Want To Run A Campaign? Then Don't Do This

Every once in a great while, you'll open up SyFy Portal and see us talking about some fan campaign somewhere. It could be efforts to bring closure to "Farscape," or some fleeting attempt to give us more Star Trek, or even Clay Aiken single-handedly saving "Jericho." From time to time, we'll see some campaign newsworthy enough to deserve a mention in a news story or column somewhere, and we'll do it.

While we might mention our fair share of fan campaigns, we don't even touch the tip of the iceberg on everything out there. Believe it or not, almost every show that didn't return this past season has some type of fan campaign trying to resurrect it, and after the stunning success of "Jericho" fans, these campaigns have become more emboldened, and feel that they have a real shot to succeed, when in reality, they don't have a chance in hell.

I'm sorry, but 99 percent of the time, if your show got cancelled, there was probably a good reason. Fans, in their frustration, want to cite conspiracies or just prejudice against fandom, but in almost every case, the main factor leading toward cancellation goes to one simple thing: not enough people were watching the show in the first place.

Does that mean that networks always make the right call in cancelling a show? Definitely not. For instance, I understand why SciFi Channel head Bonnie Hammer pulled the plug on "Farscape," and to this day, I still don't feel it was the best decision. But ratings were down, and it got to the point where the network didn't like where the bottom line was headed and decided to do something about it.

And that's what it is in the end, the bottom line. I mean, the word "business" exists in "showbusiness" for a reason, and it's money that keeps these things going.

Yes, I know that it should be about the art and such, but culture never paid the bills, and when it does, then we can get up on our soapbox and breach about the art.

A few years back, I had the honor of interviewing the mother of all fan campaigns, Bjo Trimble. She was the woman who organized the campaign that brought back "Star Trek" for a third season on NBC before there was any such thing as the Internet, or even motorized vehicles (OK, maybe there were motorized vehicles, but you know what I mean). During the course of this interview, I asked Bjo for some advice in putting together fan campaigns, and here is a sampling of what she told me, and also what I have witnessed myself over the years in seeing these campaigns come and go.

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