Jericho (CBS) RENEWED!! [Archive]

Lilaena De'Ville

Jun 7th, 2007, 08:57:37 PM

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20070606cbs01

To the Fans of Jericho:
Wow!
Over the past few weeks you have put forth an impressive and probably unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime time television series. You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard.

As a result, CBS has ordered seven episodes of "Jericho" for mid-season next year. In success, there is the potential for more. But, for there to be more "Jericho," we will need more viewers.

A loyal and passionate community has clearly formed around the show. But that community needs to grow. It needs to grow on the CBS Television Network, as well as on the many digital platforms where we make the show available.

We will count on you to rally around the show, to recruit new viewers with the same grass-roots energy, intensity and volume you have displayed in recent weeks.

At this time, I cannot tell you the specific date or time period that "Jericho" will return to our schedule. However, in the interim, we are working on several initiatives to help introduce the show to new audiences. This includes re-broadcasting "Jericho" on CBS this summer, streaming episodes and clips from these episodes across the CBS Audience Network (online), releasing the first season DVD on September 25 and continuing the story of Jericho in the digital world until the new episodes return. We will let you know specifics when we have them so you can pass them on.

On behalf of everyone at CBS, thank you for expressing your support of "Jericho" in such an extraordinary manner. Your protest was creative, sustained and very thoughtful and respectful in tone. You made a difference.

Sincerely,
Nina Tassler
President, CBS Entertainment

JERICHO IS COMING BACK!!!!!

Seven episodes for mid-season. Depending on how successful they are there will be more, or not.

Please please, watch this show*. It is so great. :crack

*or I will ban you+

+ just kidding. Maybe.

Lilaena De'Ville

Jun 11th, 2007, 06:28:29 PM

More about this historic? renewing of a TV show shot dead by a network from the <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/arts/television/09jeri.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2>New York Times</a>:

LOS ANGELES, June 8 — The resurrection of “Jericho” after its cancellation by CBS reflected the efforts of thousands of fans who, because they regularly viewed the show on the Internet or through other nontraditional, on-demand formats, might not have been counted in the familiar Nielsen television ratings.

For them, CBS now has a message: Please watch “Jericho” on broadcast television.

Because CBS finances its shows based on measures of viewership of regularly scheduled broadcasts, “it’s of primary importance,” Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment, said in an interview.

“We want them to watch on Wednesday at 8 o’clock,” or whenever CBS schedules the return of the series later this year, Ms. Tassler said. “And we need them to recruit new viewers who are going to watch the broadcast.”

Changing the viewing habits of its most fervent fans could be a difficult task for the network. After “Jericho” received an initially tepid response from television critics last fall, CBS began a concerted effort to promote it to younger audiences who watch online.

The network screened the pilot episode at the annual Comic-Con convention in San Diego, set up an elaborate Web site and message board for fans of the show, and sponsored visits to the set by bloggers who were writing about “Jericho” and its edge-of-the-apocalypse setting.

Those efforts apparently paid off even more than CBS executives knew. In considering the network’s potential fall lineup last month, CBS decided that the 7.7 million viewers who tuned in to the season finale — down from an estimated 11.6 million eight months earlier, according to Nielsen Media Research — were not enough to justify its continuation for a second season.

So when outraged fans of the show began contacting CBS en masse, the network’s executives were initially unsure where they were coming from.

Within days of the cancellation announcement, which was made just before the network’s May 16 presentation of its new fall schedule to advertisers in New York, so many calls were coming in to the office of Kelly Kahl, the network’s chief of scheduling, that he had to change his phone number, forwarding his original line to the CBS audience-services department.

Those calls were followed by a deluge of roasted nuts, an estimated 25 tons of them, sent by fans of “Jericho” in echo of the “Nuts!” response of the show’s main character, Jake Green, to a suggestion of surrender in the season finale. (That, of course, was a reference to Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe’s response to the German demand for surrender at the Battle of the Bulge.)

By Memorial Day weekend, CBS executives were frantically exchanging e-mail messages about the letters, calls and nuts from the program’s demonstrative fan base. The following week, during the meeting of the network’s affiliate stations in Las Vegas, the executives received a detailed report on the relatively high rate at which “Jericho” fans recorded the show for later playback.

“That made us take a second look,” Ms. Tassler said.

That report, produced by David Poltrack, the network’s head of research, showed that an estimated 700,000 households — roughly 8 percent of the audience that watched the show live — recorded “Jericho” for later viewing.

“We knew that the only shows that had higher levels of recording — like ‘Lost,’ ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘C.S.I.’ — had significantly higher overall audiences,” Mr. Poltrack said.

“Jericho” also ranked high in the number of people who watched it on CBS’s Web site, Mr. Poltrack said. Among shows in their first season, he added, only NBC’s “Heroes” and ABC’s “Ugly Betty” ranked higher among online viewers — and both of those shows were renewed.

“Clearly there was an audience of people who were making time to watch the show however they could,” Mr. Poltrack said.

On Monday, CBS executives — including Ms. Tassler; Leslie Moonves, the network’s chairman and chief executive; Nancy Tellem, who oversees its television group; and Quincy Smith, who oversees its online operations — began discussing possible ways to bring “Jericho” back.
On Monday night, Skeet Ulrich, who plays Jake Green, received news that CBS wanted to continue the series. “I felt a little like a jilted lover whose ex says, ‘Never mind, I want you back,’ ” he said. “It was definitely a mixed bag of emotions.”

Mr. Ulrich quickly began contacting other cast members, including Kenneth Mitchell and Alicia Coppola, and they called Lennie James, who plays Rob Hawkins in the show, in Britain, where it was already Tuesday morning.

By Wednesday, most of the actors and producers had committed to returning to the show, and CBS announced that it was reviving “Jericho.” Carol Barbee, an executive producer, had agreed to remain as the show’s lead executive producer, also known as the show runner, even though she had been contracted to fill the same role on “Swingtown,” a show that CBS had ordered for a midseason debut.

“Swingtown” had even been planned to take over the soundstage used by “Jericho” in Van Nuys, Calif. But CBS Paramount Television, the studio that produces both programs, agreed to let “Jericho” record its seven new episodes beginning in July, then rebuild the set for the production of “Swingtown,” Ms. Barbee said.

Some concessions had to be made. One person involved in the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that “Jericho” would probably have less money per episode available for shooting extensive scenes on location, outside the studio, or for extended story lines with nonregular cast members.

“Jericho” is not the first series to be revived after its apparent death. CBS itself canceled “Cagney & Lacey,” a series about two female police detectives, after the 1982-83 season, but reversed course after hearing protests from thousands of fans. The show went on to win the Emmy Award for outstanding drama series in 1985 and 1986.

Mr. James, the actor, said he believed the revival of “Jericho” would cement the idea that the traditional Nielsen ratings “are going to become a more and more old-fashioned notion of monitoring television.”

CBS executives, however, are not so certain. Ms. Tassler’s message was more of forming “a marketing partnership” with online viewers and fans who record the show, one that would result in their “bringing more eyeballs to the network” and its traditional broadcasts.

I didn't even know about the nuts campaign, incredible turn out by fans to send that many to the network! :lol

However what really should happen is that networks need to judge viewership through DVR recordings and online viewers, not just the awfully outdated Nielsen ratings. Telling us that we need to watch it on Wednesdays at 8 pm is a little hard to do, especially when they courted online viewers by playing their episodes online.