I remember a specific case of this happening with a popular CBS tv show "The Unit". I thought it was quite good. Apparently a lot of other people did too becaus

I remember a specific case of this happening with a popular CBS tv show "The Unit". I thought it was quite good. Apparently a lot of other people did too because it was one of their most popular shows. But it was cancelled after 3 seasons and replaced with another garbage reality tv show like Jersey Shore, the Kardashians or Survivor or something. The reason was that the Unit filmed in different locations and had lots of explosions and other things that made it expensive to film. They decided they could replace it with a show one third as popular that had 1/20th the production cost. From a business perspective, you can charge one third as much for ads and still come out way ahead because reality garbage costs nothing to make.