The long-running police reality show Cops was cancelled by the Paramount Network this week, and reruns of a popular British comedy have been cut from Netflix – the latest signs of how the media industry is grappling with portrayals of race and policing. After pulling Cops from its schedule, ViacomCBS confirmed the show was cancelled. “ Cops is not on the Paramount Network and we don’t have any current or future plans for it to return,” the network said in a statement. The reality show, which had aired on various networks for three decades, billed itself as a “raw and realistic series” with “unprecedented access into the daily lives and work of police” across the US. The British comedy Little Britain was removed from several streaming services, including Netflix, the BBC’s iPlayer and BritBox, over its repeated use of blackface, according to multiple reports. A BBC spokesperson told The Telegraph newspaper that “times have changed” since the sketch comedy programme first aired in the mid-2000s. But other shows with blackface portrayals or white actors caricaturing people of colour are still available on streaming services, the Daily Mail newspaper reported. ViacomCBS employees are also asking the media company to drop a streaming channel carrying a new show by former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, because of its insensitivity to issues surrounding the death of George Floyd. The conservative talk channel, called the First, is on Pluto TV, which is owned by ViacomCBS. A petition has asked that the service remove the channel unless O’Reilly’s programme, which began running on June 2, is dropped. Asian artists show their support for Black Lives Matter campaign The petition, first reported by The Information website, says O’Reilly has “a well-documented history of making racist comments, denying the existence of systemic racism, undermining the efforts of black protesters and insulting black public figures”. Global protests against racism and police brutality following the death of George Floyd have put many TV shows under scrutiny. And the cancellations highlight the liabilities that streaming companies face with their historical libraries, which often contain rights to shows featuring insensitive or outright racist scenes and themes that could not possibly be approved by a major studio today. AT&T’s HBO Max removed Gone With the Wind , the 1939 Oscar-winning epic drama often criticised as having glorified the South during and after the Civil War. HBO Max in a statement said the movie “is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society”. HBO Max plans to return the film “with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions”. It will, however, be presented as originally created, the network said, “because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.” The Wall Street Journal said that film may eventually return to the platform with an explanation or note attached explaining the controversies surrounding the movie. Representatives for HBO Max did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Disney has refused to run 1946 film Song of the South , which features racial stereotypes, on the company’s Disney+ streaming service. Executive Chairman Bob Iger told a shareholder who asked about the film earlier this year that “it was just not appropriate in today’s world”. Additional reporting by AP