Every time a television show with even
a moderate fan base gets cancelled, a petition soon follows. Usually fans opt to use petitiononline.com. Other times they may just solicit "signatures"
via their own blog's comments, or perhaps ask other fans to snail-mail the studios with postcards.Do these online petitions work? Do the studios see these petitions, some with tens of thousands of signatures, and think, "wow, you know what? Forget what we said about this show being cancelled -- there's a whole 25,000 people out there we'll disappoint real bad if we cancel now!"
Does anyone have a success story to tell us, one that might give hope to these petition organizers? And how about you studio folks out there -- do these petitions make you think twice about cancelling a show, or are they a sad waste of time?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-16-2006 @ 11:15AM
J. Carter said...
The only example I can think of is Roswell, a sci-fi show on the WB a few years back. The online petition, though, was accompanied by a fairly unique fan campaign to send in thousands of tiny bottles of tabasco sauce (relating to a persistent joke on the show itself).
I also remember that fan mail played a significant part in the longevity of "Moonlighting" back in the 1980's, but of course that predated the web.
J.
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3-16-2006 @ 11:50AM
Frank M said...
It worked for "Cagney and Lacey", so now it is tried for every show in trouble.
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3-16-2006 @ 12:02PM
Akbar Fazil said...
I have never seen a show be "saved" via an online petition alone.
Quantum Leap did get brought back via a huge letter campaign. So much that they made a 30 second spot with the then Pres of NBC (I believe it was still Dick Ebersol at that point) buried in a pile of letters pleading to the fans of Quantum Leap to stop sending letters, we are going to keep the show going.
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3-16-2006 @ 3:05PM
Chris said...
It seems like online petitions are a lazy way to show support for a show. At least sending in fan mail requires a (small) bit of effort. Aside from that there is no way to control the petitions so that only one person can leave one signature, it allows for poor record keeping. Snopes.com often cites how useless online petitions are in convincing anyone to take your point seriously.
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3-16-2006 @ 3:44PM
Erika said...
Isn't this how "Party of Five" was kept on the air also?
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10-19-2007 @ 9:21PM
openminded1 said...
Jericho was saved by fans, but not with online petitions. Fans sent over 40,000 pounds of nuts and called and write CBS every day for 3 weeks. In return we were given 7 new episodes as a mid season replacement. You can check out season 1 of Jericho now on DVD.
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