If - as seems to be the general feeling here - the EV is the only reason for subscriptions to/purchases of a paper many people otherwise dislike, then why even campaign to get it continued in the Telegraph?! I’d be surprised if the decision here is being made by the current puzzles editor (and former editor of the EV), but more likely by some procurement team who are only interested in perceived levels of interest and, ultimately, financial viability. And, even if it can be saved at The Telegraph, their requirements/costs are unlikely to change, and are solvers really going to start submitting more entries or commenting more on the blogs?
As I see it, the best future of crosswords in the UK - and particularly niche ones like this - is not being reliant on newspaper owners who largely don’t give a toss about - or, as anyone who has ever tried to solve a Telegraph puzzle on a mobile will tell you, clearly know very little about - crosswords. There’s barely a week that goes by that I’m not fearful of the Inquisitor/i or Independent folding and taking with them some of the best puzzles out there. And this over-reliance on newspapers is always going to be a risk.
As a solving community, we should start thinking about how to decouple the EV series from the paper and relaunch it (or a version of it) as an online subscription service via Patreon, Kickstarter or somesuch. There are plenty of examples of good indie subscription services in the States that offer puzzles of all kinds, both on a subscription and pay-per-puzzle basis. Of course, it all needs to be financially viable from an editorial/setter point of view - and it might mean that some changes are needed at first, e.g. fortnightly puzzles rather than weekly - but, if we truly want to keep up the supply of good thematics out there, we as solvers need to be prepared to support them as independent concerns.