Mars Tweets! And Fans Respond, With Their Wallets - Don Seaman-TVB

Now that Kristen Bell Rob Thomas and the entire Veronica Mars universe have learned just what a mobilized fanbase can do for a TV franchise are we looking at the gestational period of a new world order of posttelevision crowdsourcingThis represents an evolution for quotSave Our Showquot campaigns amp8211 viewers are putting their money where their remotes are In the past Jericho fans famously sent 50000 selfreferential pounds of peanuts to CBS in support of the show Roswell fans sent bottles of Tabasco sauce to the WB and Subway was the corporate benefactor of motivated Chuck fansBut powers behind Veronica Mars took things to another level when they began dialogue via Twitter that they might be able to make a bigscreen version thanks to a provisional distribution deal All they needed to do was raise 2 million in 30 days and they might be able to revive the cult CWUPN hitIt took less than 12 hoursThomas and Bell were wise to realize that they had an untapped resource at hand in social media Here it was six years later and this show that that sported a small yet devoted audience when it was on a young network was able to raise over two million dollars in half a dayThis just reinforces Nielsen39s findings of the symbiotic relationship between television and Twitter Clearly television resonates with fans well beyond cancellation the media life of a program can last well beyond its broadcast life And now social media has all but obliterated the offscreen quotFourth Wallquot between the shows and their fans Fans are invested emotionally and thanks to the power of social media they39re willing to invest financially as wellCrowd funding combines today39s culture of social activism social media and pop culture Veronica Mars represents a unique proposition amp8211 a quality show with fanatical audience a strong use of social media not only by the demographic but also of the principals of the show the first opportunity for many of the core demo to scratch the itch of nostalgia and untested good faithUltimately success has as much to do with scale as it does with devotion During its final season on the CW Veronica Mars was delivering a solid 24 LiveSame Day rating with both their Female Teens and W1824 targets so the core audience was there But social media of 2007 wasn39t what it is today Where once it would be enough for fans to inundate the offices of the CW with millions of Mars bars amp8211 quotat least we39ve told them how strongly we feel about thisamp8230quot amp8211 now fans are able to up the anteNow they send their dollars with the hope that it will be enough to seed the production costs Could this be the rise of quotthe motivated viewerquotJust ask Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell about fans of broadcast programs If you watch it amp8211 and tweet it amp8211 they will comeDon Seaman joined the TVB in January 2012 as Manager of Marketing Communications where he is responsible for promoting and raising awareness of the TVB and of Local Broadcast Televisionamp8217s value propositions within the traditional and digital media industries Don can be reached at dontvborgRead all Don39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Local MattersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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