It has been ten months since Lifetime announced the cancellation of their supernatural drama Witches of East End following its second season, but the fans have not given up on the show yet. A passionate campaign has been ongoing since that time trying to convince Netflix or one of the other streaming services (or one of the cable networks) to pick up the show for another season. There has been no movement as yet, but all hope is not lost because Lifetime changed its mind on the cancellation of Drop Dead Diva a few years back. And at this point perhaps it makes sense to offer another option to make it more attractive to Lifetime (or another network/streaming service) to bring the show back.
I have floated the idea previously about pre-funding a television series using a crowd-funding type approach. I go into this in more detail at this link, but the basic idea is that people would buy subscriptions to an upcoming season based on a set price per episode and number of episodes per season. The network/studio/production company would establish the minimum number of subscriptions to be sold in order for them to greenlight a season, and if that threshold is achieved then the subscribers would be charged and production would move forward on new episodes.
So the question to Witches of East End fans is what amount would you be willing to pay per episode to pre-fund a fourth season (based on the assumption that the season order would be eight to ten episodes)? Vote below and I will be sharing this information with Lifetime, FOX 21 (the show’s studio), the streaming services, and more. I believe that this is a much more viable means of saving a show from cancellation than the typical fan-rage “Save My Show” campaign because it addresses the bottom dollar and gets the fans directly involved with financially supporting the show. This could establish a whole new paradigm for television production, or at least a viable alternative to the old model, and your votes will be crucial to establishing a baseline for what fans would be willing to pay to keep their shows going.
It is important to note that this is in no way an official initiative and the studio, network, and production company have no involvement at this point. But strong outpouring of support from the fans could convince them to consider this option, so be sure to vote and pass along the information about this poll. (Also vote on whether you would pay to pre-fund more seasons of Hannibal and/or Haven).
I would pay up to 4 an episode