• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 9, 2016

Amazon cancelled its original TV show  “Good Girls Revolt”, based on the 1970 discrimination case at Newsweek,just weeks after starting up.

Reports suggest viewers want it back. How many? Around 3,000 according to on online petition. Doesn’t sound like much. The bigger question is this representative of how many actual viewers the show got? We probably will never know.

In the past, fervent viewers would do a write-in campaign or point to Nielsen and other metrics as not fully representing the value of these heavily invested fans. This could translate into better value for TV marketers when with programs running on big advertising-supported TV networks.

But “Good Girls Revolt” on Amazon is a different story -- as well perhaps any show on Netflix or any other new digital media service that goes through the same stuff.

For one, there isn’t any advertising in the show. Also those services don’t have to rely on Nielsen. They have the digital tools from their own servers to determine not only many people were watching -- but whether they watched the first five minutes and say, turn it off.

They know how many episode consumers have watched.

All this is why Netflix -- and digital services -- are rather uninterested in releasing the viewership numbers of its original (or acquired) TV and movie content.

That said, business partners still need want this data. Whatever license fees they receive from Netflix isn’t enough. They would like to know consumer consumption data for that TV/movie content. That helps with analyses in comparing how that program/movie is doing on other platforms -- among other trends.

Amazon did spend some significant national TV advertising dollars -- on many TV networks --- to promote the series, close to $2 million, according to iSpot.tv. In that regard, they had high expectations.

It knows exactly how “Good Girls Revolt” has been doing -- and perhaps told that to producer Sony Pictures Entertainment. The real answer to the show’s downfall is probably between that discussion between those two companies.

Viewer revolt? Once a decision has been made on a TV show, it’s rare to see a reversal from a TV network running it. But surely Sony will be looking to shop it elsewhere if there are any takers.

For consumers, social media does play a part. Maybe using another a bigger metric would work. Find some 3 million actual “likes” on Facebook, or a million or so positive responses on any number of social media areas.

Given the ever-increasing tentative and ephemeral nature of TV programming these days, viewers have a strong impetus to just move on.