after 33-year run

After 33 years of reconstructions and police appeals, the BBC has announced that Crimewatch is being axed.

The long-running show was only relaunched last September with Jeremy Vine at the helm, but it has struggled to attract primetime viewers.

It will live on through its daytime spin-off Crimewatch Roadshow, with the BBC planning to produce two series per year.

A spokesman said: "We are incredibly proud of Crimewatch and the great work it has done over the years and the work Crimewatch Roadshow will continue to do."

Sue Cook and Nick Ross hosted the first show in 1984, and other presenters included Jill Dando, Fiona Bruce and Kirsty Young.

When Dando was murdered outside her London home in 1999, an appeal was featured on the programme a month later.

Other high-profile crimes to have featured on Crimewatch include the murders of James Bulger, Rhys Jones, Damilola Taylor and Sarah Payne - as well as the disappearances of Madeleine McCann and Claudia Lawrence.

The Police Federation has described the show's cancellation as a "shame" because it allowed police forces to gain national coverage and wide reach for their appeals.

Simon Kempton, the federation's head of operational policing, said: "Crimewatch helped to raise the profile of thousands of incidents over the years, as well as show the public the complex side of policing.

"But if there aren't the audience figures and people aren't watching it, then you have to move with the times."

Former counter-terror detective David Videcette tweeted: "The internet is a much better medium for crime solving than television. The times have changed, and Crimewatch doesn't cut it with viewers anymore."

Nick Ross, the show's presenter for its first 23 years, said he would remember the programme for the bravery of the victims and their relatives.

He said: "It's a shame it's going, but it was inevitable. With declining audiences the chances of making breakthroughs were getting smaller and smaller.

"It's the end of a remarkable piece of television history. For me the most searing memories are of meeting victims, some of them survivors of truly terrible experiences.

"We sometimes needed them to watch our reconstructions before the final edit, just to make sure everything was accurate, but also so we could cut out anything they found distressing. I think we in the production team were often much less stoical than they were."

Ross said he hoped the spirit of the programme would live on, not just in its spin-off, but through the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London - now the world's largest university department dedicated to preventing crime - which was created by some of those involved in the show in her memory.