See: Slashdot | Fans Attempting to Pay for Enterprise
What started of as a suggestion to pay for season 5 of Enterprise has actully snowballed into a project that no one has ever attempted before, that of getting fans to pay for the production costs of a tv series. It has brought on board a raft of people including lawyers. I wonder if the quoted $50 to $80 million is reachable.
I must say I got a good laugh out of this one. I think it is amazing that the fans of this show are starting a campaign to raise enough money to keep the show on the air. But even if they raise the money, I doubt the show will survive. Why? Let me explain.
Television shows exist to make the network money, the network makes money by selling advertising, advertisers pay money to the network to advertise on the show because the show is popular (has good ratings) and therefore has a large audience watching the advertisement. When a show gets pulled it is because its ratings are poor, and advertisers do not want to buy air time. There is not a network in the world that would put a show on the air (even if it was free) that was wasting valuable air time that could be sold to someone else.
So lets say the money is raised to purchase more episodes and the decision was made to circulate the episodes via the Internet or DVD, would an actor continue working for this show with zero growth potential, or are they going to put their resumes out and start looking for more work.
If you really want to save this show, get everyone you know to start watching it. With enough people watching the network will keep it on the air forever.