Cougar Town will be starting its third season at some point during the 2011-12 TV year (it is not on the fall schedule), long enough to have apparently overcome the “Friends jinx” that had enveloped Courteney Cox and her former co-stars. But the show has still had one major barrier to entry for a lot of viewers: its title, which has given some outsiders the impression that the series is a sex comedy about middle-aged women, something as bad as or maybe even worse than Sex and the City 2.

There have been occasional rumblings about changing the title of Cougar Town, and it now appears it’s going to come to pass. Over this past weekend, show creator Bill Lawrence went on Twitter to ask people if the title Cougar Town has prevented them from sampling his program. Based on the feedback, he quickly tweeted, “Screw it. I’m changing it … Seriously, we just decided. Will use fans to help w new title.”

Lawrence went on to imply that his tweet-a-thon wasn’t simply a way to raise publicity. He is claiming that ABC has given he and his staff notice that the show (formerly?) known as Cougar Town needs better ratings to last beyond next season, particularly in the 18-49 demographic that might be most apt to give thumbs down to a series by that name. So even though giving an old show a new name would be a very unorthodox decision, it could be a matter of TV life and death.

Tags: bill lawrence, cougar town