{"id":198711,"date":"2019-01-21T23:16:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T04:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=198711"},"modified":"2019-01-21T23:16:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T04:16:53","slug":"save-our-show-fan-campaigns-thriving-in-age-of-social-media-and-streaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/01\/21\/save-our-show-fan-campaigns-thriving-in-age-of-social-media-and-streaming\/","title":{"rendered":"Save our show fan campaigns thriving in age of social media and streaming"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The pickup happened amid a social media campaign featuring the hashtags #Save99 and #Renew99. (Pixabay Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2014 TV fans have gone to great lengths to save cancelled shows over the years \u2014 from the mass consumption of foot-long submarine sandwiches to the mailing of thousands of pounds of peanuts and heaps of hand-written letters.<\/p>\n

These days it seems such efforts are gaining more traction than ever, with social media and crowdfunding platforms giving a voice to fans, and streaming services providing new avenues for axed shows to live on.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the sitcom \u201cBrooklyn Nine-Nine\u201d returned for a sixth season after getting cancelled by Fox last May and then picked up by NBC just a day later. The pickup happened amid a social media campaign featuring the hashtags #Save99 and #Renew99.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s more instantaneous, your ability to affect that sort of change, because everyone has a voice, everyone has a platform,\u201d \u201cThis Is Us\u201d star Sterling K. Brown said in an interview last summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo big up to the fans of ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine.’ I got a chance to do an episode and so now hopefully, maybe I can do one more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other shows that have been resurrected in recent months include \u201cThe Expanse,\u201d \u201cDesignated Survivor,\u201d \u201cLast Man Standing\u201d and \u201cLucifer.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there are reasons beyond the power of fans and social media for the trend, says Toronto filmmaker Michael Sparaga, who looks at the history and evolution of such viewer-driven campaigns in the new documentary \u201cUnited We Fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out on DVD and VOD Tuesday, \u201cUnited We Fan\u201d profiles grassroots efforts to save shows \u2014 like when hordes of \u201cChuck\u201d lovers bought foot-long Subway sandwiches as part of an online campaign to convince the company to keep sponsoring the show, or the time \u201cJericho\u201d viewers sent large quantities of nuts to CBS and media outlets in a nod to the word \u201cnuts\u201d being said in the final episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs more streaming services start, like NBC is starting their streaming service, you’re going to see them look heavily at their catalogue of things they own the rights to,\u201d says Sparaga, whose film premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival last April.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you’ll see each network start to look through its library to get that initial boost of fans. Some will be revivals and some will be reboots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streaming services are hungry for established brands because they already have a built-in following and might lure in new subscribers who want to see their beloved characters, Sparaga says, pointing to \u201cStar Trek: Discovery\u201d on CBS All Access.<\/p>\n

Networks are also looking to shows of yore to hold on to viewers who still have cable, he adds.<\/p>\n

A slew of shows have made a comeback in the past couple of years and many more are either in development or rumoured to be, including \u201cVeronica Mars,\u201d \u201cCagney and Lacey,\u201d \u201cFrasier,\u201d \u201cMad About You,\u201d \u201cDesigning Women\u201d and \u201cThe 4400.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trend is happening in Canada, too, with a revival of CBC’s \u201cStreet Legal\u201d set to premiere March 4 \u2014 more than 20 years after the original series came to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I’m a production executive, I would be like, ‘Get me a TV Guide from 1995’ and I would sit there and be like, ‘Can we reboot this? Can we reboot this?\u201d’ Sparaga says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy stepmom is never going to give up her cable, because now ‘Murphy Brown’ is back and she heard that ‘Mad About You’ is coming back and ‘Designing Women’ and ‘Cagney and Lacey.’ … It’s just crazy how much they’ll throw at them to keep them from cutting the cord.\u201d<\/p>\n

TV stars say the revival trend underscores forceful changes in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s really exciting that you don’t need 16 million viewers necessarily and that a show can move to various different places and there aren’t just four networks anymore,\u201d says \u201cI Feel Bad\u201d star Paul Adelstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever underestimate the power of your fans and your viewers,\u201d adds \u201cAtlanta\u201d star Brian Tyree Henry, \u201cbecause the people will speak and the people will be heard no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while it seems fans have more power than ever to help their favourite network shows find new life, Sparaga says the same might not be true for shows that have exclusively been on streaming services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s so much material now, I think it’s hard to have a fan campaign for a streaming show,\u201d Sparaga says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love ‘Stranger Things’ and my friends love ‘Stranger Things’ but we certainly don’t talk about each individual episode, because we’re all watching it at different times. We just essentially recommend the show as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t have, like, a week to talk and think about the episode and just be on that show and wait for the next one \u2014 and that builds fandom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 TV fans have gone to great lengths to save cancelled shows over the years \u2014 from the mass …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":171728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","mauthors-victoria-ahearn","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}