The Focused Tweetstorms of Prodigal Son Fans Continue Nightly, Surpassing 15K+ Tweets Per Hour
Meanwhile, across the course of the first 3 days, crossover fans of Lucifer, Supernatural, and Hannibal, who also love the endangered TV series, Prodigal Son, joined the effort, pushing a tally of more than 460,000 tweets out to the social media grid in pleas that called on various streaming services such as HBOMax, Netflix and Hulu to pick up the show for a Season 3. Fox announced the cancellation of the show on Monday, May 10.
Tags like #SavetheTurtlenecks have trended high — a reference to the fan obsession for seeing cast member Lou Diamond Phillips — (Lt. Gil Arroyo) in a turtleneck during Season 2 episodes.
Nightly Tweetstorms are planned for 10 days and are now coordinated through @prodigalsaviors on Twitter with a specific nightly designated tag — along with the usual #SaveProdigalSon tag — used each time. The fans have expressed that tweetstorm events continue until PSON is picked up by a streaming service for a Season 3.
RATINGS?
One of the important factors in the huge push to save the show is that the volume of fans watching Prodigal Son is actually much higher — by about 35% — than Fox is reporting during its own limited, and arguably antiquated, way of tracking ratings for its U.S.-only advertisers.
After speaking with an economist who tracks TV ratings for fun about the nature and process of U.S. and International ratings tracking — or more accurately, the lack thereof — this author began a journey into the numbers and charts of that world. She is doing her best to survive it, as the sheer volume of information and charts to summarize the data for an upcoming article are massive.
One thing is certain, Fox’s current tally — likely used as the basis to measure how many viewers Prodigal Son has each week and subsequently canceling it — is lacking, making the use of its findings as a proper tool for retaining or canceling shows dubious. However, it does make a surprising case for the show being a huge win for a streaming service. Rogers’ TV Ratings summary was a few hours from publication at the time of this writing.
B. Roxy Rogers is a journalist, fiction author, TEFL educator, and digital nomad.
Her latest writing projects are STRANGER THAN FICTION: A biopic of Brian Howe’s era with Bad Company (nonfiction) and REDEEMING ROCHEFORT (fiction) an alternate-history/paranormal/fantasy romance. Both books are forthcoming from Green Lady Publishing. When not writing or quarantining, her passions are focused on Europe, 80s EBM/industrial music, arthouse films, and dance.
