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Had you ever boycotted a TV or Cable Network for Cancelling your favorite show?

S

spencerkarter85

Had you ever boycotted a TV network or cable network for axing your favorite show you love so much? I've sort of boycotting TNT after they cancelled Memphis Beat with Jason Lee last year after airing for two seasons and total of 20 episodes. I've watched the show religiously when it was on. But when I've found out, I was a little mad.

I know many housewives boycotted ABC over the controversial cancellations of All My Children and One Life to Live last April for The Chew and The Revolution.

Had you ever boycotted a TV or cable network because they cancelled your favorite show you loved?
 
Yes. C(BS) for cancelling the Smothers Brothers.

Yes....a long time ago.

No.....I don't forgive easily.
 
I haven't completely boycotted them, but I haven't watched many shows on NBC in the past 20 years, even during their peak in the mid-'90s, because of the way they've handled "The Tonight Show" since Johnny Carson retired.
 
I haven't boycotted a network just because a favorite show of mine was cancelled. However if a network has too many shows not worth watching, then I don't watch that network. Right now, I almost never watch NBC, because I don't find any of the network shows interesting, & since my NBC station is an NBC O&O (WMAQ-TV), I don't even watch the local news (I watch the ABC O&O for that or WGN-TV), nor the syndicated shows (don't watch Nate Berkus, Ellen DeGeneres, Extra, or the late night talk shows, or Today, especially not the last hour with Kathi Lee & Hoda). The last time I even watch anything on NBC was during the 90's to maybe 2002.
 
I remember I tried to boycott the former Noggin network for cancelling their wee hours block of retro programming, consisting of Sesame Street Unpaved (that's what they called their reruns of classic Sesame Street episodes from the 1970s and 80s), The Electric Company (original), and 3-2-1 Contact. I remember speaking with the program director on the phone, and I had an online petition going, and I'd ask everyone I knew to sign it, but people tried to convince me that it just wouldn't work. Do companies ever pay attention to online petitions?
 
es. C(BS) for cancelling the Smothers Brothers.

Yes....a long time ago.

I am old enough to remember that incident. A lot of angry letters and phone calls to CBS, but nothing worked. Maybe now days with Facebook etc. an attempted boycott would work.
 
I would not call it a "boycott", but I have not watched WGN America for quite some time.

I quit watching when they dropped showings of the Canadian sitcom Corner Gas.
But that was part of an overall shift in their programming strategy. And I think their
new strategy overall is just not to my liking. It was never a boycott over one particular
show.
 
The 1969 CBS cancellation of Smothers Brothers because the show was controversial in the day. Hee Haw replaced them in June. But two years latter, the latter went into first-run syndication (thanks to Fred Silverman's Rural Purge).

Some petitions work, some don't.
 
Like some have mentioned here, I wouldn't call it a boycott, but I don't and won't watch Sci-Fi after they canned Mystery Science Theatre 3000. And then when they changed the name over to SyFy, I have more of a reason not to watch them.
 
ssetta said:
I remember I tried to boycott the former Noggin network for cancelling their wee hours block of retro programming, consisting of Sesame Street Unpaved (that's what they called their reruns of classic Sesame Street episodes from the 1970s and 80s), The Electric Company (original), and 3-2-1 Contact. I remember speaking with the program director on the phone, and I had an online petition going, and I'd ask everyone I knew to sign it, but people tried to convince me that it just wouldn't work. Do companies ever pay attention to online petitions?
Click to expand...

Does anyone take any petitions seriously? Many trolls sign those with fake names
 
"I quit watching when they dropped showings of the Canadian sitcom Corner Gas."

That actually wasn't WGN America's fault. Corner Gas just went out of production after a half dozen seasons on Canada's CTV network. They did 107 episodes between 2004 and 2009, and that was that. Could have gone on, but Brent Butt, the star/creator/producer, thought it had creatively run out of gas (pun intended). He went on to do another comedy series for CTV, Hiccups, which hasn't been seen in the US yet (and which is on hiatus after two seasons, maybe to return, maybe not).

Lots of networks take a pounding when a key show shuts down of its own accord or a key star walks away. CBS struggled after its best sitcoms of the 70s (All In The Family, Mary Tyler Moore, MASH and Newhart) all faded from the scene between 1977 and 1982. ABC took a hit after Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, which helped it to the top in the mid-70s, faded about a decade later. Each of those networks eventually recovered. The biggest example, and the one example of a depature that wounded a network long-term so much it is still struggling over a decade later, is what has happened to NBC since the end of the 90s after Jerry Seinfeld pulled the plug on his super-hit sitcom. NBC's parent company GE tried so hard to convince Jerry to do just one final tenth (1998-99) season, they offered him and co-creator Larry David each $110 million in cash, plus stock and a seat for each man on the GE board of directors, not to mention boatloads of cash to his three on-air co-stars. They decided no--saying they had maybe a half season's worth of good episode ideas left at most, and (maybe thinking of longterm syndication values, which have made each of them billionaires) believed it's better to leave a half-season too soon than a season too late after the creative tank's empty and showing it. NBC for its part was hoping Seinfeld would buy the network enough time to develop another killer sitcom...and maybe attract and encourage more creative talent to give the network a shot.

NBC has never been the same since, and that's one reason GE bailed out and sold the network off to Comcast.
 
I stopped watching WGN for the most part when they dropped Corner Gas and Out of Sight Retro Nights, but I wouldn't really call it a boycott. They just don't have much programming I'm interested in now.
 
Bob1370 said:
"I quit watching when they dropped showings of the Canadian sitcom Corner Gas."

That actually wasn't WGN America's fault. Corner Gas just went out of production after a half dozen seasons on Canada's CTV network. They did 107 episodes between 2004 and 2009, and that was that. Could have gone on, but Brent Butt, the star/creator/producer, thought it had creatively run out of gas (pun intended).
Click to expand...

I don't believe WGN America has shown the entire run of "Corner Gas" -- I think they only showed it for one season (2008-2009), then dropped it from their schedule. Even though the show was syndicated by an American company (Multi-Platform Distribution Company), I don't know if the series was seen on other US stations.
 
nomadcowatbk said:
ssetta said:
I remember I tried to boycott the former Noggin network for cancelling their wee hours block of retro programming, consisting of Sesame Street Unpaved (that's what they called their reruns of classic Sesame Street episodes from the 1970s and 80s), The Electric Company (original), and 3-2-1 Contact. I remember speaking with the program director on the phone, and I had an online petition going, and I'd ask everyone I knew to sign it, but people tried to convince me that it just wouldn't work. Do companies ever pay attention to online petitions?
Click to expand...

Does anyone take any petitions seriously? Many trolls sign those with fake names
Click to expand...

Online petitions are practically a dime-a-dozen, and they do little, if at all, to influence the programmers and CEOs of a network. Best off conducting a snail-mail campaign -- they seem to be even more effective.
 
The only real "boycott" of television I have ever seen was back in the 70's when my
mother and other members of our Church tried to organize a boycott of CBS.

It was over that episode of Maude where she has an abortion. Ironically enough,
during the "boycott" they actually watched Maude more than they ever did before
(in order to write down the names of all the sponsors so that they could then write
letters asking them to drop the show). I don't recall that they had any effect.
 
I was fuming mad when The Disney Channel dropped the overnight showings of Vault Disney. As an aging Baby Boomer, I love that stuff.

Boycotts don't work 99% of the time. I wrote them a snail mail letter and I did get a nice, tactful reply in which the lady wrote that they got many complaints like mine, but that an executive decision had been made, and was being stuck to. She recommended Disney Home Video to me, and you know, there is plenty available there. Not to mention things like YouTube.

As a lifelong night owl, there was just something comforting about the Mickey Mouse Club theme being sung at 3am.

Donald Duck! Donald Duck!
 
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