Woot!

*programs Tivo*

That's great. I do enjoy Jericho.

Now if only there were a way to get NBC to renew Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I know it's a lost cause, but one can dream, can't they?

This is one of the most interesting and original shows I've seen in a long time...

Who cares? Why is this on Consumerist?

I think that this story has been so awesome that I may begin to watch the show just because of it. Or atleast leave one of my TVs on so they get better ratings.

cbs is brilliant. first, they got free nuts for afternoon snack time. second, they have guaranteed viewership and advertising dollars for next season. lastly, you the viewers are the reason they make money from advertising and now you're going to help them get more viewers and they don't even have to pay you.

@tonkyhonk: It's a followup from a story about a website where you buy nuts and bribe CBS with them. It's entertaining.

@Moosehawk: Unless you have a Nielson box on your TV (or a diary), leaving a TV on will not help. On another note, apparently neither the networks or their advertisers care if a show is Tivo'd. You'd think they would take that into consideration (unless they hate folks skippiing through the commercials).

I think this is a wonderful example of how viewers and companies can collaborate. The message CBS is sending is clear, we'll bankroll your fandom, but only if you scratch our backs a bit and stand on the streetcorners and preach the good word.

Unfortunately when it comes to good TV, most fans keep their preaching within the choir. Case in point: I'd never even heard of Joss Whedon's Firefly until years after it had been canceled and only a few months before the Serenity movie was released! I thought it was a great TV show, others obviously agreed, so where were the raving fans then?

Message to the fans: seriously, you guys need to hold your end of the bargain. Debating on the message boards, jericho websites, and TV forums doesn't qualify as spreading the love. CBS has deputized you as part of their marketing team so go out and make them proud.

If there are any fans of the show, why don't you pitch it to me, because nobody has really convinced me to watch it yet. :P

Stop stealing from other gawker blogs well after their posts. I must have read about this a month ago. Please work as a team gawker blogs. :)

@Hedgy2136:
Gotta tell you, as a Nielsen employee, that we DO track Tivo viewing (called TSV, or Time Shifted Viewing). Weather the broadcasting companies use it or not is up to them.

I'd rather they bring Firefly back.

@tonkyhonk:

Because this is actually a case of a large corporation bowing down to CONSUMERS.

Have to be honest... I watched the first two episodes and could not get into it, but I DO applaud the fact that you all were able to pull it back from the grave.

@something_amazing:

Here's what you need to know:

Small town, normal life, everyday farm stuff.

UNTIL

Multiple nuclear strikes across the US. No government, everything in shambles.

Also Contains: Secret CIA agents, wars between cities, surprisingly attractive people (for Kansas), a bar that runs on a generator that supplies power via alcohol.

Anything else?

Nah, no 'Jericho' for me. However, get me off the mower whenever 'America's Got Talent' is on! Boy, those jugglers are awesome spectacles to behold. And people who balance stuff on themselves! Television gold I tell you!

@zolielo: Actually, this announcement was just made. They agreed to put it back on a month ago, but now they have the date it's coming out.

Chill out, buddy. you ain't the Gawker Police here.

Screw this, I'm waiting to hear how my Mars bar purchase helped get Veronica back. Seriously.

I am very excited about this. I loved Jericho, it's one of my favorite new shows. I think CBS never really gave it a chance (they ran it against american idol.)
Of course, I'd also like to echo my sentiments that Firefly, the single best TV show I've seen in years, be renewed, we NEED more of that awesomeness.
Of course, with Family Guy, and now Jericho, I have new hope, it seems as though really good series are being given a second chance, after the executives make a boneheaded move.

I already gave this show one chance, and they lost me with the silly subplots. I'm not trying again, sorry Jericho fans.

When you look at all of the money, time, and effort spent on trying to keep this show on the air, I have to wonder if viewers really understand what keeps a show on the air.

ADVERTISING.

Instead of these stunts, how about the viewers BUY products form the advertisers, and more importantly, WRITE THE ADVERTISERS and tell them WHY the viewer is supporting their product???

50,000 pounds of peanuts + shipping? If each one of them had just bought soap or whatever was being advertised on the show, and then wrote the soap company to say that they purchased their soap specifically because they supported that show, there would have been guaranteed support of advertising, and thus keeping the show on the air.

Before someone replies with "networks cancel low-rated shows" my response is "because they can't guarantee advertising sales." If a company comes to the network saying "we want Tier 1 ads on this show" regardless of the ratings, the show stays on.

@hedgy2136

I totally agreed about Studio 60... it was great. :(

Great! But here's the problem, how are people going to know about the re-runs if CBS doesn't tel anyone? Networks do this all the time - they pull shows after they switch the times and no one knows when the show is on. grr

It's like Battlestar Galactica in Kansas.

It has the same flaws, too. (Spends too much time treading water, IMO)

There's a reason the show was cancelled to begin with. Don't wanna start "Jericho hatin", but if you have to get a blog to beg people to watch a show...

I tried really hard to watch and enjoy jericho in the first two episodes, but I'm sorry, it's slow and boring.

Anyone else notice how they made sure to put the 'nuts' line in the promo?

Seriously if the show was so good, why do these fans need other people to watch it?

Just keep spending your time and money to send in your nuts.

@Corydorf: Totally on board with Firefly. But after being burned by FOX not once but twice, it doesn't seem likely that Joss is coming back to television, at least not for a while.

We'll have to be content with the DVD set and the vague hope Joss may someday make shows for SciFi. :(

@Amsterdaam: I'm intrigued. Is it on DVD?

@exkon: "Seriously if the show was so good, why do these fans need other people to watch it?"

Some shows take a while to find purchase with fans, particularly if they're a little unusual in concept or execution (Friday Night Lights, say, or Arrested Development). Many of the most successful shows in the past started with tiny audiences but were given time to grow -- Cheers is a case in point. Heck, the Simpsons is a case in point.

But the networks aren't willing to give shows time to grow and develop anymore; if they don't pay off immediately, the network dumps it. It's why Scrubs is constantly on the bubble despite being one of the funniest things on network. (Scrubs also has suffered from the start from unreasonably high expectations -- NBC was disappointed the week of the PREMIER when it didn't hold on to the entire fan block from the Friends lead-in.)

Who's going to know if I watchit? I love the show, and happy it's renewed - finally. But how can I make a different if no one monitors my watching habits? Those ratings are educated guesses from a few thousand house holds.

@Eyebrows McGee: Oh gee thanks for bringing up Arrested Development. It always makes me cry.

Sorry Jericho fans. It's on CBS and I think Moonves is the devil.

@Amsterdaam: Sometime I confuse inside information with what I read on blogs. The date of future airings was known about two weeks ago.

Nevertheless, I would like for the Gawker blogs to move as one.

@tonkyhonk: Neeeerrrrrrds.

Seriously, though. If they're not getting the demographics/ratings their advertisers are looking for, all the dedicated "cult" fans in the world won't sway their hand.

@Eyebrows McGee: I'm not disagreeing with the majority of your point, but The Simpsons isn't a very good choice for an underdog that made it big. It was one of the most hyped new shows of its year and was an instant smash. It spawned some of the most crass merchandizing I've ever seen (surely someone else remembers the endless sea of "Don't Have A Cow, Man!" t-shirts, the lame Nintendo game, and the godawful song "Do the Bartman"!).

@something_amazing: Not yet, this whole fiasco took place towards what I would assume was the end of season 1. I believe you can view it online @ CBS.com however. If not, it's on Itunes for 1.99 each

@Hedgy2136: Sadly, yes. But for what it's worth, I agree with you.

(Studio 60 never should've been cancelled)

Oh man, it sounds like the TV version of the Fallout game series. I'm totally watching.

Why should I watch a show I don't care about? It got cancelled for a reason.

Hm. Now if I don't watch the show are they going to start sending ME thousands of pounds of nuts?

Never really got into Jericho when it aired (I think I watched maybe 3 shows). It was okay. Kind of reminded me of Red Dawn (I have no idea why).

In any case, it's better than "Lost" - talk about a show that should have ended 3 seasons ago...

Ah the power of nutty nerds.
Um, I tried to watch Jericho.
It was terrible.
So I stopped.
This is stupid. If you like the show, go ahead and watch it. But since viewership is in the toilet, one would think that CBS has the right (and they do) to cancel the show. Low ratings = low advertising dollars = cancelled show.
I liked firefly, and that went away.

I loved the Fox show "free ride" and that went away.
Big deal.
Time to sit and wonder what happened to your life when you care that much about advertising fodder enought to send nuts to a network.

Guess I'll have something to try and watch this summer...

To all the people who don't like the show: That's great, move along, there's nothing to see here.

I can't see how anyone could possibly say "get over it, you need a life" when these fans actually accomplished something. If you care about something, you should fight for it.

I also don't think is an aberration for people to care about a tv show. Humans love stories. They have throughout history and probably well before that. It's natural. People are willing to kill over stories from a book of mythology so sending some company 50,000lbs of nuts is, well, peanuts in comparison.

For non-nielson families out there, here's some things you can do:
-Recommend the show to your friends. In theory, you're never more than six people from a nielson family ;-)
-Watch Jericho on cbs.com. I imagine they track that.
-Buy the season on iTunes. This shows that there are people who like it enough to pay for it.

I bought it on iTunes (although, before I knew it was canceled). I don't have cable and my over-the-air reception sucks. Plus, I hate commercials.

Nope, CBS, not gonna, because I already wasted two hours of my limited life expectancy on this mediocrity and then fled.

after all consumerist has done for me. And given how crap-tacular generally summer tv is, sure, worth a watch.

but why on a friday? A kiss of death slot if there ever was one.

Give it a chance, not a chance to say 'I told you say'

I can't wait until they open the hatch...

oh wait.. this a poor man's Lost.

Nevermind

So, this works, huh? How much of what do I have to send to the Weather Channel to get them to re-run their footage of the last tornado in Texas? Wind, rain, stuff flying through the air--man, that show had EVERYTHING!

I put Jericho right up there with NCIS, the Guardian, CSI, Prison-break, and all the rest of that "let's scare the sh!t out of people so they'll turn to the government for guidance" TV. This kind of TV just perpetuates the "government knows best" attitude and allows them to further take away our civil liberties.

THERE IS A WAR GOING ON RIGHT NOW! Tens of thousands of civilians and over 3500 US service-people are dead already. We need better news coverage.

Take prime-time (9pm), scrap the dramas, and give us a good INTERNATIONAL news program. Not crappy local news about cats stuck up trees at 10 or 11pm.