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Does Syfy Really Love Sci-Fi?
brumgrunt writes "Has Syfy fallen out with science fiction altogether? A look at its latest scheduling shows that it's further away from its roots than ever. 'There's still a lot of the older sci-fi content on the airwaves, but it's slowly being phased out, and forget about original programming. After all, this is the programming crew who ruined Caprica by stuffing it into the Friday night death slot and splitting the season into two parts. These are the geniuses who killed off Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. These are the people who wrecked Farscape, one of the most inventive and fun sci-fi shows to ever be on television. They also ended Mystery Science Theater 3000, only the greatest show ever invented by robots in space.' Is this now as good as it gets?"
For this reason, I could exclude SciFi channel from my Sci-Fi movies recording rule and be much better off for it.
TCM or AMC are much more likely to show Sci-Fi classics than SyFy.
Although the local PBS station does show old B movies. However, even those seem better made than the self-produced stuff from SyFy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Syfy has become to science fiction like MTV is to music television. Or TechTV (now "G4") is to technology.
It's a shame. I used to love their original programming. Now... wrestling? Really?
"After all, this is the programming crew who ruined Caprica by stuffing it into the Friday night death slot and splitting the season into two parts. These are the geniuses who killed off Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. These are the people who wrecked Farscape, one of the most inventive and fun sci-fi shows to ever be on television. They also ended Mystery Science Theater 3000"
How DARE they cancel that show that nobody liked, and those two shows that had bad ratings. And that other show that had bad ratings. And that nine-year-old show that had a good run for years on their network.
I sometimes get the feeling that Sci-Fi fans are so desperate for more content that they religiously and desperately cling to whatever they get, and in the process make shows into far more than they actually are. It's understandable, and even sympathetic. Then again, so is the network trying to pay the bills.
Let's see, come up with interesting shows... then kill them, or ruin them. Then, you've got a specific niche market that you're targeted at, why not "rebrand" yourself, and try to appeal to an overfull market, while treating the folks who made you viable as ignorant , and chasing them away as hard as you can?
*Great* business plan.
But then, most of them a) don't read SF, b) don't understand it, and c) flunked 5th grade science, and know so much about how the world works that they'd electricute themselves cleaning a toaster (you have to clean them? Really? How? Why?)
And on the sf side, as a lifelong sf fan, it *used* to be that there were 10 year or so cycles, where you'd get more fantasy for 10 years, then more sf; the last 15 or so, it's overwhelmingly fantasy. My take is that with the dumbing down of the educational system, and especially the unravelling of the Space Program, kids don't see a chance for them, so they go off into fantasy worlds where *something* can happen, and maybe they'll win the lottery, too.
mark
It boils down to this:
Science fiction and fantasy programming, no matter how high-quality or compelling, do not draw a sufficiently advertising-targetable, high-spending audience to justify a seperate channel.
In lieu of this, Syfy has chosen the fallback position, which is to appeal to a much broader but reliable audience, young men. Programmers know what shows appeal to this demographic, and advertisers know which products to pitch to them during the breaks.
Thus: Wrestling, ghost hunting, lurid monster movies.
Science fiction is not the only genre or category to suffer. A&E and Bravo were concieved as outlets for artsy movies. MTV used to show music videos and be about, well, music. What kind of programs do these channels show now?
Under the current rules of broadcast and cablecast TV, the situation will never get better. Non-premium channels will get more and more generic and lowbrow. Cheap "reality" shows and infomercials will fill more and more programming slots.
If you really want high-quality SF&F content, you're going to have to be willing to PAY for it. Either on a premium channel, or by some kind of net subscription.
Look at other "specialty networks": The Learning Channel (TLC), MTV, VH1, etc have all bailed on their original programming and having nothing to do with the name of their network. Hell, even the History Channel has bought into the reality TV bullshit. For the most part all of the networks are showing the same crap now.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
They stopped loving Sci-Fi the second they put wrestling on. Just like MTV stopped loving music the second they switched to reality programing in stead of music.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
What is the point in having niche channels, when you abandon your niche? As someone else mentioned, a lot of channels on cable (The Learning Channel, History, Discovery, etc) are just reality TV and conspiracy theory BS. Why even create niche channels, if they don't want to serve that niche? Even the Science channel is bad these days. There are thousands of good science based documentaries that have been produced, but yet every time I try to watch something on the Science Channel it's just that silly "How Things are Made" crap. Seeing how the Cheetos got from a bag of orange shit, to my face, isn't exactly science!
SGU was terrible.
I really wish they ran a live version of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe in place of it.
SG:Atlantis and SG1 were great shows. SGU just lacked any of the wit and fun those shows brought us. I watched SG:A and SG1 because they were fun, last thing I really needed was a giant bummer.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
While "SyFy" is on cable and therefore sees a bit of revenue off your cable bill, a big percentage of their revenue comes from advertising. Unfortunately their target market (geeky males) generally don't watch ads. They torrent SyFy shows or PVR them and skip through the ads - So it's likely harder for SyFy to recoup their costs for expensive shows with lots of FX if ad revenues are down. Yeah, yeah, I know 'content wants to be free' blah blah blah, but anyone who has watched fan-produced Star Trek or Star Wars webisodes knows that producing quality Science Fiction television programming is complex and expensive.
Nope, nothing gay about muscled, oil men, rolling around on the floor, while pretending to wrestle, while trying to present bad drama. Normally that roll is reserved for drama queens.
The most mysterious hold in all of wrestling is the one it has on it's viewers.