The odds may be long and time may be short, but people are taking notice. I received a call yesterday from an old friend who has put me in touch with some interested parties. Although a positive development, one of the biggest hurdles we now face is the various pre-existing deals that complicate matters. For example, after ABC cancelled Agent Carter, there was a push for Netflix to pick it up, but one of the reasons they ultimately didn’t was because of the pre-existing deals:
“Netflix also tries to own and distribute its titles worldwide, releasing seasons globally and simultaneously, and the structure of Marvel’s existing international deals for Agent Carter made that tricky. “They also have some output deal complexities,” he adds. “So when you pick it up, being able to pick it up globally is difficult even after it’s canceled. Some of those output partners still had it on the air, so they would argue its covered by their output [deals]. Unfortunately, it was a business decision more than a creative one.”
Agent Carter: Netflix explains why they didn’t save it
Dark Matter’s is as a somewhat different scenario, yet no less tricky. But it’s still not going to stop us from trying to make this work! So at your battle stations!
The Dark Council wanted me to inform you that everyone is invited tonight’s dry run of this Friday’s tweet storm.
Join us on twitter at 9 pm EST/6 pm PST when the secret hashtag will be revealed. Make sure you’re following @DarkMatterFTL for the latest updates!
Don’t use any other hashtag in your tweet.
If we trend tonight, in tomorrow’s blog I’ll reveal a few more teasers as to what we have planned for the first few episodes of Dark Matter’s fourth season!
Hey, here’s an interesting article:
Millennials watch more time-shifted content than live TV
But we already knew that as Dark Matter was making anywhere from 200 – 300% gains in the key demo over its last few weeks, leading the cable pack!
Factor in these time-shifted viewers and Dark Matter was actually the #1 SCIFI show on the “syfy channel” in the KEY DEMO AND OVERALL VIEWERS!
I repeat, Dark Matter was THE #1 SCIFI SHOW ON “THE SYFY CHANNEL” IN THE KEY DEMO AND OVERALL VIEWERS!
This amazing accomplishment and $8.50 will apparently get you a cheese sandwich at the commissary.
I’m ready to get stormin’! If nothing else comes of all this, at least we can say we didn’t give up without a fight.
That last line just about says it all. 🙁
I will report for duty tonight as ordered Sir.
The fight for the Raza continues. @DarkMatterFTL
Best Rally post ev3r.
SIR! Yes SIR !
d:•)
Thanks for working so hard on this Mr. M.! You’ve mentioned other projects you’ve been juggling. So thanks for not moving on just yet.
I’ll be there tonight. I’ll take an arthritis pill, so my re-tweet finger will be functional. 😉
Has anyone evacuated because of Irma yet?
I won’t be able to participate but I wish you all the best. I’m cheering you on 😊
I would think the 200-300% increase in time-shifted viewings looks appealing to streaming services.
Ummm…. #RIPDARKMATER #bring back stargate should be the way to go lol
The for it in Australia is 11 am in New Zealand it’s 1pm
To really get things moving, I’d suggest prises for the most prolific tweeters. Just a thought.
During the dry run, it’s 4 AM where I’m right now, but I’ll stay up and tweet.
Bad news-good news. The important lesson here is how deals are structured in the future. Looks like a rough learning experience, but i am sure on future projects there will be iron clad deal with escapes and opportunities! Right now the main mission is to save the crew of the Raza ! Well need to finish thos amazing story.
Yep. We already knew Dark Matter was #1 in ‘over all’ viewers on SYFY. Why do you think we were all so damned frigin’ pissed off initially and why I decided to dig a bit deeper into looking at other financial factors, that apparently go into the decision making at a tv network that relies on live viewing advertisers.
Seems to me a marriage between Dark Matter & @Netflix would be an absolutely perfect solution. Its the network that lets people watch ‘What they want, Whenever they want’.
Which makes it perfect for 21st century viewers everywhere!
Netflix stands to gain an enormous $$$$$$$$ profit $$$$$$$$ and then some from taking on DM’s built in massive loyal global audience!
GO TEAM RAZA & Dark Committee!!
xo We CAN DO THIS! xo
I’ll buy the most prolific tweeter a beer – pick up only #EnjoyTheJourney!
Even though the circumstances are sad I’m finding the business behind the scenes stories fascinating! I’ve always been interested in the business side of TV and movie production. The amount of politics and wrangling involved is immense! Most people don’t realise what goes on just to get a show greenlit.
Thanks for your efforts, Joe!
Randomly reading comments on DM (hoping it got picked up by Netflix) & ran across yours. A long time ago, I knew a guy who used Linenoise. His name was Bxxxx & he hung out with a bunch of us in a newsgroup we called the underground. If that’s you, by some wonderful cosmic chance, email me!
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!
#ItsBubbaTime!!!
Rally the Raza troops!!
Okay. I tried tweeting. Now I’m exhausted. Were we suppose to use @DarkMatterFTL, #ItsBubbaTime, or #DarkMatter?? One of them or all of them or what? There are no small kids in my house to ask and Donald Trump wouldn’t answer. It seemed all over the place.
A tweeting novice
Ponytail, you will want to tweet the hashtag announced by @DarkMatterFTL each day. Tweet a picture, gif, or just some text. Tweet only the unique hashtag. And please watch Dark Matter on Friday at 9PM EDT.
Watching is now optional. We went back and forth about that. If it helps to spur some tweets for you, go for it. There won’t be a coordinated effort on that now.
@Ponytail – for tonight (wed) only – we were to use (hashtag#) #ItsBubbaTime. According to Thogar, CAN use @ (not hashtag) @Netflix.
Not clear if we will do this on Thursday night as well. If we do it will be another hashtag item. And, on Friday – the regular DarkMatter nite we would use a different hashtag item.
IF…I am wrong, somebody please correct me.
You are not alone with that one, Ponytail!
It’s a steep learning curve – all this social media stuff has me feeling like a rabbit caught in headlights!
But hey ho, be bold and ride the wild wind!
I can help anyone who needs help. Okay, we’re doing “dress rehearsals” this past Tuesday, yesterday, and tonight. Tomorrow night we are going to consider the “show.” Last night we managed to trend in Canada and Australia. The only thing that trended higher was a paid-for-promoted spot. So technically we were number one. LOL.
We are releasing the hashtag to use tonight (which you can see on the twitter account because we will pin it. We would like for people to use @Netflix in their tweet and the words Dark Matter (with NO hashtag and for you typing-madmen posters you’ll have to slow down on that so you don’t have the hashtag.
We are doing this because we know what Twitter is looking for — a unique hashtag. If we used #DarkMatter or #TeamRaza it isn’t going to trend because it has been so overused at this point — what we call “burned out”.
We were releasing them 30 minutes before so no one broke the rule of not using it until “start time” but everyone has done great these past two nights that we are going to release it an hour earlier so that it gives time for people to find pictures (and they don’t need to be Dark Matter pictures–be creative– look at some of the “tweets & replies” to see what some people were doing to get an idea. Sometimes a question will be asked to guide the people who are stumped, like “Who handles Bubba better, Three or Five?” People would respond and add the hashtag so it counts for the trend.
If you are creative, make pictures, create GIFs if you know how (I don’t) and add them. They apparently count for more in the trending curve.
We are definitely doing this tonight, tomorrow, and Monday night for sure. Weekend is a break because we all have other things we have to do.
If you get super stumped, just do a search for the hashtag at the top of the Twitter thing. Type in, for example, last night’s #ItsBubbaTime and you’ll see every single person who has tweeted something about it. Go to that tweet and just retweet it without further comment or hashtag. I have pictures I can show you. If you go to the account, you can DM the account and one of us will answer you and help you through it.
———————-
Ponytail: When you create an original tweet it would create your own on your account. Example below and I’m just being easy about this.
Bubba is a gun I wouldn’t want to meet any time any place. Dark Matter @Netflix #ItsBubbaTime
Then other people might see your tweet and retweet it directly and that counts, too. Gotta be careful though. If you tweet more than 100 tweets an hour your account will lock up for an hour (better known as Twitter jail).
—————
Correct tweet incorporating all the elements that would be counted for trending::
I love Dark Matter b/c it is the best sci-fi show on TV. @Netflix #ItsBubbaTime
Incorrect tweet that would not be counted for trending using the unique hashtag (using the same sentence)
I love #DarkMatter b/c it is the best sci-fi show on TV @Netflix #ItsBubbaTime
Problem: Two hashtags.
I love #DarkMatter b/c it is the best sci-fi show on TV @Netflix
Problem: The unique hashtag is missing. Remember the unique hashtag we are asking people to only do for an hour at the appropriate time but people last night were continuing past that time.
Not incorrect for trending during our event but missing an element:
I love Dark Matter b/c it is the best sci-fi show on TV #ItsBubbaTime
Problem: Missing the @Netflix
I love #DarkMatter b/c it is the best sci-fi show on TV @Netflix
Problem: Missing the hashtag we are trying to trend that specific hour.
I love Dark Matter b/c it is the best sci-fi show on TV
Problem: Missing the unique hashtag we’ll let you know every evening so it can trend that hour and no @Netflix.
—————————————
Outside the time of the Tweetstorm, you can do and use whatever you want just try to remember the @Netflix if you could and Dark Matter somewhere in the tweet (even at the end of the sentence).
Hopefully that was helpful.
What is your Twitter name?
I couldn’t get twitter to work for me today — I walked away for a few minutes during the registration process and then when I got back to complete it, they said my account was locked because they suspect robot activity. Then they wanted my phone number to verify to go further…what is this, Microsoft Windows 10, taking all your data just to use something, so sick of it (f*&% Microsoft, I use Linux)….anyways, I’ll create another email address tomorrow for the real run….
Concerning contacting pr@netflix.com, I did that last night but it doesn’t look like that would work using that address….this was the auto-response:
Subject: Monitored for Press-Related Inquiries Only Re: Requesting Dark Matter to be produced by Netflix
Message:
Thank you for your message. If this is press-related, we do our best to respond to most media requests within a few hours. Please note: we do not monitor this inbox during weekends.
If your matter is regarding customer service, please refer to help.netflix.com for alternative contact information. We do not respond to customer service related issues through this email address.
If this is regarding a sponsorship request, someone will contact you if it’s of interest.
If you are submitting a film for consideration: unfortunately, we do not accept or review unsolicited materials or ideas. For that reason, we will not consider any materials or ideas we receive that were not specifically requested by Netflix or submitted via an aggregator or established agent through the appropriate channels.
Thank you,
Netflix PR Team
Alex, please use https://help.netflix.com/en/titlerequest to request Dark Matter.
Thanks Tim, I did that too earlier, was just looking for more ways to get Netflix the message 🙂
10:48 pm and #ItsBubbaTime is still trending number one in Canada.
I am not currently a subscriber of Netflix. If they pick up Dark Matter, I will be.
Melba Sue — Do you use Twitter? If so go to @darkmatterFTL and answer the poll. It is pinned to the top at the moment (3:05 p.m., but we’ll unpin it to start pinning things related to the tweetstorm tonight but then afterwards will repin th poll until tomorrow night.
Don’t do the Twitter thing but feel free to count me in the masses!!
I’m never watching SYFY ever again. Dark Matter was the best ever.
Too bad we don’t have a la carte cable. We could all vote with our dollars by dropping the channel. With Pai Face at the FCC, that will probably never happen, in fact, things will only get worse.
I still cant believe they just fucking cancelled the show in the middle of a cliffhanger no less…
@Mr M
It appears to me that TPTB at SyFy got directive from ComCast/NBC to cut a certain amount of spending. My suspicion is that unfortunately “Dark Matter” production cost matches or surpass the cut amount needed. So in conclusion some bean counter kill “Dark Matter”
Montrealer, Dark Matter was not produced by SyFy. However, networks are giving priority to in-house productions over acquired properties. SyFy has been moving down that path for the past year or so.
I was going to suggest contacting NBCUniversal, but knowing it’s owned by Comcast, it’ll never work. Comcast has to be the worst Corporation ever, including Ferrous Corp!
Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel and Sci Fi) is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast.
I did ok until 8:56 (central time). Then Twitter refused to retweet anything. I think we broke Twitter!(?). How did we do? Seriously, I’m getting old!
Irma is very scary! Prayers to everyone in her path!
Tam, you were probably in Twitter Jail for sending too many tweets! You get back out after an hour or so.
:O
Tam, if you tweet more than 100 times an hour, the system will block you for an hour. Likely, that is what happened to you. It’s called Twitter Jail, and it’s no fun.
Oh yeah, You were in Twitter jail. I have graphs on the account. We trended in Canada and Australia. Our dear international friends are helping us through the night for this. I’ll post the other graph that shows what countries participated.
I went there last night but only for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
“Dark Matter was THE #1 SCIFI SHOW ON “THE SYFY CHANNEL” IN THE KEY DEMO AND OVERALL VIEWERS!” Well of course this explains the cancellation.
I swore off of Syfy after they cancelled Universe, and returned for Dark Matter because well, it’s a J.M. joint. I’ve learned my lesson. Again. Fuck those fucking fucks.
I’m not much of a Twitterer, but I’m on it!
Unfortunately, networks are still focused on same-day viewers. In reality, it seems Dark Matter could have been #1 in same-day viewings and still gotten the axe.
I believe this, for sure.
On the one hand, I do think there’s movement to give weight to 3 and7 day rating totals – though more weight should be placed on those – but I agree with you that Dark Matters cancellation by SYFY wasn’t because of low ratings but for other reasons and I hadn’t realized – though I should have – that they apparently have made another shift in their programming emphasis – I had thought and hoped they were truly returning to Scifi but that doesn’t appear to be the case with many of their new projects – the only one of which that might interest me is the 2nd season of Channel Zero and sadly too, I will bet that another good series (though not on the same level as Dark Matter in my opinon), the Expanse is probably in its last season. I really hope that somehow another network does pick up Dark Matter – I haven’t been enthusiastic about almost anything on TV until I watched that – and it has the potential to be a very long running program if it somehow not only gets a renewal but gets a better place to be home as well. SYFY steadfastly seems not to almost ever renew any scripted series more than 5 years and that – with always less than 20 epi in a season. We’ll see what happens – and hope.
Keep Dark Matter!!! Great show!!!
I want my DARK MATTER, go RAZA
As most of the above.. Grrr!!!!
SG-1, Atlantis, Universe and Dark Matter, all of them (ALL of them!) cancelled by the very same channel.
No matter what happens with DM, when your next project is ready to take to networks, try to avoid that particular one 😉
Hopeful that Netflix pick up the show, but am finding myself wondering whether Netflix would still allow me to continue to buy the show on iTunes. .. Hmmm…
On se croise les doigts et vous souhaite de réussir à sauver le show!
Joe, since you created this show with Paul based on the comic book you created, did you give away your ownership rights of this show? Is there any leverage you have as the creators of this story when negotiating a deal with Netflix/Amazon where it’s a win for everyone involved?
We can do this. Longmire did it with a similar campaign under similar circumstances (as I understand them). There’s hope.
I’d be willing to pay $5, and I’m sure others who enjoy this show would too, to a gofundme page to pay for whatever expenses are necessary to get this show back into production — if we could get at least 30K people to do so, that’s 150K to help and would show that fans really want this and our backing it not just with words and hashtags, but using their money for something that they really want to continue.
I would be willing to pay $200. This month
Music for Storming the Castle!
Dark Matter finale: 1.34 million viewers L+7
Wynonna Earp finale: 843k viewers L+7
Almost half a million more viewers than a recently renewed Wynonna Earp.
If you guys have any questions during the Tweetstorm tonight, DM me through @DarkMatterFTL I’ll help you. Promise.
Oh another tip — Go to your profile page and put in a location. You don’t have to get it down to the town and state. Even just the country is fine. and then save it. This way we know who is tweeting. NOT IMPORTANT TO THE TRENDING but just something that is helpful to us and maybe to Netflix.
Saying prayers for all our Florida friends and those who were just hit in the Caribbean. And then all the other people in the path after Florida.
Please please please please save dark matter
I love dark matter, however Syfy plays straight action movie s all week long…
Dark Matter is the first series I’ve really been excited by in as long as I can remember. It is literate and treats the viewer as intelligent (not repeating what is already known) and it has continued to develop themes and stories that are significant even beyond what is happening to the characters. I’ve noticed that it has gotten better and better reviews as each season has progressed. It is an excellent, well done exciting show and I hope it gets a place somewhere as it is one of the very best series ever. How SYFY could cancel it – especially when its 7 day ratings were very good and better than anything else they have on -and how they could renew Wynonna which has half the ratings of Dark Matter – and in the same time slot that Dark Matter had had… makes no sense. I hope another network renews it -If I don’t currently subscribe to a network that does renew, I would immediately do so,
Dropped a line on Syfy’s feedback page inquiring as to who the ‘lobotomized moron’ is that cancelled Dark Matter. Didn’t name names, but commented that I was tired of lame-brained zombie and vampire slayer shows that have the originality and appeal of a Chinese fire drill, and Dark Matter has stood out from that pack as a beacon of creative storytelling and character portrayals.
That is exactly how I feel, They would cancel a literate exciting show such as Dark Matter and renew Wynonna Earp. Hard to believe… really. And Earp’s ratings in the same time that Dark Matter had occupied previously were about half as much. Hard to believe.
Well said & Described JeffJ 🙂
My Blog Post to IGN Profile page. Ha some good Links 🙂 Love it how you can create links for IGN’s Blog 🙂 http://www.ign.com/blogs/eagleheart1980/2017/09/08/help-to-find-a-new-home-for-beautiful-dark-matter-3-sci-fi-fans-unite/
Links include funny clip from 3rd season & most importantly Contact Address for #AMC & #HBO 🙂 I’ve sent well written mails to both. Enjoy o/ Spread the word all around wiuh.. Shame on you SyFy for doing such Blind Move for Quality Sci-Fi :/ We need originally planned 5x seasons & why not even further if gets enough support & for sure will. #TeamRaza
I would go another route, SingularDTV is looking for shows to produce and this also could be crowdfunded. https://singulardtv.com
Currently it’s all about crowd and decentralization.
check out and ask more questions at
https://singulardtv.slack.com