Saving Jericho: A Show and Its Community

Jane Sweat is the author of Jericho Monster, one of many blogs that helped an otherwise failing network show to become an internet sensation. With a dedicated fanbase and savvy social media use, Jericho became the fastest show cancellation reversal in history, thanks to YouTube, blogs, Ning communities, and MySpace and Facebook group support. In fact, Nielsen media has now chosen to monitor DVR usage and viewing habits to add to their metrics.

BB: CBS was going to cancel Jericho…why?

JS: Jericho premiered and received excellent ratings, around 11 million, until CBS put it on hiatus from November until February. Viewership dropped to 8-9 million when the show returned, due in part to the midseason break and going up against American Idol.

What CBS also did not consider until after the cancellation was the number of viewers who were watching Jericho online or using alternative methods of viewing (DVR, TiVo), which was largely ignored by Nielsen until after the cancellation.

BB: What was you role in the save Jericho campaign?

JS: I fell in love with Jericho as soon as I watched the pilot episode so I went to whodroppedthebombs.com, which was a message board for Jericho fans. This was how I learned Jericho had been canceled.

Once the campaign to save Jericho began I joined other fans in writing, calling, and emailing CBS to bring back Jericho. As time went on, I started my first blog called Jericho Monster, which was a name used by a corporate blogger in reference to the fans. He publishes under the name BoonDoggie.

BB: Why did you send nuts?

JS: It originated with character Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) borrowing the historic phrase in response to a final offer of surrender from New Bern, who was going to take over their town. Green remembered it from a story his grandfather told him about WWII. During the Battle of the Bulge, General Anthony C. McAuliffe gave that answer to a German demand for surrender in World War II.

It fit the show because that is how the town Jericho felt. It fit the fans because that is how we felt. Outnumbered and outgunned with very little chance to win.

So we used it and it started to have many meanings. CBS was nuts to cancel Jericho and because they continue to rely on Nielsen numbers. The nuts, for me, basically said we, the viewers, not only want Jericho back but we want you to see that Nielsen is not counting every person who watched the show. The numbers were there. They were nuts not to know it.

BB: How did you get the word out about the nuts?

JS: Fans wrote CNN, all the entertainment sites, and other news outlets. Most of us, at that time, didn’t realize that bloggers would be our greatest allies.

Once Michelle Malkin wrote about us the story began to spread like wildfire. (Thanks Boondoggie.) SciFy Michael joined in as did Rich Becker of Copywrite Ink. We thank all of them.

As these bloggers picked it up and Nuts Online organized nut shipping, the media started to listen. We had many efforts going all at once: a petition, nuts shipments, YouTube videos, forums to organizing people, Web sites, T-shirts, bumper stickers, a BlogTalkRadio show, paid advertising, and more. Almost too much to remember. It worked. We were covered by every major news outlet from Entertainment Weekly to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

BB: What was the end result of this effort?

JS: The end result was twofold:

1) CBS renewed Jericho and

2) CBS and Nielsen realized fans were watching online as well as saving shows on their DVRs.

They already knew this, but it made them move faster.

CBS is now expanding into the Internet at a faster pace and Nielsen now measures DVR usage and is trying to include more People Meters in more households.

The Jericho campaign was possibly the largest, absolutely the fastest show cancellation reversal in history.

BB: How did social media blogs, community groups, etc. help?

JS: They were a tremendous help at keeping people connected. As time went on, several forums were developed with different types of fan attracted to each. Originally, we considered the CBS forums … yes, CBS’s own forums … the front lines and Jericho Rally Point was our fall back position if we were kicked off CBS.

Every day, we would use the forums to launch operations. People who belonged to different groups, whether it was another forum, IMDB, or MySpace would post the daily orders so everyone could stay on the same page. Some fans converted their MySpace pages so they became Jericho fansites. Others started blogs or added forums like RadioFreeJericho. Ning was a helpful resource and BlogCatalog has been very effective in bringing more visitors/fans to all the Jericho blogs.

Since all of this was done in public, bloggers like Boondoggie at Find-The-Boots and Rich at Copywrite Ink could find content, make contact, and write about us. Those too even offered business and marketing ideas. Michael Hinman (SciFyPortal) and Maureen Ryan (Chicago Tribune) also helped spread the word by covering our efforts frequently.

BB: There are some serious Facebook groups dedicated to Jericho. What do you think about social networking and the shows fan base?

JS: I think social networking has been crucial in our efforts to find new viewers. Facebook is one of the many social networks we use. Many new fans have also been found on Hey!Nielsen. These are fans who may not use message boards or may prefer not to post.

Fans knew CBS gave us the responsibility of finding new viewers for Season 2 so we knew we had to reach as many people as possible on and off the Internet. Social networks are great because different people are interested in different things. Some only want to talk about the show and some want to jump in and help promote it. Others write fan fiction stories about it. There are whole sites dedicated to that.

BB: What’s next for Jane Sweat?

JS: What’s next for me is continuing to promote the Season 1 DVD, Season 2, and using all the tools available on the Internet (social networking, blogs, forums, etc.) to spread the word that Jericho has something for everyone to enjoy.