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May 24, 2012

Do online petitions really work?

by Keith McDuffee, posted Mar 16th 2006 10:26AM

petitionEvery 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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openminded1

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.

October 19 2007 at 8:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Erika

Isn't this how "Party of Five" was kept on the air also?

March 16 2006 at 3:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris

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.

March 16 2006 at 3:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Akbar Fazil

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.

March 16 2006 at 12:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Frank M.

It worked for "Cagney and Lacey", so now it is tried for every show in trouble.

March 16 2006 at 11:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Backing Logan on this one

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.

March 16 2006 at 11:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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