Sounds like an excellent idea though we have to prepare ourselves just like the Sterling Cooper Team. 1.We need to know who is our market? 2.When they are available? 3.What times are competitive and with whom? 4. Sponsors and their concerns? 5.How to make it available without overkill? 6. How to pull ther interest of the new generation of advertisement, public relations, graphic arts, television agencies. 7. How to also educate the "new school" with the "old school" .
You have your work cut out for you Maddicts. "Now go do that vodoo that you do so well"! - Harvey Gorman Blazing Saddles ( smile)

They could replay season 1 & 2 and have 26 weeks of shows which would take us up to the next season.

Come on, Mad Men is better TV than some of the old movies they run on there.

Whatever it takes! Mad Men is my favorite show. Very original.

AMC, please! Bring it back or let HBO pick it up, but SOON.

We've been waiting long enough already.

Bring it back!

maddicks, ha. how about more contests?

Please, please, put both seasons back "On Demand" and also replay on AMC.
I got hooked by spending a whole weekend watching season 1 when it was offered "On Demand" I have told so many people to watch but it's no longer there.
Find a time to rerun on AMC where it doesn't conflict with other great shows! I truly hope we'll see a Season 3!!

Test!

.....From what I've read, the marketing and publicity for Mad Men is supposedly very calculated and cutting-edge.

I've never seen a network series promoted by playing hard-to-get, so to speak. I should think they would repeat their episodes often at this point, but maybe it is a method of generating buzz and hence dollars. It seems there are several historical firsts here, so it would take some time to see how effective the whole strategy is, in the end.

One thing is for certain - I cannot remember the last time I saw a creator and cast work so hard on behalf of a show, in terms of attention to interviews, photoshoots, public appearances, charity work, face time with fans, etc.

I've never understood the marketing plan for this show either. Granted, and I may get ripped a new one for typing this, there are some people for whom MM simply is not their cup of tea. (My mother is one who says she has no desire to look back at such a painful time for her!) It just seems like marathons of this show could be shown on holiday weekends. MLK Day is a few days away, why not a marathon? President's Day...Memorial Day....Only Labor Day gets the marathon!?

It's not MY show, not MY network, so I guess the Mad Men/AMC bigwigs know their strategy!

What we all should remember is that Lionsgate will refrain from running free re-reuns as long as the revenue from the episodes offered on iTunes continues to pad their bottom line. They'll probably won't invest in a (free) marathon prior to the release of Season 2 DVDs for the same reason. If everyone remembers, we had a major discussion of how to increase viewership last season.

I'm with pinkpen on this one. Merely voicing our wants will not change things. AMC and Lionsgate will continue to ignore our entreaties and are paying fulltime staff to figure out answers to the questions pinkpen posed. The fact that we don't have the answers just means they don't know either. (Otherwise, someone would have responded and we would know exactly what to do....right?)

To start off a bigger buzz, more people need to see it. You can promote MadMenEpisodes.com, where you can stream all the episodes of Mad Men free.

@don_draper and @betty_draper and the rest of the characters from the show is active twitters who helps AMC keep the buzz alive.

They know they've created a masterpiece, and we have probably yet to see the last Mad Men stunt.

I think AMC and Lionsgate should get NBC (or ABC or CBS) to buy the rights to the reruns - they are all clearly hurting for shows. It would help to build the audience who would have to go to AMC for original episodes.

Well I really believe that they are doing just what they had planned to do and it's working. Maddicts are going Bonkers for Mad Men. They have given us enough to get hooked and we can't stop talking about it, thinking about and sharing it with everyone.
Remember the old saying "The best way to get information out is by word of mouth". We are the marketing tool for the show. They don't need all of that other stuff the other networks have they have us. This is no ordinary group of people, they are "Top Shelf" all the way! The last time people were on the edge of their seats for an show was when J.R. Ewing got shot on Dallas. That's why it's AMC/Lionsgate "The Future of Classics"! They don't need NBC, ABC or CBS then it wouldn't be ORIGINAL!

Hhmm...hhmm, and hhmmm....

From all the great suggestions/thoughts in the above posts, it's clear that some of the blog's "best and brightest" have weighed in. What everybody is saying makes perfect sense, but then...when did Corporate Hollywood ever "heed" anything we mere veiwers proposed in regard to programming?

My only thought in "their" defense as to why the wait is so long, re-runs aren't made available as Marathons sooner, etc. is that:

maybe "contractual commitments" made far in advance prohibit deviation--for eg., I'm sure AMC has to pay for rights to run their movie classics; they may have already contracted to have a movie on a certain day, etc...and if so, "breaking contracts" could be costly.

Pinkpin's 7 points nail it, I believe,...and as Greytone says they've got full-time experts doing market and all kind of analysis to try to answer those questions.

Let's just hope the baby doesn't go down the drain with the bathwater...and it could happen. Things change; viewers change; life moves on--and at a much faster pace and in a more "changful" way than ever before.

I "second" your 11:36p.m. post, pink...all the way:
They've got us...(but then we've got each other...and they can't know "for sure" how long --or if they'll have us forever)!

We've got power too....and sure, even though we're still "hanging around" 2-3 months after the
show's ended...I personally think that has more to do with the "quality" of this community of posters--than it does with the show. (I mean I wouldn't be stiill coming to this blog just to read the "re-caps," or other"pre-packaged" fodder put out by the "officials" of this blog. (Not that "they" aren't good also, but just sayin' --and hey, thanks for keeping me "up" a bit on what's cool in words, Visan. ("just saying").

Really, it's the insight, intelligence, wit, knowledge, "human-ness" of people whose comments I read -- even people who have posted just one time or two times (and then disappeared) have been so incredibly "right on" with what they have said that it makes me feel good to "know they're out there."

Knowing that there are others who "share the same sensibility as me," -- at least as regards to this show (and this show is huge in its scope--so maybe that "sensibility" is significant)--knowing this or "feeling" this is great!

As some smart poster said quite a few months ago (paraphrased): " We posters are the show."

And that poster realized that so long before I did...

I love to play in a game where the people/person I'm playing with is better than me (think tennis?)--
smarter than me (think bridge?)--wiser than me (think life?).

I've found all 3 conditions here...even though I've never addressed or commented much on specific names.

Cause (as the saying goes)...it's ALL good!

I think one of the reasons we're not seeing anything on the schedule is because of the ongoing contract talks between Matthew Weiner and Lionsgate. As the creator and producer of the show, It's likely that Weiner's original contract allowed for the show to air a set number of times. Since his contract is still up in the air, it may affect whether or not AMC can show the episodes again.

Secondly, they have to pay residuals to all the actors, the writers, the directors, and the creator/producers. Again, this may have something to do with the contract talks, or it could be for some other budgetary reason. Weren't there a lot of executive changes/ownership changes at AMC in the last six months or so?

As to the viewers, I don't get where Mad Men's numbers are any different from shows on other networks. I think Privileged, Bones, and Burn Notice draw about 2 million viewers, which is also about the size of Mad Men's audience. So what's the big deal? I like that the show appeals to a certain crowd, and it doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator. I like that it's a "boutique" show, and I think there's a place for that kind of programming in the new million channel universe. The days of only 3 TV networks and 50 million people tuning in to find out who shot J. R. are over. There are too many other options for us to choose from now.

Ultimately, Mad Men may turn out to be like the original Star Trek. It was virtually ignored in its original run, except by a small but enthusiastic fan base. As time passed, it became a cultural phenomenon, complete with movie franchises, spin-off shows, and a whole host of other entertainment options. I bet if the powers that be just let Mad Men run its course, it will turn out the same way. I'm sure the bean-counters and corporate types would love for Mad Men to end up like that. Who wouldn't?

.....I guess to me it seems a bit like the chicken and the egg.

They are juggling two priorities, and it's not clear yet which is going to get them where they want to be.

They don't want to overexpose the series on AMC for fear of losing revenue in downloads and DVD sales, but then suffer from lack of viewership when it does air.

Personally, I think most people don't want to work that hard just to see a new show, even if it is the "It" show of the year. There are a number of great shows on now who DON'T make the new viewers work that hard, and most people probably feel it's going to come their way, one way or another, eventually, and they can just catch it then.

JMHO.....

P.S. Hey greytone.....What happened to your movie threads?

.....***WARNING - TRIVIA ALERT***

This is totally off-topic, but I really didn't know where else to put it, and it's too trivial for a new thread.

I just noticed, in checking out the online site streaming Mad Men that, in S1:1, at the very beginning, Pete is talking to the guys in his office about Trudy and his bachelor party. He picks up a photo of "Trudy," but it's not Allison Brie.

It's clearly an authentic photo from the fifties or sixties, and in fact (at least to me) it looks a bit like Matt Weiner, especially around the eyes.

It made me wonder if the woman is a relative or the photo is random.

Hey, Dry Manhatten you are right, the part of Trudy was not cast until later and MW said he used a photo of his mom. I heard it in the commentary on the Season 1 DVD.

.....Really? Wow!

I haven't gotten around to getting the DVDs yet, since you can watch the epis on line and I also have many on DVR, but I guess I'll have to get the set for those commentaries.

Thanks, ho.