That’s when they decided to initiate an online petition among the loyal viewers of the show and make their signature campaign a tool for the show producers to either convince Fox to reconsider its decision of cancelling “The Following” or use it as a marketing tool to have another network or a streaming service pick up the show and rescue it from cancellation.
Unfortunately, the online petition lost steam even before it hit the targeted 25,000 fan signatures so that the producers of “The Following” will have something to show to Fox, the other networks, or the streaming services, as regards the marketability potentials of the TV series.
Fox decided to cancel the show after three seasons because of declining ratings and it seems that the aborted online petition also indicated the same pattern for the airing of the show. When the online petition was started in July 2015, it came out very strong. However, after a few days, it has lost steam and managed to churn out 13,000 signatures from the very conservative target of 25,000.
While many attributed the cancellation of the TV series to poor ratings that started to show beginning in its second season, critics think that “The Following,” just like many other shows before it, has fallen victim to lazy writing, notes Station Five.