WHEN 154,000 viewers tuned into A Place To Call Home on Foxtel’s Soho channel on Sunday, it capped a remarkable comeback for the much-loved, formerly-cancelled series.

The expensive melodrama was axed due to falling ratings, but a sustained outcry from devoted fans convinced Foxtel to swoop in to revive the show for two more seasons.

The strategy was clear: even signing up a small fraction of the program’s loyal fans will provide significant ongoing revenue (the revived series is not screening on free to air).

It’s a local example of a massive change in television that’s been occurring over the past three years — shows once destined for the TV graveyard have been picked up by cable channels and streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon in order to boost subscriber numbers.





Arrested Development, Full House, Community, The Mindy Project and Ripper Street have all found a new home on streaming sites and even the big network TV show revivals including this week’s Heroes Reborn, 24: Live Another Day and The X-Files come thanks to streaming services because new episodes inflate the streaming rights when viewers head online en masse to catch up with old episodes.

“Just as Transformers movies are about selling toys more than movie tickets, a new X-Files is all about selling Netflix subscriptions more than it is about Nielsen ratings,” wrote Forbes’ Merrill Barr recently.

Nathan Cook, research director of Maxus said the financial equations also stack up differently for subscription services. The first run viewing figures on Seven (bottoming out around 600,000) for an expensive production like APTCH were simply not high enough, particularly as it skews towards an older demographic that is not as attractive to advertises.

But with 90 per cent of Foxtel’s revenue coming through subscriptions, they don’t care who signs up as long as they have a credit card. The pay TV service will also screen each episode six times a week and later rerun them in marathons, meaning the cost per broadcast hour is very different too.

“They can get a higher audience out of it over 12 months than Seven will get in a first run (screening),” Cook said. “Potentially, it’d be one tenth the cost per hour for Foxtel, as on Seven, due to rescreenings.”

Cooks said Foxtel’s decision to invest in local dramas such as APTCH and Wentworth also helps ‘future proof’ the business against Netflix and Stan which can’t offer an equivalent level of Australian production.

Netflix US has pioneered the strategy of reviving cancelled shows in order to sign up new users. The company picked up 643,000 new subscribers in the second quarter of 2013, when it resurrected Arrested Development after seven years. It also gave a final season to The Killing and picked up, Full House (resurrected as Fuller House) Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Trailer Park Boys and Longmire.

“A new show like Narcos is a high-quality drama series, but it’s more of a gamble because it means putting a lot of money into a program when they don’t know if there’s a public appetite for it. Whereas if they pick up 3rd Rock From The Sun (as a revived series) there’s already a huge brand awareness around it.”

Yahoo gave a sixth season to cult comedy Community after NBC axed the fan favourite and Amazon stepped in when CBS passed on the Bryan Cranston-produced Sneaky Pete, which it’s just ordered to series. US cable networks are making similar plays, with A & E reviving Unforgettable after CBS cancelled it and TBS producing 41 more episodes of Cougar Town after ABC dropped it.

Earlier this year, Hulu gave a fourth season to comedy The Mindy Project following its cancellation, giving the credit to a very vocal fan campaign, including the twitter hashtag #savethemindyproject.

“It’s certainly a fan landscape right now. The audience has so much control and say and a true vote,” Hulu’s head of originals Beatrice Springborn told Variety. “Because it had such an established fanbase and such a vocal fanbase we also knew we would get those loyal viewers who were watching Fox to come to Hulu and they would subscribe. … It was like ‘oh great, Fox is cancelling Mindy’”.

Even the free to air networks are dusting off old shows including The X-Files, Heroes Reborn and 24: Live Another Day — perhaps in part due to their success on streaming sites and popularity on pirate sites. Netflix revealed recently it bought the streaming rights to various series after examining data on illegal downloads.

“We look at what does well on piracy sites,” said VP of Content Acquisitions in Europe Kelly Merryman. “Prison Break is exceptionally popular.” That may be why Fox decided to dust off the show for a limited series run in 2016.

Here’s ten shows they could not kill.

A PLACE TO CALL HOME — ORIGINAL RUN 2013/2014

Seven’s fruity period melodrama was a huge hit with audiences in its first season — and many were devastated when the broadcaster put an end to the show with the finale of season 2.

The axing sparked months of lobbying by angry fans — one of whom turned out to be the sister of Foxtel chief Brian Walsh. “She chewed my ear off about the show and how angry she was that it was cancelled, and demanded it be put back on air,” he said.

It prompted him to watch it — he loved it — and he could tell by the protest groups and Facebook pages it could be a big help in driving subscriptions. “I decided there had to be a way to bring it back.” Foxtel picked up the show for at least two more seasons — it’s still being produced by Seven — with the first episode on Sunday September 27.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT — ORIGINAL RUN 2003 to 2006

The acclaimed comedy was cancelled due to low ratings after three seasons, but grew its passionate cult following on DVD, Netflix and re-runs prompting the streaming service to pick it up for a fourth season in 2013.

Unfortunately, despite getting all the main cast back it wasn’t all plain sailing — scheduling conflicts with the now big stars meant the actors were rarely in the same room even when sharing scenes.

The writing and format was disjointed and the series frustrated many long term fans to the point some even recut the show themselves in chronological order so that it actually made sense. Hopefully the new season they’re working on, will be better. Netflix picked up 643,000 new subscribers in part as a result.

PRISON BREAK — ORIGINAL RUN 2005 to 2009

The streaming figures and its popularity on illegal download sites no doubt played a big part in the decision to bring back Prison Break for a fifth season, to debut seven years after the last one. Creator Paul Scheuring and stars Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller are both on board the Fox series, which will pick up after the fourth season and ignore the straight-to-DVD movie.

HEROES REBORN — ORIGINAL RUN 2006 to 2010

Heroes was a huge hit and it’s fourth season had that ignoble honour of being the most pirated series of 2009 — so much so that more people were watching it illegally (6,580,000) than the average audience of 5,900,000 on US television.

Now original creator Tim Kring is bringing it back as a 13 episode event series mixing up the old cast with a handful of new stars, including Chuck’s Zachary Levi and Ryan Guzman (The Boy Next Door), alongside heroes of the past including Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) and the Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis). Premiered weakly on Seven on Wednesday (fast tracking doesn’t help) but did OK in the US with about 6 million viewers.

FULLER HOUSE — ORIGINAL RUN 1987 to 1995

There hasn’t been a groundswell of support for a Full House reunion in Australia, but over in the US tre-runs have been averaging 1.5 million viewers on cable in the US.

Nevertheless, the new Netflix series follows DJ (Candace Cameron Bure) who finds herself a widowed mum of three and needs help from sister Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) and best friend Kimmy (Andrea Barber). And of course the original three male leads Bob Saget, Dave Coulier and John Stamos are all back too (But not Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen).

RIPPER STREET — ORIGINAL RUN 2013 to 2013

Matthew Macfadyen period thriller Ripper Street began in a blaze of glory, attracting 7.89m viewers to BBC One in 2012. But the audience more than halved to 3.26 million in season two when the Beeb took the decision to axe the show.

That’s when Amazon Prime Instant Video stepped in, stitching up a deal to pay for a third season in exchange for the first run rights, and the back catalogue. The BBC was able to screen the third season a few months later, making everyone happy.

THE MINDY PROJECT — ORIGINAL RUN 2012 to 2015

US streaming company Hulu couldn’t believe their luck when broadcaster Fox cancelled the romantic comedy series after three seasons in 2015 as the show had been a hit with their subscribers.

It immediately commissioned a mammoth 26-episode fourth season. While the show was never great at pulling a wide audience, those who watched regularly were devoted to the show and made their feelings clear on social media. Hulu also has the option to make subsequent series.

COMMUNITY — ORIGINAL RUN 2009 to 2014

Cancelled in 2014 by NBC, it looked like the critically acclaimed cult series Community would never hit ‘six seasons and a movie’ (a line from the show).

Shopped around to Hulu and pay TV channel Comedy Central, a sixth season looked doubtful because of creator Dan Harmon’s lack of enthusiasm. Eventually he got on board, and the day before the cast’s contracts were due to expire Yahoo announced it would return for a 13 episode sixth season (without Yvette Nicole Brown, who plays Shirley).

It screened from March on Yahoo, and in Australia on Stan. Another season looks unlikely though a movie is still possible according to Harmon.

THE X FILES — ORIGINAL RUN 1993 to 2002

After nine seasons and 202 episodes where monster of the week stories would alternate with the third of the stories that dealt with the long term story arc, the show was cancelled (not helped by Duchovny’s stepping back from starring in the final two seasons).

Work began on the second film The X-Files: I Want to Believe before the show even ended, but it was only finally released in 2008 limping to a worldwide gross around $70 million.

Now a six episode event series is coming in January 2016 that concentrates on the alien invasion conspiracy storyline as well as some monster of the week eps. Chris Carter and stars David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Annabeth Gish and Mitch Pileggi all reprise their roles.

FAMILY GUY — ORIGINAL RUN 1999 to 2002

Premiering in 1999 amid a wave of criticism it was a Simpsons clone, Family Guy’s first season performed well, but struggled in season two (up against Frasier) and narrowly avoided cancellation, only to be axed the following season in 2002.

But re-runs became the top rating show on cartoon network Adult Swim and the DVD collection of the first two seasons ended up selling 2.2 million copies and was the best selling DVD of that year in the US.

The series returned in 2005 — the first ever revival of a show based on DVD sales — and is still on air today. Season 14 kicks off at the end of this month.