Sci-Fi Channel... is now SyFy?

Kevin

Code Monkey
Staff member
A lot of us have been complaining lately that the Sci-Fi Channel has steered away from it's original purpose and is turning into just another generic cable channel.

Looks like it's going to get worse. :banghead:

TVWeek.com said:
In some universe, the name “Syfy” is less geeky than the name “Sci Fi.” Dave Howe, president of the Sci Fi Channel, is betting it’s this one.

To that end, the 16-year-old network—owned by NBC Universal—plans to announce that Syfy is its new name March 16 at its upfront presentation to advertisers in New York.

“What we love about this is we hopefully get the best of both worlds,” Mr. Howe said. “We’ll get the heritage and the track record of success, and we’ll build off of that to build a broader, more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.”

Sci Fi is coming off the best year in its history. In primetime it ranked 13th in total viewers among ad-supported cable networks in 2008. It’s a top-10 network in both adults 18 to 49 (up 4%) and adults 25 to 54 (up 6%).
Notice the ratings numbers... the more generic the station becomes, the higher the overall ratings.

In case you're wondering what idiot came up with that name, or how & why, then this about sums it up...
TVWeek.com said:
“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.”
 
Yes this sounds like the end, though Sci-Fi channel in the UK is quite different to how it is in the states. However I had begun to notice stuff in the last year that is not sci-fi. There is a heck of a lot out there that this channel could show. There are lots of TV shows and movies that don't see the light of day often or at all. This station should be showing this sort of stuff. The Invaders, Original Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Space 1999, UFO, Time Slip, Children of the Stones, into Infinity, The fantastic Journey,Star Maidens,Tomorrow People and many more plus hundreds of movies both modern and vintage. But we have to view rubbish more often than not, and now action movies staring Steven Segal etc.



Regards D S D L
 
it hasnt been sci fi for a long time now. i used to be a avid watcher of it till about 3 years ago when i went through an evening of non-sci fi shows on there.
 
Sci-Fi Channel to become SyFy?

Doesn't surprise me any. Rather than try to expand build ratings through actually showing sci-fi programming(something that seems to be decreasing year by year), the geniuses that run SFC decide to go the Howard Stern route, a/k/a "let's appeal to the lowest common denominator possible"......and they wonder why sci-fi fans drift ever further away from SFC. :banghead: :banghead: :eek::eek::eek:
 
Renaming as a phones inbuilt dictionary spells it? I added "scifi" to my phones dictionary already manually! It's only one character more and is already an abbreviation as it is!

I would have expected "SF" before "Syfy" tbh
 
Not too surprising, which is the most unfortunate part.

After BSG's final new episode tonight, what in the world would they have left?
 
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