Sci Fi Channel Becoming Less Geek-Centric "SyFy" 798
narramissic writes "According to a TV Week article, NBC Universal has decided to change the name of their Sci Fi Channel to SyFy. Why? To pull in a more 'mainstream' audience. If you're unclear what 'more mainstream' means, TV Historian Tim Brooks spells it out for you: 'The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.' Yes, we should probably all be offended. And telling us that a crack marketing team came up with the name because that's how tech-savvy 18-to-34 year-olds would text it really doesn't help."
FIRST??? (Score:5, Insightful)
syfy.com (Score:5, Insightful)
not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
for some reason, I'm not that surprised.
With SciFi airing wrestling....yes...wrestling...normal, steriod-loaded human male wrestling..no robots....
yea...my first thoughts about it were "WTF!" along with many other fellow sci-fi fans.
That and the end of two great sci-fi shows from the Stargate realm pretty much spelled the upcoming doom of the network.
SyFy? Sounds like a disease (Score:5, Insightful)
That is quite possibly the stupidest network name I've ever heard. Who comes up with this stuff?
I should. But it's hard to feel indignant when the SciFi channel hasn't been a serious SciFi channel in damn near a decade. They used to show collections of all the great old SciFi TV shows and movies with some (often quite good) original new series and movies thrown into the mix. Unfortunately, this has been significantly pared down over the years. SciFi Channel friday nights are good, but (with the exception of Eureka) that's about it. They fill the rest of the time with crap like wrestling.
If SciFi went under, I'd dearly miss Stargate and Eureka. But that's about it.
Marketing departments tend to be disconnected from reality. They want everyone to believe that SciFi would be texted as "SyFy" to prop up their position. The truth is that alternatives like "SF" (what you'd actually text it as) are difficult to trademark and don't roll off the tongue as nicely as "SciFi". (Gee, maybe they should have kept the name? ... Nah. Then they couldn't convince everyone that wrestling is futuristic.)
Perhaps they shouldn't have reinforced the stereotype with all those Poe-style ticking clocks, suitcase cars, monsters turning into people, and other SciFi channel ads? It's not like your average movie goer is unhappy about watching a SciFi movie. Look at the Matrix for a great example. As long as you don't present the concept in too geeky of a light, the general populace can (and does) get on board.
Fonzi'd (Score:5, Insightful)
Can an entire network jump the shark?
"When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you'd text it," Mr. Howe said. "It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise."
I think Slashdot mostly falls into that "techno-savvy crowd," but somehow, I don't think the reaction is going to be quite so receptive. Changing a name because that's how someone would text it?
Why does everything have to appeal to everybody?? (Score:2, Insightful)
I read the article and it says it has to "appeal to a more mainstream audience", and yet it's earnings and revenue are up sharply this year. So, what logic says that they need to appeal to a wider audience?? Do they think that going more mainstream (which I suspect means also changing some of the type of programming as well....) won't cause any of the existing audience to leave? This sounds like the media equivalent to New Coke.
Re:Goodbye Galactica, hello crappy reality shows! (Score:4, Insightful)
(as if young males are completely devoid of taste, and just want some drunk slut in a bikini making an ass of herself in front of Brett Michaels).
Actually, as a 23 year old male, that's exactly what I want when I watch tv. Which of course is never. I haven't the time, and the internet exists now, so I can just youtube the good parts. or something like that.
I'm sure it's all the name's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
It can't be the professional wrestling or Mansquito. It's obviously the name that's the problem! Quick! Change the name!
Re:Ahem... it's SF (Score:5, Insightful)
No, real sci-fi fans knows that sci-fi and SciFi is short for Science Fiction, while SF is short for Speculative Fiction, which includes other genres.
Your average parasmut novel is SF, but it isn't sci-fi.
*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Behind ever corporate headquarters should be a well-equipped firing range and adjacent mass grave, in order to swiftly and appropriately rectify decisions as piss-poor and stupid as this one.
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
"as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular"
Isn't the the whole point of having a channel dedicated to one subject--to go after people interested in that subject?
Re:Goodbye Galactica, hello crappy reality shows! (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, they have already done this. Sci Fi, or SyFy has very little actual SF content anymore. They now feature "wrestling" and crappy reality and game shows, along with god-awful made-for-tv monster movies, which I suppose COULD be considered SF if they weren't so badly done.
With no more "Stargate" or "Battlestar Galactica", they have almost nothing going for them anymore. I had hoped "Sanctuary" might redeem them a little bit, but I lost interest after the first few episodes. Once "Eureka" is done this summer, I'm probably going to get a cheaper satellite package, as I'm pretty sure Sci Fi is the only reason I have my current one.
Re:syfy.com (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the problem is that no one could sue *anyone* over the name "Sci-Fi."
Network president Dave Howe explains the name change as a necessity to attract a broader audience. "We love being sci fi⦠But we're more than just space and aliens and the future â" the three things most people think of when they think of 'sci fi.' What this does is hopefully gives us the best of both worlds. You keep the heritage, but also open up to a broader range of content."
The Sci Fi Channel also ran into problems with trademarking the Sci Fi brand!
"We're going to have upwards of 50 Sci Fi Channels in various territories and yet you cannot trademark 'Sci Fi' anywhere in the world," explained Howe. "A new logo design would not solve that particular challenge. We needed a brand name that was own-able, portable and extendable."
Given the choice between bastardizing their existing name to be "the same" and yet trademarkable or having to rebrand the output of a 50+ network of stations, I'll say they made the right call.
Humm, Why am I a bad demographic? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,â said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.
So, as a father of 4, working the tech sector for over a decade, early adopter in tech, when it comes to TV, I'm a horrible demographic to want? I'm not the general audience because I am a geek and a man?! WTF!? Thats f'cking sexist and rude.
I'm rather insulted by these guys statement. The whole statement is a slam. Maybe they should be paying attention how well sci-fi does in the movie theaters, how well our demographic buys electronics...
Dave Howe and Tim Brooks, you both need a good punch in the nose for those comments and selling out the people who watched and supported that channel.
Oh, and good choice on the new name, now it sound like a disease. syfylis.
The beginning of the end (Score:4, Insightful)
A similar thing happened recently to the Discovery Channel. Anyone who thinks that Mythbusters has science content is kidding themselves.
Looks like the Scifi channel is next. Stargate has no new episodes, the "good ol' shows" like Farscape and the Outer Limits are banished to 1AM in the morning, and now the name change.
I see lots of great channels being run into the ground. Does anyone know any that are rising to the top?
Re:Nice knowing you, SciFi Channel (Score:2, Insightful)
Robotics, microcontrollers, software defined radios, spread spectrum, ham radio, telescope making, digital astrophotography, bike riding, walking, talking, etc., etc., etc. Real life. Real hands-on physical ass-kicking reality.
And then there's TV - brain numbing, market hyping, money extracting, propagandizing, ass widening bullshit.
Kill your TV. Really. Get rid of it. You'll be happier. Besides, isn't it obvious by now that it's committing suicide? Don't let it take you with it.
Yeah, I know, mark me as an anonymous troll. Whatever, it's how I feel about the idiot box.
Re:Goodbye Galactica, hello crappy reality shows! (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't you mean 'Capryca'?
Maybe they'll show some 'Pred8r' movies, or make some bad movies about giant alligators/snakes/voles/whatevers attacking extremely dumb people (but still smarter than anyone who could sit through one of those movies).
Re:Congratulations! (Score:3, Insightful)
[...] cry at the plight of 2 dimensional characters [...]
Er... perhaps you should clarify that "characters" means personalities, not character art. In my travels, I've found a fair amount of sci-fi geeks are quite willing to cry at the plights of two-dimensional animated characters. :-)
Re:marketing speak saves network!! OMG (Score:3, Insightful)
Something about a recession and the resurgence of blue-collar values...
Re:Ahem... it's SF (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to Everywhere. Name a large city where people in the nearby area don't refer to it as "the city". Chicago, New York, LA, San Diego, Seattle- they all do it. SF is nothing special in that regard.
Submoronic asshattery abounds (Score:5, Insightful)
What this chumwits fail to realize is that geek is bigger and broader than ever. Consider the inroads computers and video games have made into the landscape. Video games are an umpty-billion dollar a year industry and are either threatening to or have already surpassed music and movies as the biggest consumer entertainment market. This really surprises me. I mean, I like gaming but I didn't think it was that huge but there it is.
There's always been a demand for escapism entertainment. Now you can argue about hard SF and sci-fi like geeks argue trekker vs. trekkie. It doesn't really matter -- escapism is huge. Now you could be talking comic book fantasy or spaceships and aliens scifi or brooding sexual vamps and werewolves, it doesn't matter. Those of the female persuasion have embraced this sort of thing just as vigorously as the boys. Let's not overlook the amazingly huge impact of Japanese media as well -- manga, anime, etc.
The difficulty the big media types have here is they want to go for the biggest audience. They're still stuck in the 50's when a popular show could capture half the audience across the entire country. They simply can't abide by the idea of serving a niche and serving it well, keeping the overhead low so that they can enjoy a modest, dependable income.
There's a huge market out there for brain-boggling entertainment. People want the unusual, want the unexpected. The problem is that the Sci-Fi Channel has insisted on doing it in the most ignorant, pigheaded, and insulting manner possible.
For starters, Sci-Fi Channel Original Movies universally mean piss awful drek spanked together with the most miserable of standards, CGI monster of the week crap that's poorly conceived, written, acted, and directed. Rod Serling was able to create art with crappy cameras and a SFX budget of cigar butts and sawdust. Sci-Fi doesn't care. They just want to crank out low-expectation shit and expect people to lap it up. What about when they put that contemptible fuckspat John Edwards on? Not the presidential candidate but the spook whisperer. How in the hell is this sci-fi? And what about that Ghost Hunters crap? I can well appreciate the odd UFO and cryptid show but Sci-Fi stuck to this tabloid crap the way the History Channel clings to WWII shows.
I think the biggest problem they have here is that their product is aimed at bright geeks but management wants to market it to idiot chump TV watchers who throw money at anything with tits and explosions. Proper geeks will either Tivo what they want to watch or buy the DVD's -- advertising-supported television will simply not be cost-effective here. But this is going to be the future, folks. People are getting used to watching their TV curled up in bed on the laptop or on the train with the ipod or just plug the computer into the TV and watch the torrent. People have demonstrated they will pay money to watch the show but they're not going to pay through the nose. And there are so many new areas of entertainment to explore, the market for old school passives is going to keep suffering from greater competition.
I think what we're seeing here is the same cause for the failure of Air America. Right wing radio listeners tend to be whiter, older, and have grown up listening to radio. There's not many converts amongst the youth. The target audience for Air America, the liberals, tend to be less likely to listen to radio to begin with and more likely to be getting their news and views from alternative media or television. This was a fight Air America could not win because the market simply wasn't there, even as Air America hosts in other venues such as Rachel Maddow are enjoying phenomenal success.
Once Galactica is finished will they even have anything scifi-related in the line-up? I know they canned the Dresden Files on account of being too expensive and the push to end Galactica is along similar lines. What, are these people stupid? Do they not realize scifi shows are always the most expensive there are to produce and have been so sinc
Re:Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
Prepare to laugh at fart jokes
Hey! That has nothing to do with intelligence! A funny fart joke is a funny joke, no matter how smart you are. And it seems like most fart jokes on TV are toungue-in-cheek anyway.
What is there to watch anymore? (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't watched much of Sci Fi in a while. I used to watch Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, but they're done. I would have continued watching Battlestar Galactica, but it kept jumping around, so now I'm waiting and just getting it on DVD.
Nothing else had really jumped out at me lately. But then again, ever since the whole Farscape fiasco, it's been clear that the management doesn't have a clue how to run a channel that is targeted towards a particular interest group and then use that for better advertising prices.
The more this crap goes on, the more likely I am to stop watching a lot of TV and just buy stuff on DVD or watch it on the Internet.
It's an excellent time to abandon the audience!! (Score:3, Insightful)
The audience is going to abandon Sci-Fi after BSG airs its last episode anyhow. After that, they ain't got a pot to piss in.
So, NBCU has decided to do to SyFy what it did to all the other peacock channels: dumb them down to the point eh shows don't require writers or competent actors. Christ -- the new Knight Rider is probably going to get yet another season!! Some day we're going to look back and think Idiocracy was a documentary about the gold age of American intellect.
Re:I think they should skip this name... (Score:5, Insightful)
...and go straight to "The channel with Battlestar Galactica reruns, and nothing else really worth watching."
Or they will pull a Fox and play time-slot roulette, and then dropping what the core audience wants. Then they will promise DVD sales, forget about it, finally get to it and then decide people actually wanted to watch it.
-sniff
The History Channel. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lately it's been the 2012 end-times prophecy channel. Every other show on that channel is now Nostradomus, The Bible Code (ha), and psuedo-science shows that have catchy names like "Earth's Black Hole" in which they interview the quack John Hutchinson (google hutchinson effect for his quackery) about the possibilities of a black hole being located in the ocean....
Re:My IQ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Goodbye Galactica, hello crappy reality shows! (Score:5, Insightful)
They're going to do exactly what G4 did
Which is what MTV did long before G4. Did you know they used to play music videos?
Re:My IQ (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, is this any less insulting than SciFi showing ECW?
Re:I think they should skip this name... (Score:1, Insightful)
Why be ashamed of Sci-Fi? (Score:3, Insightful)
Science Fiction is perhaps the biggest money maker that Hollywood has going. And from what I can tell, ever since Star Trek first aired, people just can't get enough of 'good' science fiction. The problem is that most of the crap on the Sci-Fi channel isn't Science Fiction, it's fantasy somehow involving some science in it.
Consider Star Trek (and the spin-offs), Star Wars, Terminator, ET, Fantastic Voyage, and even Firefly. There is an insatiable appetite for GOOD Science Fiction. As soon as someone comes up with a great idea, and if the industry is smart enough to recognize the good idea - money is made. Sci-Fi includes classics like Batman, Spider-Man, Iron-man, Fantastic Four and many others have made gazillions, and entertained us for decades. Other stories, dealing with the simple topic of (if only the techology existed ... .then ....) all encompass the realm of Sci-Fiction.
The problem is that there are too few imaginations who care to write Sci-Fi. You don't need major bucks to tell a good story. Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and Star Wars managed to tell a compelling set of stories all on a tight budget. It just requires a talented and imaginative set of writers.
Unfortunately, today Sci-Fi writers have been dumbed down into telling inane stories with little or no character development, original thinking or any real motivation. Such a pity. There are so many good Sci-Fi books that could be done on a budget and tell a compelling story.
If it walks like a duck ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought that the promise of digital television was specialized programming for niche communities. From what I can see, all the channels now carry the same crap.
I can't tell the difference between SciFi, Spike, or even Soap TV (not that I watch it or anything.)
From what I can tell, the future of television will be 250 channels of "Law and Order" re-runs.
SCIFI Channel died a long time ago (Score:3, Insightful)
They became "the monster channel" a few years ago, as even reruns of real science fiction is rare now.
While i personally don't like 'horror', Its perfectly fine if they want to be wall to wall evil fling fish with teeth and weird guys that wear hockey masks, but please don't call it scifi..
Re:My IQ (Score:3, Insightful)
They mostly did that years ago and replaced it with creature features.
They had a good thing going with some of the old Sci-Fi shows they kept canceling. We all know how important it is to replace things like First Wave, The Invisible Man, and Farscape with thing like stuck on an island with a really big snake, or raptor, or chupacabrea.
You mean the Ghostly Wrestling Channel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Their content seems to be primarily silly ghost hunters, wrestling, cheap horror movies and the occasional soon-to be-canceled science fiction series.
Re:Ahem... it's SF (Score:3, Insightful)
Parasmut = paranormal smut.
Parasmut constitutes most of the new books in the SF aisles at the book stores these days. Vampires, werewolves, demons and similar, written by women with nom-de-plums with far to many y's and h's. The real plot of parasmut boils down to "his hardness plunged into my wetness".
Re:Goodbye Galactica, hello crappy reality shows! (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh goody (Score:3, Insightful)
This probably means there'll be more wrestling. Can't get enough wrestling on a science fiction channel.
Oh great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of
'The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.'
its goint to be
geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial and dyslexic boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that
I would respect their descision to attract more mainstream audience. But shouldnt they change the contents to do that instead of the name? A rose, by any other name and so on....
Re:FIRST??? (Score:4, Insightful)
How about SFC?
Coming to think of it I don't think the new name is the big problem. I don't think it's a particularly good name but I don't have a problem with them re-branding so when someone talks about them it's clearly about them and not science fiction in general. If they just said they were changing to Syfy for branding purposes there would be some wincing and head shakes but people wouldn't mind that much.
I think the problem is that they stated fairly clearly that they're changing their name because they don't respect their current fan base.
Now I think this reaction is slightly exaggerated since it's not fully clear from the article that the quote calling the fans "geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that" doesn't actually come from the network (though it comes from a former executive there), there's a lot of negative interpretation in there. Nevertheless quotes like "more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand" do give the impression that they don't think much of their current audience.
Re:Good... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
It bears mentioning that a statement is not necessarily false simply because it was presented as the conclusion of faulty logic.
For example:
I like strawberry ice cream
Strawberry ice cream is tasty
Anime sucks
Scifi to Scyfy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My IQ (Score:4, Insightful)
In regards to the Sci-Fi channel, it simply reflects a changing audience. Most computer geeks/nerds are higher wage earners as such free to air and cable are both losing to buying Sci-Fi content and creating your own personal channel. A lot of ex Sci-Fi viewers most likely have up around a years worth of solid viewing with their own DVD libraries so watching ad ridden content, or paying again for cable and getting a whole lot of non Sci- Fi low brow junk is really pointless.
New Sci-Fi reality, stream episodes, if the season rates well, geeks/nerds will buy the whole season on DVD (half season collections suck) often only watching some of the streams so they can make the most of first time viewing of a complete season.
So for cable and free to air 'SyFy' expect a lot of low brow content and maybe even 'SyFy' themed low cost 'reality' shows, they will of course create some good content so they can sell it on DVD at the end of the season.
Re:SyFy? Sounds like a disease (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course marketing departments around the world are disconnected from reality, their job is to convince themselves that the product they've just been told to sell is the best thing since the previous best thing they just finished selling. They have to avoid any connection with reality to do this. They have no connection to the product or it's customers, only the remit to make money. The only way they know how to do this is to put the product through market research data filters and increase the demographics that research says it will appeal to.
In this case they saw women as an untapped market who will be easily fooled by a name and logo change, while the downside is a petition from previous fans that will be treated like any other petition.....ignored. Will people suddenly stop watching because of a name and logo change? I'd side with the marketing people here in saying "no". People will decide for themselves whether to keep watching / paying on the content they show; if the schedules change too much then they will lose some and potentially gain others.
Like any other corporation who have to compete for customers, the only thing that will influence their decisions is the bottom line.....money. If they have a flood of cancellation all with the "reason for cancellation" as the same thing, only a boardroom full of imbeciles would ignore it and carry on regardless, in which case the shareholders would have something to say about it. They could bank on future subscriptions to make up the loss but that's a hard sell in the current climate.
Re:My IQ (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't you mean tardy?
All I see on the boards at airports is --delayed--
Re:My IQ (Score:3, Insightful)
In defense of Sci-Fi, they've always showed "creature features" like Godzilla marathons and other 50s-era monster pulp. I think the main change between the 1990s Sci-Fi and the 2000s Sci-Fi was the elimination of the "serious" shows like Inside Space, Animation Station (anime), and Sci-Fi Trader which featured interviews with the writers and artists behind the shows.
Basically they dumbed-down the channel in order to boost ratings.
And now it appears the 2010s Syfy channel will be even dumber: "WRESTLERS IN SPACE! space...space...space" You think I'm joking? I wish. TNT tried to do that with Crusade, featuring wrestlers on the ship as guest stars, and JMS quit the show. I wouldn't be surprised if Syfy revives the idea; they just need to find a writer with no conscience.
Re:Humm, Why am I a bad demographic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. Isn't it funny that they do this the same week that the top two movies at the box office are "Race to Witch Mountain" and "Watchmen"? Both of these movies are the kind of movies that appeal to "dysfunctional, antisocial boys". For the record though, the only reason I think it's that way around is because an R rated movie always has lower box office than a PG-13 one...
Well you know what? Those "dysfunctional, antisocial boys" grew up a decade ago and are now the parents of (let's face it) spoiled kids, drive nice cars and still tend to go out and spend money on things they really like just because they can.
Don't worry about them... their opinion is at least a decade or more out of date. Being a geek is no longer seen as some sort of social disease... and geeks typically earn significantly more than their non-geek counterparts. Howe and Brooks clearly don't understand the "tech-savvy" crowd... and so their ignorance is obviously reflected in their statements. Don't stress about that... they'll learn the hard way.
On the bright side, this gives me one more reason to drop cable entirely... if it weren't for the kids channels now I'd probably just say goodbye to cable entirely.
Re:Why does everything have to appeal to everybody (Score:2, Insightful)