[Your name ]
                                                                                                                                                                   [Your address]

                                                                                                                                                                   [Date]



[Name of person the letter is addressed to]
[Address of the network]




Dear  [-------]




I would like to bring to your attention the existence of a group of people whose enthusiasm and skills I hope can be used in
a way beneficial to your network. This group consists in an online community of thousands of individuals, very highly
motivated, and with a wide variety of skills that they would offer for promotional purposes. It is our hope that you would be
willing to take advantage of this opportunity in a way mutually beneficial to your network and this community.

Proposal:

As you know, the show is currently in search of a network by which to be broadcast and renewed. Under these circumstances, and in
keeping with the spirit of the advertisements that were recently released in the press (see link at the end) members of the online community
dedicated to supporting this process developed the following proposal:

An online "fanbase" like this one is usually of interest mainly as a "buzz factor" that draws media attention. We believe that in addition to
this traditional role, such a community can become a much greater asset to the network broadcasting the show, notably by
entering into a partnership with this network. Indeed, this online community can easily be turned into a more legitimate entity
by means of registration as volunteers through a website provided for this purpose, and its energy channelled onto one, or
several constructive projects aimed at promoting not only Moonlight, but your network itself and its other shows. Such a
website would be used to coordinate the efforts of the volunteers, to provide them with incentives (that would come at no
cost to the network) and would also be a space where the participants would report to the network about their activities. The
only cost to the network would consist in devoting one or perhaps a few employees to verifying that the volunteers'
activities are performed in a manner satisfactory to your network.
The motivation behind this suggestion is the following: as we browse the Internet everyday throughout this community, we are amazed at
the level of energy and enthusiasm displayed by its members. They have now been campaigning for several months (essentially since the
writers' strike began). Right now, despite the pessimism recently expressed in the media regarding the chances of the show being renewed,
there are thousands of individuals who live on the Internet and would eagerly do just about anything that would save "their" show. They
often describe themselves in military terms, as an army at the command of the show's creator, producer or lead. If you may forgive me for
being so direct: most of these people would literally cut off their little finger if the lead told them that it will bring back Moonlight.
If you would like a better idea of the community's current state of mind, I invite you to browse through the online portfolio indicated below
under "additional materials".
I cannot help thinking that in this day and age, such people with Internet savvy could be used for something constructive and profitable,
while putting in place a simple scheme for them to report on their activities for the network to verify these: using banners and avatars
promoting your shows on the internet, using facebook friends lists for the same purpose (pictures can be visible within the messages),
building a large number of web-sites on various themes of interest to your  target demographic, and advertising your network and its shows
on these, wearing T-shirts at big events and in crowded places (football games, rock shows, the mall, etc…), putting up flyers in
appropriate places, putting promotional pictures on their credit card, etc… i.e. using whatever means the network would deem appropriate
and worthwhile.
We further hope that the innovative nature of such a partnership between a fanbase and a network would (with your help)
result in a lot of publicity, making such a project all the more worthwhile for your network. Also, we are convinced that with such
publicity, the number of participants in such a project could be grown considerably once the show airs again (we would venture
that 10 000 people is a very conservative estimate of the number of people that would get involved).

Before going into details, I thank you in advance for giving due consideration to this suggestion.

Yours sincerely,



[signature]


[Full name]



    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Practical aspects of the proposal:

Feasibility, incentive and control

With the right kind of incentive, which would come at no cost to your network, our community can very easily be organised
into a stable source of volunteers for your benefit, working possibly on different projects.
Such a project could easily be run from a website created for this purpose, and where membership registration would take place. Data
would be gathered concerning the members by completion of a form upon registration, which would then be regularly updated. Such
information would include not only demographics data that could be of direct use to the network, but especially information of practical
interest for the project: contact details (especially e-mail), special skills (i.e. graphic design, etc…), availability (average number of hours
the member would dedicate to his or her tasks), etc…
If several projects or tasks were to run concurrently, members would sign up separately for the ones that they would participate in. They
could then be allotted a task and a deadline to complete it, and various checks could be put into place in order to ensure the efficiency of
the service to your network. These checks would be specific to the type of task required (see examples below) and access to privileges and
even membership of the project would hinge upon the tasks being performed in a timely manner.
For instance a system of privileged access to material such as video interviews of the cast, especially on set and specifically addressed to
the volunteers would be extremely attractive to members of the fanbase. Privileged access could serve both as an incentive for people to
join the project, and as a reward for services rendered. Such material could be made very cheaply: videos taken on set by someone from
the crew with a simple digital camera, that could then be e-mailed to the administrators of the website that would serve as interface between
fanbase and network. Such a scheme would be quite cheap to say the least, yet very efficient. This could be complemented by a variety of
additional incentives related to the show and cast. Discussion of such material on existing fan forums would provide strong incentive for
people to join the project.

Nature of the community

- diversity

This community is socially very diverse, albeit predominantly female (by no means exclusively so however). It spans all age and income
groups. With this diversity is associated a great variety of skills and resources: the fanbase includes notably graphic artists, teachers,
students, scientists, psychologists, etc… Most have demonstrated their eagerness to learn new skills for the sake of their cause. To give
you what I suspect you might deem the most surprising examples, I am notably in contact with a retired lady who has created a website
dedicated to the show (her first), and with another one who is currently teaching herself to design banners, for the purpose of spreading
news of the campaign on the Internet.

- current size

Although it is difficult for us to evaluate the exact size of our community, the following facts constitute indirect evidence:
- Moonlight won the People's Choice Award for "Best New TV-Drama" this year. Voting took place on the PCA's web-site, which allowed only
one vote per person per day, and lasted only a few weeks. The reported number of votes received by Moonlight was 10 million. Since
Moonlight's viewers number about 8 million and most viewers presumably do not take the trouble of voting in such a contest, a large
proportion of those votes clearly came from multiple voting by members of the fanbase itself.
- The Blood Drive to Save Moonlight Campaign has collected so far almost 3200 pints of blood (and a donation is about 1 pint), while the
total number of people who have pledged so far on the website dedicated to this purpose (http://www.youchoose.
net/campaign/moonlight_season_2) is currently almost 5750 (many people give money donations because they cannot give blood for one
reason or another, like myself).
- The MoonlightCon that took place on May 24th-May 25th gathered 200 people, while the vast majority of fanbase members were not able
to attend due to professional or familial commitments. To give a concrete example, none of the individuals regularly posting in the
Moonlighter TV-guide blog (about 20 people) were able to attend the event. Yet they are all active members of the fanbase (blogging
regularly, sending letters to networks, and generally speaking answering the calls for duty expressed by the large forums).

- potential for further growth

Note that with the encouragement of the network and the right kind of incentive, once Moonlight gets back on the air, this community could
easily be grown well beyond its present size, by actively tapping into the larger viewership. The conjunction of media coverage of such a
project, marketing it perhaps using the angle of privileged access by the active members to otherwise inaccessible material related to the
show (such as discussed under "incentive") would likely result in considerable growth of the resource that this fanbase constitutes, and
therefore in its ability to promote the network and its shows.

Suggested services:

Here follow a few ideas suggested by members of our community regarding possible services that could be offered. Note that these are
merely a few suggestions, and that any other proposal would be welcome.

Advertising on websites:

- In order to efficiently reach beyond the Moonlight fanbase community, our members could create websites on themes other
than Moonlight, that would appeal to the network's target audience, as well as to the individual members concerned (for greater appeal
for both administrator and visitors). As administrators of these websites they would have great freedom to advertise the network and its
various shows on these outlets. Advertisements could take the form of those commonly used for these shows, and could also include
banners and animations created by artists from the fanbase community, which might be even more noticeable due to the
originality of such an approach.
The administrators of these sites would use whatever strategies your network would deem appropriate in order to increase the traffic on
these websites.
When finished completing a site, or a required change on their site, the volunteers would report this in the agreed manner on the central
website dedicated to the project, so that their work may be assessed by your employees as a check.
A service would be provided by members of the community experienced in these matters to assist the others. This would be an easy
process for a large proportion of our community: with no prior experience and without such help, several of our members were able to build
the basic structure and content of their websites within a few hours. Such a project would be enthusiastically welcome. Also, a given
person could build and look after several such sites, depending on the variability of their content required by their particular theme.

Other online outlets:

- On the forums of the websites relating to Moonlight and used by the community itself,  its members use banners relating to the show
created by fanartists (links to a small sample of those are provided below). Individual members could use these and other types of pictures
(avatars…) in order to promote the network and its other shows on outlets reaching outside the Moonlight online community.  These
banners, whether they be of Moonlight or of other shows, would mention your network explicitly.
- On Facebook and MySpace, in whatever manner would not violate the rules of these entities (using them as avatars or attaching them as
pictures to messages sent to lists of friends for example, if indeed this would be deemed acceptable by these companies; network
employees could be included in such lists for verification purposes).
- as picture attachments in e-mails sent to individuals who our members are directly in contact with, but also, if this does not violate the
rules of the entities concerned, to online groups (such as Yahoo groups) that our members belong to or would join. The content of these e-
mails would naturally have to relate to the interests of these groups, but the attachments would be visible (again, if this is regarded as
acceptable in terms of their rules). Network employees could join the groups of interest to check that they do indeed receive these e-mails
and that the material of interest is presented in a satisfactory manner.
- on forums of other websites frequented by our members, whatever their theme, whose administrators would agree to this.

Further suggestions:

- in addition, perhaps members could also be of use for market research projects, graphic design projects, etc…
- Members would also take a pro-active attitude towards promoting the show by using whatever form of merchandising that
your network would suggest: they would also wear T-shirts and caps,  at large gatherings (rock shows, football games, the mall, at
school, etc…), advertising Moonlight or other the shows in a manner attractive to your target audience, and stating the name of the network
in a visible way. They could also use pictures of the shows on their credit cards, use bumper stickers, posters in public places (if they own a
business for example), etc… Participants could easily provide evidence of this by taking relevant pictures and e-mailing them to network
employees or posting them on a space provided for that purpose on the central website.


Additional material:

- Link to the advertisement that appeared in Hollywood reporter 21st May and Variety 22nd May. It expresses our community's desire to
enter into an organised, mutually beneficial partnership with the network that will renew the show:
http://www.renewmoonlight.com/fanbase-for-sale
- We invite you to visit the online portfolio where we have gathered a few of the products described above. They not only illustrate the skills
of the fanartists, but also demonstrate the energy, enthusiasm and determination of the community as a whole:
http://www.renewmoonlight.com/portfolio
- We also provide a link to one of the many "fan videos" which have recently been produced to promote our campaign. This one was
chosen because it illustrates the size and spirit of our community, as well as the moral qualities of Moonlight itself which we believe hold
some appeal with advertisers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hitzJZP5pI

This energy eagerly awaits to be put at the service of your network.
Below is a letter, followed by a detailed proposal for a possible partnership that we hope may become established between
fanbase members and the network that would pick up Moonlight (or companies sponsoring the show). Basically, it consists in
approaching networks not just as viewers, but also as fanbase members, hence as individuals motivated enough to tackle
promotional projects aimed at attracting stable viewers for the network in an active, organised and efficient manner, in
partnership with the network.
The key parts have been indicated in bold for easy perusal, as the full document itself is somewhat lengthy (of necessity, as
we believe that such a proposal is novel).

If you would like to use parts or all of it, by all means go ahead. We provide below a link to this document in word format, and
another link to a very similar document, but addressed to DIRECTV.

Link to the document below in word format.
Link to the document addressed to DIRECTV in word format.

Also, for a related proposal to the attention of sponsors, click here.

PARTNERSHIP PROPOSAL
To the attention of the networks, sponsors or media personnel that may be visiting this page:
we provide links to additional material of interest to you in the context of such a project. This material is meant to express the
motivation, energy, attitude skills, and size of our community:

advertisement published in the press: link                    graphic artists portfolio: link                example of proposed services: link

promotional video: link       (one among many)
                                                                                                                                                                         

and for companies, some information about the show: link