Comments on: Blogsight and How Fans Overestimate Their Importance

By: Adeptus

Adeptus — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:44:28 +0000

“Firefly DVD sales (like Serenity DVD sales) weren’t all that impressive”

Oh really?
Have a look at Amazon’s rankings.
Firefly is still #56 in DVD bestsellers, and Serenity is at #213.

(that’s across all categories of DVDs - if you divide it into genre, they get much higher - eg Serenity is #64 in Action/Adventure or #49 in SciFi/Fantasy; Firefly is #26 in TV or #16 in SciFi/Fantasy)

By: ksnake

ksnake — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:57:38 +0000

See, with Serenity, the deal was in the works before the Firefly DVD set was even released. It would likely have gone through even if no DVD set had been released for that series. And frankly, Firefly DVD sales (like Serenity DVD sales) weren’t all that impressive–except by the standard of low-rated TV shows, and flop movies. Particularly once you allow for the fact that a large percentage of the sales stemmed from the same small group of fanatics, buying them in bulk to give away to potential converts.

I think the problem here is less that we need to come up with better ways to promote our favorite shows than that we need better shows to obsess over, period. And we already have far better things to do with our money and spare time than to blow them on SOS campaigns that either don’t work, or that lead to brief disastrous revivals that underscore what should have been obvious in the first place–the more hardcore a fanbase, the less likely it is that their tastes will jibe with those of the mainstream audience.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:43:56 +0000

… also the NCAA basketball tournament is one of the most exciting sporting events of the year. Even non-fans tune in. So many people do brackets and are in various polls, the gambling factor alone increases the viewership considerably.

By: Rae

Rae — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:14:58 +0000

I agree, but want to add the corollary that while hardcore fans may not be the audience that can support a show, they - we - can develop better, more subtle forms of evangelizing to further develop the, um, “softcore” base and thus keep the shows/movies/whatever on the air/screen/page/etc, than we are using right now.

Frankly, I’m surprised that the nuts campaign worked, too. However, I was fully unsurprised that the “lots of people loved Firefly and went to extraordinary lengths for it! you should listen to them!” promotion for Serenity, mounted by the Universal marketing people, didn’t. Blogsight, indeed.

I think that neither we the fans nor they the marketers yet know how to use our enthusiasm most effectively. However, I don’t think that we’ve hit the ceiling of what’s possible for the hardcore fanbase to accomplish.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:14:33 +0000

I’ve edited the bit of the post that talked about DVD sales. I would guess that in Serenity’s case, DVD sales were used as evidence for the fanbase. Certainly Universal left the majority of marketing, whether by design or by default, to that fanbase.

It’s a truism that corporate decisions are made by corporate officers. Fans don’t decide what shows come back. But fans do influence that decision, and that’s where your cheerleader analogy breaks down. Fans are part of the group consuming the media and the eyeballs viewing ads. After the fan campaign, CBS can go to potential advertisers and say, “Here is part of your built-in audience for your adverts.”

By: ksnake

ksnake — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:04:33 +0000

1)Serenity didn’t happen because of Firefly DVD sales. Even Joss Whedon has said this. He made some good contacts at Universal, and he pitched the hell out of it, and Whedon’s rep was still riding high at the time, and now not so much. Honestly, the fans got a movie (that nobody else wanted), but what did Whedon get? Closure, and a career in comic books.

2)I’m not convinced the fan campaign for Jericho was the primary factor in its probably brief revival. I think they used the fan campaign to justify doing what they wanted to do anyway–top off the DVD package, while drastically lowering production costs. If the ratings go up, great–the show stays on. But they’ll probably drop (no McRaney), and that’s all she wrote.

When a show comes back, it’s all about what’s going on in the executive offices. The fans are sitting on the sidelines, throwing food.

You might as well give cheerleaders credit for winning ballgames. Most they do is psych up the team. But just as often, they end up distracting the players. Though probably these cheerleaders don’t look so good in short-skirted midriff-baring ensembles.

By: Lexy

Lexy — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 10:45:20 +0000

Serenity my not have made a splash with the box office, but people forget that it only had a fraction of the money and publicity that other films have put into them. The box office myay not have raked in the gold, but by the power of the fans the film is shown around the world on Joss’ birthday raising thousands for charity.

By: Geof F. Morris

Geof F. Morris — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:31:55 +0000

I’m stunned that the nuts thing worked. I’m also amused that CBS wants viewers to not time-shift the show. Say whuh? Okay, so that’s a sop to advertisers, but what advertiser backs a show with a tiny audience? I think the answers to that question are two-fold: someone on a budget, and someone in a niche. The former is likely to put together a forgettable—or regrettable [I'm looking at you, HeadOn]—advertisement, and the latter is the kind of ad the viewer will rewind to see.

Frankly, if I’m a broadcaster, I probably want the time-shifters, because of the anonymous data TiVo gives out on that niche audience. Maybe then I can go to those niche advertisers and say, “Folks that watch $show1 also watch $show2 on our network … let’s put together a deal.” Perhaps they don’t get that data from TiVo regularly, but they could mine it merely from using the device, and I think they’re complete idiots if they don’t do so.

I thought about sending Dawn Ostroff a Mars bar, but … I don’t think that she’s the problem at the CW. I think that she was one of VM’s bigger fans—okay, so Kari has influenced me as we’ve discussed this ;)—but that the suits are likely the people that killed it. And that’s their business decision—even if I think that it’s a bad one. [I don't see them coming up with shows for next season that will draw more fans than VM did.]