NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - "Wall $treet Week with Fortune," public television's weekly financial news program that replaced the long-running "Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser," is being pulled from the air after three years of broadcast.

"It became clear that difficult market conditions impeded our ability to secure the underwriting support necessary to continue production," Robert Shuman, president and CEO of Maryland Public Television, said in a statement. MPT produced the program.

Executives at MPT said underwriters were unwilling to target investors who get their financial news from a weekly television program and said it was indicative of the changes in the way the public gets its information.

"Wall $treet Week with Fortune" began in 2002 as a replacement to "Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser," which was produced by MPT and had been airing on PBS stations since 1970.

Replacing Rukeyser, a respected TV financial journalist once described by Financial World magazine as "television's best-known financial commentator," was not a smooth affair.

Rukeyser first declined an offer to anchor the new program, then publicly appealed to his viewers on the last show to petition PBS stations around the country to support the old format.

He also disclosed on-air the cost of production for his show and the estimated advertising revenue it generated, and was subsequently fired.

Rukeyser started a new show on CNBC shortly after, which was eventually picked up by 160 PBS nationwide before he retired in 2004 due to cancer.

Fortune magazine is owned by Time Warner (Research), which is also the parent of CNN/Money.

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