Gservo
10th January 2003, 01:59 AM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT:
Julie Rayhanabad
Save Farscape
sfmedia@watchfarscape.com
http://www.watchfarscape.com
Los Angeles, CA - January 8, 2003 - For the last five months, Sci-Fi's doomed original series Farscape has been the focus of the largest fan campaign in television history. The series resumes this Friday, January 10th at 8pm ET/PT with the first of what could be its final eleven episodes and the fans are preparing to take the battle to the SciFi Channel. In September SciFi exercised an out clause, opting not to produce the promised fifth season of Farscape, they cited softening ratings and escalating production costs as the reason.
Rather than simply bemoaning the loss of their favorite show, and while acknowledging the economics behind cable television, fans have been utilizing the internet to immerse themselves in TV Business 101. Their hope is that by learning the intricacies of the entertainment industry, they can find a solution to the Farscape Problem. Pouring over ratings data, parent company quarterly reports, tracking press coverage and studying demographics and market trends, the fans concluded that their most effective strategy would be an aggressive, grassroots campaign to market Farscape to mainstream USA.
More than just letter writing
Looking remarkably like a political campaign, fans have done everything from airing TV commercials to handing out flyers and pamphlets on street corners. They mobilized and organized with a swiftness and resourcefulness that stunned the industry, and earned them immediate press attention from the likes of CNN Headline News and Wired.com. The media coverage, coupled with a series of ads appearing in early September in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, gave the campaign unexpected momentum. The Farscape Webmasters Association, an alliance of many of the largest Farscape fan sites, was formed in an attempt to harness that momentum by researching, informing, funding, supporting and organizing the fans and their ingenious projects that have been designed to attract new viewers to the show.
To fund its advertising projects, the international Save Farscape movement has raised in excess of $80,000. Projects currently being funded include ads in USA Today and the Hollywood Reporter, a second television commercial that organizers are hoping to run during primetime in several large markets, cooperative print ad and movie slide ad funding in major cities across the U.S., drive time radio commercials and Farscape merchandise prize packs, internet banner advertising, a traveling convention exhibit, and comprehensive campaign press kits.
While it's been amazingly innovative, the movement has also taken care to stay true to its fan campaign roots. Targeted letter writing to networks and advertisers has been an important part of maintaining the focus and drive of the operation. Strategists at the savefarscape.com website publish regular "To-Do" lists with suggestions and contact information for fans wanting to personally express themselves to the parties involved in Farscape's future.
6 Boxes
Fans realized early on that in order to save Farscape they were going to have to play by the television industry's rules. The Sci-Fi Channel says they cancelled Farscape because of a decline in viewership. Viewership means ratings and ratings means ad money and money makes the industry go. Series Executive Producer David Kemper boiled it all down to one simple number - six. That is the number of Nielsen households needed to boost the ratings to a golden 2.0. Six households out of five thousand national Nielsen households, out of 75 million households that get the Sci-Fi Channel. Since Nielsen families are by necessity anonymous, fans set out on a crusade to recruit any new viewers they could.
Getting six people to watch may seem like a simple thing, but according to a May 2002 report from Nielsen Media Research, Farscape's average ratings put it in the top 13% of all programs on ad supported cable and of the 4,610 programs counted, only 1.3% got a 2.0 or higher. Already a success by cable standards, have the fans exhaustive efforts to save the show been successful in pushing the ratings even higher? The final tally won't be known until after the last episode airs in March, but campaign participants, networks, and industry observers will get a first taste this Friday night of whether or not a grassroots campaign can effectively sell a television show to a new audience.
For more information Contact: sfmedia@watchfarscape.com
CONTACT:
Julie Rayhanabad
Save Farscape
sfmedia@watchfarscape.com
http://www.watchfarscape.com
Los Angeles, CA - January 8, 2003 - For the last five months, Sci-Fi's doomed original series Farscape has been the focus of the largest fan campaign in television history. The series resumes this Friday, January 10th at 8pm ET/PT with the first of what could be its final eleven episodes and the fans are preparing to take the battle to the SciFi Channel. In September SciFi exercised an out clause, opting not to produce the promised fifth season of Farscape, they cited softening ratings and escalating production costs as the reason.
Rather than simply bemoaning the loss of their favorite show, and while acknowledging the economics behind cable television, fans have been utilizing the internet to immerse themselves in TV Business 101. Their hope is that by learning the intricacies of the entertainment industry, they can find a solution to the Farscape Problem. Pouring over ratings data, parent company quarterly reports, tracking press coverage and studying demographics and market trends, the fans concluded that their most effective strategy would be an aggressive, grassroots campaign to market Farscape to mainstream USA.
More than just letter writing
Looking remarkably like a political campaign, fans have done everything from airing TV commercials to handing out flyers and pamphlets on street corners. They mobilized and organized with a swiftness and resourcefulness that stunned the industry, and earned them immediate press attention from the likes of CNN Headline News and Wired.com. The media coverage, coupled with a series of ads appearing in early September in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, gave the campaign unexpected momentum. The Farscape Webmasters Association, an alliance of many of the largest Farscape fan sites, was formed in an attempt to harness that momentum by researching, informing, funding, supporting and organizing the fans and their ingenious projects that have been designed to attract new viewers to the show.
To fund its advertising projects, the international Save Farscape movement has raised in excess of $80,000. Projects currently being funded include ads in USA Today and the Hollywood Reporter, a second television commercial that organizers are hoping to run during primetime in several large markets, cooperative print ad and movie slide ad funding in major cities across the U.S., drive time radio commercials and Farscape merchandise prize packs, internet banner advertising, a traveling convention exhibit, and comprehensive campaign press kits.
While it's been amazingly innovative, the movement has also taken care to stay true to its fan campaign roots. Targeted letter writing to networks and advertisers has been an important part of maintaining the focus and drive of the operation. Strategists at the savefarscape.com website publish regular "To-Do" lists with suggestions and contact information for fans wanting to personally express themselves to the parties involved in Farscape's future.
6 Boxes
Fans realized early on that in order to save Farscape they were going to have to play by the television industry's rules. The Sci-Fi Channel says they cancelled Farscape because of a decline in viewership. Viewership means ratings and ratings means ad money and money makes the industry go. Series Executive Producer David Kemper boiled it all down to one simple number - six. That is the number of Nielsen households needed to boost the ratings to a golden 2.0. Six households out of five thousand national Nielsen households, out of 75 million households that get the Sci-Fi Channel. Since Nielsen families are by necessity anonymous, fans set out on a crusade to recruit any new viewers they could.
Getting six people to watch may seem like a simple thing, but according to a May 2002 report from Nielsen Media Research, Farscape's average ratings put it in the top 13% of all programs on ad supported cable and of the 4,610 programs counted, only 1.3% got a 2.0 or higher. Already a success by cable standards, have the fans exhaustive efforts to save the show been successful in pushing the ratings even higher? The final tally won't be known until after the last episode airs in March, but campaign participants, networks, and industry observers will get a first taste this Friday night of whether or not a grassroots campaign can effectively sell a television show to a new audience.
For more information Contact: sfmedia@watchfarscape.com