This is an informal announcement -- something more formal will be along later.

I generally dislike "Save Our Show" campaigns. I find them to be misdirected and ineffective, with a few notable exceptions. Often the people involved don't understand the way that the television industry works, or they don't know that the cast and crew have moved on and don't really want to continue the show, or they simply don't care. They think that it's still 1968, and if enough letters arrive in the network's mailbox the show must be brought back.

Other campaigns in recent years, however, have taken their knowledge of the industry and the production to target just the right spots, just the right people, and have effected change. Under certain circumstances, fans can make a difference.

This week GateWorld is throwing its support behind the "Save Stargate SG-1" campaign, which we are headquartering at SaveStargateSG1.com. We are partnering in this campaign with Stargate SG-1 Solutions, a site that for years has widely been regarded as our competitor. We are currently looking for others to join the cause. Alison, the site's owner, and I believe that the campaign to save SG-1 will be made stronger by our sites, and others, joining together to present a united face -- and that fandom, by extension, will be better off for it.

We've decided to support the campaign because we have heard, both from Stargate Productions and from MGM, that they want SG-1 to continue. Our intent is to support the studio and their decision as to what is next for this story, whether it is an eleventh season on SCI FI, on another station, a TV movie, mini-series, feature film, or whatever. So, the campaign's exact goals may change as that develops.

At the very least, even if SCI FI's mind can't be changed, a visible and active campaign will demonstrate to potential future MGM partners (they are in negotiatons now) that Stargate SG-1 is not an aging show with a failing audience. The audience is large and voracious, and we will follow the team to their next stop!

Watch GateWorld in the coming weeks for more on the campaign, and please bookmark SaveStargateSG1.com. Strategy and direction is in the planning stages, but of course it is never too early to write to, fax, e-mail, and call SCI FI Channel to courteously express your dismay at the show's cancellation.

Write to:

Mark Stern
Executive Vice President Original Programming
NBC Universal | SCI FI Channel
30 Rockefeller Plaza,
New York, NY 10112

Bonnie Hammer
President
NBC Universal | SCI FI Channel
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112

Supporting the show by purchasing episodes of Stargate on iTunes will also help! GateWorld has set up an iTunes affiliate account, so you can support the show and this Web site at the same time. Episodes are $1.99 and a full season pass is $37.99 (U.S. only, sorry!). Look for those links to appear in the SG-1 Season Ten and Atlantis Season Three episode guides this week.

Thanks in advance for your support of "Save Stargate SG-1." Let's show the world that the show isn't done just yet!

Why would SCI FI Channel, which has heavily relied on Stargate SG-1 for five years (at one point using the show to make up something like 25 percent of its primetime programming), which has become a Top 10 cable network almost solely because of Stargate SG-1, and which still airs Stargate SG-1 as one of its highest-rated and best-known shows, cancel Stargate SG-1?

Let's pick the network executive's brain for a moment. Don't worry, it won't take long.

SCI FI doesn't want Stargate. In recent years SCI FI executives have publically expressed a desire to move the channel away from traditional, "space-based" science fiction programming. Unfortunately, this is a difficult move to make when your top three shows are Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and the critically acclaimed Battlestar Galactica -- all traditional, space-based series. Their number one show is even set on board a space ship.

Instead, SCI FI has been putting its development dollars into series and mini-series such as (look for the pattern):

The Triangle
Legend of Earthsea
Tremors: The Series
Painkiller Jane
Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King
Dragon Dynasty
Dragon Sword
Warehouse 13
The Lost Room
Ghost Hunters
The Dresden Files
Eureka
Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

And the list goes on. Did you see the pattern?

Rather than traditional science fiction, SCI FI wants to push toward the "fantasy" side of the genre -- perhaps even so far as to exit the science fiction genre entirely.

What? SCI FI Channel not doing sci-fi anymore?

In my analysis, that may be the network's ultimate goal. Following basic cable networks like Spike TV, I could see them gradually getting rid of traditional sci-fi programming and, a few years down the line, rebranding themselves. In fact, let's call it a prediction.

I believe SCI FI cancelled Stargate because, ultimately, they don't want it anymore. They don't want to be the kind of network that is known for an action-adventure space show with ships, ray guns, and special effects.

When a network has a show with falling ratings, they typically try something different with it -- especially if the show has a long, proven track record. They change time slots. They change nights. They advertise it off their own network. SCI FI made no efforts whatsover to combat the ratings freefall, even making the decision to cancel the show before the highly publicized two-hundredth episode had aired. That's really the evidence that they just don't want it any more.

Mark Stern, the network's executive VP of programming, this week told Variety that this "was not a ratings-driven decision. ... "We're actually going out on a high note." TVGuide.com confirms: "According to Sci Fi Channel original programming exec Mark Stern, one of the reasons the cabler canceled the venerable series was to make room for new shows, including The Dresden Files (think Jim Rockford as a wizard), which is currently being retooled and readied for a January premiere, and a complete revamping of Painkiller Jane, which ran as a Sci Fi movie last year."

The network is replacing a proven show that gets good ratings (when it is advertised) with new shows that may or may not succeed. That, to me, is proof that they no longer wish to be the network defined by Stargate -- regardless of its ratings performance.

Yes, it would be great if SCI FI could be convinced to keep Stargate around. But ultimately, it may no longer be the best long-term home for the franchise we love.

Stargate's ratings woes just got more grave, with the fourth week of new summer episodes earning ratings of 1.3 (Stargate SG-1) and 1.4 (Stargate Atlantis). Just when we thought the shows might climb slowly out of the premiere ratings hole, it takes two steps forward and slides back down.

All TV shows live and die by the Nielsen ratings (antiquated and imprecise though it may be), and now fans of the shows are legitimately questioning whether the hit show that kept being renewed every time the writers tried to wrap it up ... may actually be cancelled. In bitter irony, the actors are already signed for another year and there is a new story in the Ori that still needs to be finished. Yet Season Eleven, with these ratings, is far from secured.

Who is to blame? As I've recently said, there is plenty to go around. Sony and SCI FI didn't advertise much at all, counting on their bread-and-butter to bring in its established base so that they could spend their money elsewhere.

And viewers, plain and simple, didn't tune in.

Atlantis is still a young show; but is it the axe for Stargate SG-1? SCI FI's leadership may be weighing that right now, and where else would they turn for advice but to a dork with a Web site? So here is my advice to SCI FI Channel, upon whose word Stargate (and its fans, and producers, and writers, and actors, and crew, and marketers and publicists, and studio executives) hangs.

1. Consider a different time slot. We thought you might be crazy bumping the Stargates up an hour to give Galactica the anchor spot last year, but it worked. Now that they are back to 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., they have three things going against them:

• They have no lead-in. Eureka may appeal to that more casual viewer that you've lost. Shore up Friday before you try for a second night for drama.


• They have no lead-out. Yep, primetime gets started, people decide what station they are landing on at 8 p.m., and your two top shows are sitting alone out there at 9.


• Worst of all, they're now up against your sister network's top show. USA moved Monk from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. in July, it premiered a week ahead of Stargate, and it appeals to that older, female audience that used to tune into SG-1. No one expects you to get Monk-sized ratings, but come on -- it's one of cable's top shows, and its on your own sister network of all places.

2. Get out of the summer. Try airing your top shows during a season when American citizens watch more television. You started this "network counter-programming" strategy in the 1990s, when the major broadcast networks largely abandoned the summer months to reruns. It was a great plan, and you've come far. Now what is the state of summer television? Networks crank in weeks of original (mostly reality, but still draws a crowd) programming, while your cable brethren are putting out summer hits. You're already giving Battlestar Galactica a go this fall.

The competition may be hotter in the fall, but your potential audience is much larger.

3. Spend some money. Guess what happens when you don't spend money advertising your top two (currently airing) shows? "Legions of loyal viewers will remember to return on July 14!" No, 1.3 happens. It isn't rocket science. Ratings are swayed week-to-week by casual viewers, not us hardcore fans. Casual viewers need reminding and enticing.

4. Push the heck out of RDA. The new direction of the show, and the new cast members, are fantastic. I love 'em. But you've lost a lot of what I am guessing is that older, female-skewing demographic to shows like Monk. Richard Dean Anderson has always been a great draw to them, and your marketing efforts should emphasize his big return for the two-hundredth and a total of FIVE episodes.

5. Quit diluting your brand. Just because low-brow professional wrestling is a ratings sure-thing and has some overlap with the stereotypical sci-fi audience (M18-25) doesn't mean you have to air it. Just because NBC bought you doesn't mean you have to show a daytime soap opera (... or does it?). And a late-night talk show about something that isn't really sci-fi? Fans outside that demographic can tolerate a bit of Scare Tactics and ads (just the ads) for Tripping the Rift. But now you're going out of your way to isolate them.


SCI FI, you may believe that you have plenty of other wonderful, network-sustaining hits on your hands. Eureka is doing well after its first month (it's new and, hey, you advertised it). Battlestar Galactica slipped alongside Stargate, but it has buzz and critical acclaim to bolster it when the new season premieres in the fall. And you have a lot of new shows in development, of all shapes and sizes.

You also don't have a spectacular track record. Tremors: The Series. Dream Team. Black Scorpion. Anyone remember Welcome to Paradox? I didn't think so.

All in all, SCI FI, my advice to you is this: Be bold. Try something new and take some risks before you cancel the series that single-handedly made you a Top 10 cable network, risking it all on a craps shoot that Eureka will not fade away, and the same ratings nightmare couldn't possibly befall Battlestar Galactica. There is a lot of life left in this old gate. Just stop treating her like she's almost dead, and you might see what she can do.

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