The Face of the Future?It's quite possible that Paul F. Tompkins, using little more than a pithy rejoinder and Facebook, may one day be regarded as the man that completely altered the way companies determine what entertainment to release. But let's back up...
As networks and production companies become subdivisions of mega-corporations, their output gets tied closer and closer to the financial bottom line. This means that the artistic decisions are falling to people who are more comfortable with balance sheets than they are with scripts. Additionally, there is now an overload of sources of entertainment - beyond just internet, video games, movies, music, live events, there's also movies-on-demand, thousands of cable channels, Hulu, Netflix Streaming and other ways that people can find some distraction. This oversaturated market, overseen more and more by people with interests in accounting rather than creativity, is making it tougher for programming to differentiate itself, stand out and become popular while also shrinking the window of time available to make such a splash. The result is lots of excellent, original projects are either being lost in the shuffle, canceled or pulled from screens before people have a chance to see them and/or appreciate them.
And what of those fans of these discarded flashes of brilliance? Once their beloved shows or movies are shunned by the public and by corporate masters, they turn to the internet to sign petitions, start social network groups, drum up support or simply whine on their own sites (hey!). The internet has provided these people with something that was utterly unavailable a mere 15 - 20 years ago: a sense of belonging.
While Patton Oswalt has decried the death of that singular rush and empowerment experienced when loving something in a vacuum, the majority of people are comforted to find they are not alone in their love or their interests and that they are not utterly weird or wrong for liking what they like. Misery may love company, but nerdy passion loves it even more. But ultimately, even though there may be an invisible army of like-minded folks banding together to enthuse over their shared interest, rarely does this fanbase clamoring lead to anything productive outside of fanfic or cosplaying. The corporate masters of these properties simply have no way of correlating the intensity of a clique with the possible profitability of its niche interest. That's where Paul F. Tompkins comes in...
Paul F. Tompkins, facing the undesirable prospect of a mostly empty theater for his DVD recording, took to the Twitter and implored people to come to his show in Atlanta. A fan of Tompkins, trying to either be supportive or cute, suggest that Tompkins come up to where he (the fan) was located - Toronto, Canada. This did not sit well with Tompkins, but would end up being the genesis for this whole piece, as he explains in his blog entry:
But something… else came out of that craziness. In the midst of my campaign to rally the people of Atlanta, I got a tweet that asked, “Why don’t you come to Toronto?”
Well, this was the absolute last thing I wanted to hear. Not helpful! I wrote back, through the finger equivalent of clenched teeth, “You get three hundred people to say they’ll come see me in Toronto and I’ll go to Toronto.”
So this enterprising young man, comedian Bob Kerr, started a Facebook group pithily entitled, “Bring Paul F. Tompkins to Toronto!” He asked for people to join the group if they were committed to seeing me perform. He asked that folks not join for “support,” that they not join just because they like joining groups, but that they only join if they were serious about wanting to come see me live in Toronto. Bob said, “You should only join if you’re actually going to be there.”
Within a few weeks, the group’s ranks had swelled to 305. I checked it out. It seemed legit! I booked a show.
A couple months later, I was in Toronto, performing two sold out shows on a Sunday night for two smart, respectful, appreciative audiences. These people didn’t come to “party.” They came to see a show. It was a magical night for me.
And it tasted like more.
I’ve become fed up with the comedy club system for reasons that would cause you to self-murder should I elaborate. I don’t want that to happen. I have long thought, There’s got to be a better way than this. But I had no idea what that way could be until my experience in Toronto.So here it is: you provide the audience, I’ll provide the show.
You provide the audience, I'll provide the show. It's a deceptively simple and obvious premise, but it may be the cornerstone on which nerd culture's future will be built. In theory, online petitions have been 'providing' the audience to whatever franchise they are trying to save - but it is an anonymous audience that holds no real bargaining power or persuasive positioning.
So my proposal is that the future of entertainment decisions - releases, renewals, sequels and cancellations - will be determined by combining the Tompkins 300 approach with Crowdfunding projects like Kickstarter, bridging the gap between the mechanics of crowdfunding and the purpose of advanced sales to ensure release of beloved, cult properties.
Crowdfunding, as typified by Kickstarter and many other online sites, is a way for people to donate money to sponsor a project that they believe in. By taking multiple donations of varying size from many donors, the project managers are able to gather the entirety of their desired budget; it's a volume approach that lowers risk to the individual and diffuses the likelihood of a controlling, outsider financial entity.
The project managers set a goal, the size of their budget they need to raise for their project, and interested parties decide the size of their donations - although the donations aren't actually withdrawn from the donors until the project has met its goal (has enough donations from enough people to cover the budget). There are some sites, like IndieGoGo, that are specifically designed for the sole purpose of funding and collaborating on films/entertainment. The system isn't 100% perfected yet for the creation of entertainment, as there is usually the tricky question of how to reimburse these shareholders if your project is profitable, and the discussion of legal ownership is problematic at best.
Despite these potential setbacks, crowdfunding entertainment is still a very enticing and viable idea. It has 
been quasi-used recently when fans banded together to start to raise $300 Million for Nathan Fillion to buy back the rights to Firefly - before Fillion shot them down and directed them to use the money for more worthwhile endeavors. And Fillion has a good point - that much money should not be used for so trivial a goal. But here's where the "advanced sales" aspect comes in to play: what if instead of just donating X amount to the cause of a show, you paid a specific amount for a copy of the show on DVD? Much like the pre-ordering process on Amazon, this system allows production to know the actual demand for these products - but because the money is already attributed to a copy of the DVD, set at whatever price the company deems fair, production knows exactly how much money they could potentially make and knows when they have covered expenses.
These advanced sales are basically actionable petitions - they are the 300 audience members pledging to go to Tompkins' show, but with real money behind them. In the example of a TV show, fans can sign up for however many copies of the next season's DVDs - or, if DVDs are passe, then season passes on iTunes, Hulu or other web-streaming sites - and depending on the amount of money promised to these future seasons, production companies can determine if the show is viable, the size of a production budget, etc. Remember - this would be a guarranteed amount of money pledged to the future of the series, so once the pledge covers the expenses, anything else made on the project is profit.
I foresee this project as being internal to the networks, so that NBC has its own Advanced Sales/Crowdfunding program, as does Fox, CBS, etc. That way there's no issue with regards to percentage fees that Kickstarter and the like take from the funds raised and the money goes directly into the network. By having this internal crowdfunding/advanced sales system in place, networks can assign specific monetary values to the interest of a fanbase, eliminating any real risk (the show won't be a loss) while opening up for increased revenue. Advertisers now know exactly how much money people are willingly devoting to this 
show. And, if each TV channel sets up their crowdfunding sites correctly, they can also grab much more demographic information about the fanbase, making it easier for advertisers to target specific sections of viewers.
If there isn't enough interest, if enough advanced sales copies of future seasons aren't sold to cover the budget, then the show isn't renewed, or the sequel isn't made, or direct to video movies aren't created. Networks know exactly how much interest there is for the franchise and, if found wanting, can present the numbers to the fanbase. Fans will be satisfied that it's based purely on math and that, maybe with a bit more work on grassroots marketing, those numbers can go up while networks will no longer have to be the bad guy for cutting shows they like based on a vague understanding of the viewing habits and interests of audiences.
And if there exists this base level of interest, covering the budget for production or (at the very least) home video creation then not only will advertising add on to the profit but any people that tune in or watch the show/movie that didn't participate in the crowdfunded/advanced sales are potential buy-ins for the next season/sequel. These entities would exist or perish based on the quality of the programming and the passion of its advocates while remaining in the confines of the practical return on investment. We provide the audience, you provide the show.
And all of this because one comedian wasn't interested in going to Toronto...