Jericho fans to go Nuts again?
By fred | July 4, 2007
By now every one knows that the fans of Jericho have successfully gotten attention from CBS executives, so well than they decided to bring the show back for a second season. And that was the least they could do.
Executives should stop only caring about money, commercials, and remember that behind those (every day a little more meaningless) numbers that are Nielsen’s ratings? The whole “Nuts campaign� wasn’t only viewers screaming at TV execs so they’d bring their favourite show back on the air, it was also saying “we are here, we exists, we watch your network, so don’t ignore us!�
What happened with Jericho? Why did it got cancelled in the first place? Not because it was a bad show, because it was not, far from it. Basically, it got cancelled by the same people who were responsible in the first place of the loss of viewers for the show !
Because Jericho went on a break, a very long “hiatus�. This has never, ever been a good thing. Just look at Lost, and how it hurts that show too, despite being already a well-known show with a great fan base.
And at first, CBS had planned to air reruns of the first episodes of Jericho during that break, allowing people not to forget about it, and to get new viewers on the train.
But instead, they decided not to air reruns, and not to promote the show at all either. Do that, and in the end you get exactly what happened here : some viewers are gone.
Because the show was gone. And gone, and gone, and still gone… and never came back. Since when it actually did, it hadn’t been promoted, no one was aware of it and people just assumed that, once again, the show got cancelled right in the middle after only a few episodes.
It’s been years now, and finally some of the great brains are actually realizing that the new “24 model� is a great one, that works really good : promote a show, then run it uninterrupted.
Hopefully they’ll also realize that :
1. A (long) hiatus is always the worst idea ever. Always.
2. No matter what, you need to promote the show!
I wish they would also realize that behind a show are not numbers, again, but people watching. And if for the shows wrote the “traditional� way, with basically one story per episode, if after one season you don’t renew it, sure fans will get pissed, especially if writers weren’t aware and, as they love, didn’t end the story this time at the end of the last episode, using a cliff hanger to get people hooked for the next season, but expect for this case : it can work.
But for the “new� way shows are written, when there’s a story, one, per season, one only one for the whole show, all seasons included, you just can’t shut it down in the middle of it. That’s like hitting viewers in the face, hard.
And you can’t do that (over and over) and expect them to come back next time.
Anyhow, CBS eventually realize their mistake (I hope) and decided to bring Jericho back for a second season.
Well, not quite.
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