Not only does Comcast bring you all your favorite television programming over the cable-ways, they also make deals that could possibly save some of your favorite programming for additional life on the airways.

Much like the DirecTV / NBC deal that’s resurrecting Friday Night Lights (FNL) for a third season, Comcast and CBS are in talks to bring Jericho back to viewers. This particular tidbit is provided by anonymous “insiders” and it makes for an interesting tidbit, but I’m not sure we can hold our breath on this one yet. It’s too early to tell if these new business models are really going to pay off.

As an example of “these new business models”, let me touch on the Friday Night Lights scenario. Apparently NBC got enough mini-footballs in the mail from FNL fans to consider a resurrection of sorts, and probably helped illuminate the way for the DirecTV - NBC deal being brokered.

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“How does it feel to make history?”

That was the final line in the series finale of Jericho last night on CBS - and it got me to wondering; but more on that later.

The last episode came, and went, with ratings that were par for the show over the last few weeks with an approximated 6 million viewers, putting CBS fourth amongst the big networks for the evening. I’m guessing another nut campaign is ‘nut’ going to do the trick again, but nice try.

In this abbreviated run of 22 episodes packed into just 7, information flowed fast and hard - and sometimes that’s the way I like it, cutting to the chase.

There are a few spoilers ahead, so if you’re one of many millions who the networks aren’t counting for viewer ratings, but who are going to download from iTunes or watch the On-Demand version instead, then avert thy eyes.

All us fans of Jericho had better savor the upcoming episode on Tuesday night because it’ll be the last. Jericho has been canceled - again.

Despite the media coverage and thousands of fans who threw their support behind the show, ratings for the series in it’s abbreviated second season just weren’t enough to keep the show afloat. Although if you look at the show’s viewership across a variety of channels is doing pretty well, the advertising money is all about how many people tune in to watch on television only.

Jericho ended it’s first season on a very frustrating note:

The ultimate cliffhanger.

It was “ultimate” because CBS decided to drop the series and had no intention of airing a resolution to the finale. It would be an understatement to say that this annoyed fans of the show, who were inspired and organized enough to orchestrate the comeback for the series.

Though the cliffhanger has been resolved, the 2nd season Nielsen numbers for Jericho aren’t looking so rosy; this season’s episodes are averaging just under 7 million viewers, which is too low a number for any studio to be happy about.

This second season was dedicated to the fans and the sad part is that even though fans were urged to get as many folks as possible watching the show, CBS forgot to mention that they should get as many Nielsen family friends to watch the show.

Have you ever wondered why some TV shows are canceled due to supposedly low ratings when it seems like they have a strong following? Sometimes there are obvious reasons - like when CBS scheduled Jericho up against Fox’s American Idol, or Journeyman possibly being a victim of bad timing with the writers’ strike and too many reality show hitting the networks.

One of the systems that has the biggest impact on what we get to watch on television is called the Nielsen Ratings. It was founded by Arthur Nielsen in 1923 and through statistical sampling measurements, extrapolates what audiences are watching across the country. This information is important to advertisers who pay dearly for much coveted time slots in which they know the audience is watching.

Unfortunately I can’t do a proper review of the Season 2 premiere of Jericho because my DirecTV box picked that hour to reboot itself. I missed about 15 minutes of the episode.

My general reaction is that I’m glad it’s back, and it dove right into the story, almost too quickly. Overall you can tell that they’re trying to pack 22 episodes of content into just seven. It’s almost like the anti-Lost: like they’re trying to pack too much story into each episode.

Still I’m looking forward to seeing where they take the show and hope that the ratings are better than they were last season.

If you watched the show for the first time or are a fan from Season One, go ahead and leave your thoughts below!

Jon Turtletaub.

If you are trying to figure out where you’ve heard that name before, possibly it’s because you remember him as being the director of the 1996 hit Phenomenon. No? Maybe you know him from having produced and directed both National Treasure movies with Nicolas Cage? Oh, wait… maybe you know him from being the executive producer of the surprise fan favorite CBS TV series: Jericho.

Recently Jon Turtletaub had a few words to say about the return of Jericho to CBS for its second season following the fan-driven onslaught of nuts to the studio via the U.S. Postal system (I knew that system would finally come in handy one day).

As everyone may well know, CBS’ post-apocalyptic drama Jericho is coming back for a 2nd season after viewers launched a spirited campaign to save the show, which included sending thousands of pounds of nuts to CBS executives. The passion of the effort seemed to work (or the executives ran out of room to store the nuts) because they decided to bring the show back for an abbreviated 2nd season in a 7 episode run.

Jericho stars Skeet Ulrich and revolves around the survivors of a nationwide nuclear attack, focusing on the residents of a Kansas town named Jericho. The show debuted in September 2006 and did ok, but not great ratings-wise - but when it was pitted against American Idol the numbers killed it for the exec’s.

It’s finally been announced: The abbreviated second season of Jericho will return on Tuesday, February 12th at 10PM. Not the greatest timeslot in the world, but as things currently stand it will be up against The Bachelor, Cane and Law & Order: SVU. It could be worse… it could have been up against American Idol like it was last season. If that wasn’t the dumbest programming decision ever, then I don’t know.

There are a scant seven episodes that will make up season two, and I understand that the arc has been written in such a way as to give a satisfying conclusion to the fans if it isn’t renewed.

Source: SciFiWire

The “will they wrap the story at seven episodes or not” debate regarding Jericho’s return is starting to give me a headache.

Considering the outcry from fans over ending the first season with a cliffhanger and then having the show cancelled, when the show was given a seven episode reprieve the word was that the writers would script the story as an arc that would conclude at the end of the seventh episode. The idea was that the ratings might not be strong enough to sustain the show beyond this, and it would be pretty stupid to aggravate the fans with yet another unresolved cliffhanger.