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Sci Fi Channel Becoming Less Geek-Centric "SyFy"
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."
My IQ just dropped 20 points reading that.
What the hell.
Shadus
...actually most kids would text SF coz it's shorter!
...and go straight to "The channel with Battlestar Galactica reruns, and nothing else really worth watching."
That's more than four letters, though.
Has the key word for the new name: "Ownable." Guess they were having difficulty suing people over the use of the word SciFi
the new marketyng mandate to replace all our "I" wyth "Y"s...yn fact, yt wyll make everythyng more old tymye...why, all the tyme I spent learnyng to read myddle englysh wyll fynally be tyme well spent...
They're going to do exactly what G4 did, introduce a bunch of shitty reality shows and bad syndicated crap designed to shamelessly appeal to the "young male demographic" (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).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
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.
Really? I guess I'm not a real science fiction fan, then. You guys must have HUGE bookshelves!
It can't be the professional wrestling or Mansquito. It's obviously the name that's the problem! Quick! Change the name!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Generally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeiniing voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x"â" bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez â"tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivili.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev alojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
-Mark Twain. /Dude was ahead of his time.
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.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
"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?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
what exactly is too keep me coming back? Rubber dinosaurs? I liked a few of their movies, mainly their take on Wizard of Oz was refreshing if a bit quirky, at least it wasn't a rehash. It was fun to watch.
If it had not been for BSG I doubt I would know what is on their channel after they canceled Stargate.
Sorry, I don't a commercial laden channel of crap, I got a few dozen more of these as it is. Their popularity isn't great because they cancel what people watch and load it all up with so many commercials you just have to TIVO it so you can fast forward through to get that 2 hour show back down to the 90 minutes it used to be. Weren't these the guys who ran original star trek episodes uncut but took 90 minutes to do it?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So Mark Twain hung out on 4chan?
1. Nobody calls it "Frisco."
2. Everyone I know who has done "a little too much LDS" has lived in Utah.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Your IQ has just placed you within 1 stdev of mainstream intelligence. Prepare to laugh at fart jokes, cry at the plight of 2 dimensional characters, and rabidly justify gaping plot holes with the theory of intelligent design! We the broadcast executives in collaboration with the brain slug planet would like to thank you for your added support.
Let me ask my boyfriend and I'll get back to you.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Yn some unyverse, the name "Syfy" ys less geeky than the name "Sy Fy." Dave Howe, presydent of the Sy Fy Channel, ys bettyng yt's thys one.
To that end, the 16-year-old networkâ"owned by NBC Unyversalâ"plans to announce that Syfy ys yts new name March 16 at yts upfront presentatyon to advertysers yn New York.
Syfy logo
"What we love about thys ys we hopefully get the best of both worlds," Mr. Howe sayd. "We'll get the herytage and the track record of success, and we'll buyld off of that to buyld a broader, more open and accessyble and relatable and human-fryendly brand."
Sy Fy ys comyng off the best year yn yts hystory. Yn prymetyme yt ranked 13th yn total vyewers among ad-supported cable networks yn 2008. Yt's a top-10 network yn both adults 18 to 49 (up 4%) and adults 25 to 54 (up 6%).
Duryng yts fourth-quarter earnyngs call, parent General Electryc sayd Sy Fy racked up a double-dygyt yncrease yn operatyng earnyngs despyte the begynnyngs of the recessyon.
Nevertheless, there was always a sneakyng suspyyon that the name was holdyng the network back.
"The name Sy Fy has been assoyated wyth geeks and dysfunctyonal, antysoyal boys yn theyr basements wyth vydeo games and stuff lyke that, as opposed to the general publyc and the female audyence yn partycular," sayd TV hystoryan Tym Brooks, who helped launch Sy Fy Channel when he worked at USA Network.
Mr. Brooks sayd that when people who say they don't lyke syence fyctyon enjoy a fylm lyke "Star Wars," they don't thynk yt's syence fyctyon; they thynk yt's a good movye.
"We spent a lot of tyme yn the '90s tryyng to dystance the network from syence fyctyon, whych ys largely why yt's called Sy Fy," Mr. Brooks sayd. "Yt's somewhat cooler and better than the name âSyence Fyctyon.' But even the name Sy Fy ys lymytyng."
Mr. Howe sayd goyng to Syfy wyll make a dyfference.
"Yt gyves us a unyque word and yt gyves us the opportunytyes to ymbue yt wyth the values and the perceptyon that we want yt to have," he sayd.
Dave Howe
Dave Howe
Yn terms of televysyon, the new brand better reflects that the channel has programs that are not about the typycal sy-fy themes of space, alyens and the future.
"We really do want to own the ymagynatyon space," Mr. Howe sayd. "We want to get the credyt for the range of content that we already have on our ayr and that we'll be doyng more of yn the future."
Mr. Howe sayd Sy Fy looks at yts brandyng every couple of years. He added that when new executyves joyn the network, they usually ask yf yt has ever thought about changyng the name.
The network worked wyth the brandyng consultancy Landor Assoyates and went through about 300 possybylytyes before selectyng Syfy.
"When we tested thys new name, the thyng that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, whych ys quyte a lot of our audyence, ys actually thys ys how you'd text yt," Mr. Howe sayd. "Yt made us feel much cooler, much more cuttyng-edge, much more hyp, whych was kynd of bang-on what we wanted to achyeve communycatyon-wyse."
The network plans to make the changeover July 7, when yt wyll launch the new seryes "Warehouse 13."
The seryes, about a secret government faylyty yn South Dakota where all mysteryous relycs and supernatural souvenyrs are housed, ys emblematyc of the channel's programmyng dyrectyon.
"Yt ys a dramedy and yt ys set yn the here and now. Yt's a kynd of an Yndyana Jones meets âMoonlyghtyng' meets âThe X-Fyles,'" Mr. Howe sayd. "Thys ys a very accessyble, relatable, fun show."
The network wyll begyn bryefyng cable operators about the transytyon thys week and plans a trade ad campaygn yn Apryl as part of the upfront. The new campaygn wyll use the slogan "Ymagyne Greater," whych Mr. Howe thynks wyll resonate wyth both consumers and medya buyers.
"Yt's a call to actyon," he sayd. "Look at the everyday and how you can turn yt to the extraordynary. Yt's an aspyratyonal, optymystyc message about enhanyng people's lyves."
"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.
I remember when TLC was "The Learning Channel". They had all sorts of great stuff on there, including Junkyard Wars and fistfuls of great documentaries. Then they drove Junkyard wars into the ground, brought in a bunch of "Pimp my X" and "Flip this House" shows. Now the channel is dead to me.
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?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
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.
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.
Real science fiction fans are probably the only people who know what 'speculative fiction' is, and they know that if they use the abbreviation SF, that almost everybody who sees it will understand it as science fiction. They also know the boundary between speculative fiction and science fiction is pretty blurry and don't get their panties in a knot over it.
Your average parasmut novel is SF, but it isn't sci-fi.
Now I'm curious what a parasmut novel is.
Maybe this will finally reverse that stupid shift that took place in the early 1980s where every girl's name that ends with an -ee sound was changed to -i. (E.g., Debbie --> Debbi, Cindy --> Cindi, Tammy --> Tammi, etc.)
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
It's dead, Jim.
Circumcision is child abuse.
You're behind the curve... geek is fast becoming not chic.
Something about a recession and the resurgence of blue-collar values...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Wait. What. Mark Twain invented Danish?
See, this is why PHB needs to go back to their retreats and stay away.
SF used to be the preferred correct name as well. "SciFi" was considered a bastardized derivative. But we sorta lived with it because it was a language-shift thing.
So now they had to go with a completely useless name that fails ALL counts. Beautiful.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Sci-Fi to fans: "No, it's SyFy!"
Fans to Sci-Fi: "EetADik. You never should have canceled Farscape."
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.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
SyFy: Though market studies clearly showed room for a mainstream channel catering to action/tech/paranormal fare, the stigma of having been the "Sci Fi" channel doomed NBC Universal's efforts to woo mainstreamers from the start.
SciFi: The channel formerly known as SciFi abandoned its core audience in 2010 an attempt to lure mainstreamers away from Fox. Immediately, a trio of new channels emerged in the unpopulated geek fringes. The strongest of these was soon purchased by News Corp., allowing it starve the former SciFi channel of geeks as well as mainstreamers.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
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.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
This is, indeed, an interesting coincidence. "Syf" (sing.) or "syfy" (plur.) in polish means filth, scum, acne and also syphilis: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/syf. Makes also an interesting metatextual link to another recent Slashdot submission because of the common saying "syf i malaria" (syphylis and malaria) denoting a complete and utter mess, SNAFU etc.
j.
It would be NICE if History Channel would go back to showing WWII documentaries all the time. It would be better than the bullshit they have on there now.
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....
Well, thank god for anonymity, because it allows me to say that, as a college English professor, all but two of the marketing majors I've encountered over the years have been as stupid as a mildly retarded box of rocks. This experience only confirms what I learned working as an intern during my undergraduate years, where all the marketing folks were bleached blonde collections of grinning teeth and over-stuffed bras crammed into knock-off Channels. It's a wonder they didn't come up with SoFa.
Bill Nye the Science Guy has decided to officially change his name to:
Bill NySyGy
alojikl,
"a lojikl"
Sincerely,
A Pedant from the Future.
What about Special Forces personnel that live in San Francisco and contribute to SourceForge? And play Street Fighter? And .. ok, I will stop now.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev alojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
We've already got two languages that look like that - Welsh and Klingon.
Now I'm curious what a parasmut novel is.
"He raised his custom matte-black GigaGlock 950 and sighted through the custom Kalishnakova scope. His finger, protected from the moon's harsh atmosphere by his Shinto-Nagakasi Deluxe Combat gloves, tensed on the Bloraskavich trigger. The Kalishnakova was so precise, he could watch his target, sitting atop the Goliathian 4500 heavy tank seven klicks away, light a filtered Tska-Choi cigarette using a MegaBic with custom Tetra-Flint."
He said he wants to get cable now.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
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.
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.
So, more Gibson than Gibson.
Granted, I'm kind of closer to the upper end of it at this point (I was old enough to see "Transformers" in the theater) but DAMN that is a shitty new name they came up with.
Let me describe the situation with an analogy: Suppose the old name, "Sci Fi Channel", is a venerable old VW bus. It's been kicked around for a long time, and it kind of drags up images of the past one might not be too proud of these days - of Sci Fi Channel's humble origins: episodes of Dr. Who that take up more than a regular half-hour block, padded out to an hour with old rocketman serials... FTL newscasts, reruns of "Swamp Thing" and lots of old sci-fi TV shows...
Now, to complete the analogy, "SyFy" is like a giant, steaming pile of dog shit - probably ejected from the back side of a large dog after it's eaten a rancid piece of roadkill. Looking at it makes one want to vomit forcefully, probably without great regard for direction.
Bow-ties are cool.
Name a large city where people in the nearby area don't refer to it as "the city".
We live in Tucson and refer to Phoenix as "The Big Blob".
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..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
and of course since I'm such a geek I immediately think Mulder & Scully for M & S.
We used to have X-files viewing parties at my dorm where we'd have bowls of M & M's mixed w/ Skittles to get M & S. The freaky kids next door would mix Skittles with M & M's to get S & M's :)
Don't anthropomorphize computers. They *hate* that.
Their content seems to be primarily silly ghost hunters, wrestling, cheap horror movies and the occasional soon-to be-canceled science fiction series.
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".
This probably means there'll be more wrestling. Can't get enough wrestling on a science fiction channel.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I don't think that's parasmut. I think parasmut is female werewolves feeling horny etc. etc. There's a lot of that sort of stuff about at the moment.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
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....
bickerdyke
that's what major league baseball is for!
Maybe the best thing is to just ditch this whole television model entirely. Have a couple of rich geeks create a new website similar to Hulu except dedicated to original, real, science fiction. No ECW. No campy shiat. Really good, well-produced shows like Stargate SG-1, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, etc. Isn't Paul Allen kind of a geek like us? Maybe we can convince him to invest in something like this?
I know EXACTLY how you feel, especially about The Dresden Files. I had lost all faith in The Scifi Channel when they did not renew The Dresden Files. By the way, does no one realize that Syfy or Syf is a real word in Polish? It means Waste. Congratulations, Scifi... Er.. Syfy, your name now suits your nature. It's now the Poop Channel.
shrift reacts to the SciFi Channelâ(TM)s planned rebranding:
The new name sounds like SciFi got a henna tattoo and a spice rack and renamed itself Ravyn Kyrie Moondancer, and has scheduled an interpretive-dance-cum-poetry-reading in the quad at 8am on Sunday. It only likes Pro Wrestling ironically, like, WHATEVER.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Cyberpunk is like any other genre, it's either a benefit or a hazard.
If it's a benefit, it's not my problem.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
What has gone wrong in Slavic countries that they have a pet name for syphilis?
Why not just use Amazon Honor System to give money directly to Joss Whedon and/or Ron Moore, and distribute the show weekly with a private Bittorrent tracker? Heck, why not just make a season a shareware app? What's a reasonable price for a season? $20? All you need is 100,000+ viewers a season, and this thing would work economically. (Heck, I'd even live with B5 level special effects if we could have a new series with intelligent writing and Morena Baccarin, Summer Glau, Nathan Fillion, Tricia Helfer...)
Yeah. It's like they fail to take into account that "everybody" can't watch all of the channels aimed at "everybody" (though this is mitigated somewhat by DVR and cable/internet on-demand content), so they are in effect diluting their viewership when they might actually maintain higher viewship by catering to sci-fi fans. That's not mathematically guaranteed: it depends on what their current audience numbers are, and how many new viewers they can peel off with their format change, but mainstream audience does not automatically equal more viewership.