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Vote to save your favorite shows
Source: USA Today; April 8, 2002
By Gary Levin - USA Today

The polls are open.

USA TODAY's fifth annual Save Our Shows survey asks viewers to weigh in on which of 24 series currently hovering "on the bubble" between renewal and cancellation should win a reprieve, and which should bid a quiet farewell. Vote online or with the mail-in ballot (on 4D of our newspaper Monday, April 8) by April 22.

On this year's list are several onetime hits now struggling in their older age: Spin City, Touched by an Angel, Providence, Ally McBeal. Some are newer midseason shows yet to fully measure viewer interest.

And the rest are typical middling performers — Dark Angel, Titus, Philly and The Agency — whose futures depend largely on how good the pilots for potential replacements turn out.

Last year's bubble-show ballot contained few series that viewers rallied to save, unlike Sports Night and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and virtually every sci-fi show in past years. (The show most heavily supported in 2001, by 44% of the respondents, was WB's Roswell. It returned on UPN, but is on this year's "canceled" list.)

Nevertheless, a record 38,415 readers voted last year. Of the 18 shows listed, five returned this season, but their reprieves proved fleeting: All will be gone by next fall.

Of course, viewer votes are just one of many criteria used by the networks to evaluate prospects for on-the-bubble series. More important are their ratings performance in the last (and crucial) weeks of the season, their ability to hold onto the audience of their lead-in shows, and the quality of the replacement candidates.

Each network's needs vary. ABC will replace a large portion of its lagging
schedule, while NBC has relatively few holes to plug. Fox has the most series on the ballot, with seven, although an eighth — the critically acclaimed 24 — is now virtually assured of renewal.

On the other hand, Dharma & Greg, Felicity, Once and Again and The X-Files will end their runs next month, all victims of ratings woes.

Reference: http://www.usatoday.com/life/enter/tv/2002/2002-04-08-save-our-shows.htm