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Ask Slashdot: Is It Time For SyFy To Go Premium?
Cutriss writes "Now that Caprica is gone and SG:U has concluded, I see new shows coming in their place such as Alphas and the Red Faction series, and I find myself asking if the fate of Atlantis and SG:U might have gone differently if SyFy had been a paid cable network. I know the Slashdot audience would probably trade a few dollars a month if it meant replacing wrestling and ghost-chasing shows with relicensed classics and more appropriate treatment of original content. Plus, with a paying audience, the ad space would become much more lucrative and SyFy could lose some of the seedier ads it has been saddled with lately, and better fund new original content."
Time for it to go away.
Then they can make Megamonsterdragonfrog vs. Interstellar Goldfish with even better production values.
This whole story is a joke, right?
I would pay extra for it through not cable. If I could drop another $2-3/mo on my Netflix subscription to have Syfy's entire back catalog and new shows available day-of-release on Netflix, I'd do it in a second.
And I haven't had cable, thus not watched Syfy except at friends' houses or on Netflix since 2007.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
First they can get rid of the superstitious ghost-y drivel, then they can ask for my money. I'm not going to encourage crap by paying for crap.
A lot of Stargate fans were turned off by SGU - even Atlantis was too much of a stretch for me.
I just download the good stuff anyway.
The "premium" channels that I get on cable (HBO, Showtime) only show commercials for their own products. They don't take outside advertising. At least not that I've ever noticed.
I agree that SyFy has made the jump away from its roots in recent years (Scifi -> SyFy for starters), with a lot of core science fiction shows being dropped. I enjoyed SGU, and would have loved to see it continue. That being said, I do believe that if Syfy were to become a paid cable network, it would quickly die. I simply don't think it has a large enough fan base to sustain itself in that capacity, which is exactly why it has felt the need to capitalize on the ignorant masses with shows such as Ghost Hunters.
I watched the crap out of SG-1 and BSG but Caprica was a soap opera and Atlantis and SG:U (especially SG:U) sucked.
Make good shows and they will last.
I don't pay for anything more than extended basic cable. I'm not going to sign up for more just to get SciFi (Syfy). Hell, I'm thinking about dropping cable altogether.
I lobbied hard to get my local cable company to add SciFi; and was markedly disappointed when they did. The actual science fiction content has only declined since then. I no longer see a reason to watch it at all; there's zero chance I'd pay to do so. OTOH, making it a pay channel would hasten their bankruptcy, freeing up bandwidth for something else.
The public appetite for space travel, battles, and true sci-fi (as opposed to War of the Worlds: LA) has been shrinking for years. It's not just syfy, but every true space opera franchise has been slowly dying for the past decade or so, to be replaced by garbage like the "V" reboot. Even is syfy transitioned to a premium model, they may not get enough subscribers without the ghost chasers and such (I won't walk about wrestling).
Who wants to pay a few more bucks a month for another channel? I think most folk want to pay fewer bucks per month and have a smaller number of higher quality channels. Cable has no interest in delivering that, so folk are moving away in droves. The audience that reads sites like /. are likely to be amongst the first switchers.
It could just be the economy, but subscriber numbers for cable declined in Q2, Q3 and Q4 of 2010. Personally I think it's a trend and one that will continue for quite some time.
Broadcast television is so 20th century. If you want access to quality older issues, your best hope is from Netflix, Hulu or Amazon.
...maybe. Anything to do with 'SyFy', absolutely not. That channel needs to be buried and somebody with new ideas needs to start with a clean slate.
Sci-fi not Sy-phy-lis, like the current one. There's nothing to salvage after what they've done.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
There is no hope for SyFy. I was hoping another cable network might recognize the gold mine that is Stargate and other true Sci-Fi franchises and tempt them away from SyFy. When you put shows on a proper schedule, and don't air them randomly with nobody knowing WTF is going on, with huge hiatus breaks so you can sell half a season of DVDs for the price of a full season, you could develop loyal fan bases. Airing 10 episodes of SGU then killing it for 6 months then bringing it back and expecting people to care? Yeah, you can't do that. A month of hiatus for a new show is pushing it. you're trying to hook an audience, don't give them reason to forget you exist. When you get to Season 6 you can start taking huge breaks.
Shouldn't a sci-fi based channel be going the open internet route like Netflix rather than the "we hate HBOgo b/c you have to be a subscriber" route? The only channels that should be pay are porn, only to keep the kids out. Whoever suggested this must have missed the last 2 years worth of "cut the cord" articles.
Are you assuming that these shows wouldn't have been canceled if they weren't on an ad/ratings driven channel? I hate to tell you but premium channels care about ratings, too. Ratings mean subscribers.
And I highly doubt they have enough quality content to be a premium channel.
That channel is dead. I removed it from my channel menu.
I blame the audience as well as the execs for SGU's death though. SYFY tried to do it right with spending most of season 1 doing character development and you know what happened? The audience said "There isn't enough 'cool stuff' it's just a drama about people!". Then when Season 2 started actually building on top of the well developed characters with 'cool stuff', and the series started getting really good, the execs looked at the numbers and said ' Shut it down, no one likes it'. Being a paid channel would not have saved it from an impatient audience and impatient execs.
if they constantly replayed Star Trek, Firefly, BSG, and Dr Who I'd be down. there is more than enough good scifi content out there to fill the air time. i just cost $ that the network doesn't have.
If nobody wanted to watch those shows for free, I don't see how charging people to watch them would have improved the audience. It isn't like SyFy is Apple or something.
Those channels exist to put advertisements in front of eyeballs, not to please you, or validate your "geek culture" or whatever you're on about.
Cable TV is a stupid waste of money for cavemans, I thought we all already agreed on that. Who cares what some dumb cable channel shows as filler?
Watch your B movies and night gallery episodes on netflix, ffs.
What a stupid article.
That channel lost much respect with the name change and adding WWE was the shit-icing on the cake. I would definitely pay a premium for good quality Sci-Fi like BSG, Fargate, Firefly, Dollhouse, SG:U.... but not on the SyFy channel. If they restore the quality of the channel as a whole then we can talk. Hell it a Sci-Fi channel, they could lead the way in providing a premium channel online or partner with Netflix for distribution with SciFi branding. Imo opinion they should change their name to the Fy channel because there is more reality fodder than Sy in Ghost Hunters.
The showed their hand when they renamed their channel. As in, they were more interested in being hip than being a place to be for science fiction.
If I want premium shows I will watch HBO (usually on DVD - used to on Netflix till HBO yanked what I wanted from them - BOOO!). Considering the quality or should I say lack there of when it came to in house stuff are we losing much that they show wrestling? At least with wrestling the costumes and special effects are better.
I will admit being a fan of Children of Dune (did not care much for their Dune remake - but the follow up was great to watch and had an awesome soundtrack) and I also found Tin Man to be great. FWIW, I thought it was NBC who did BSG and SyFy who did only the follow ups which really were muddled messes.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You raised an interesting point. Unfortunately, it's too hard to say what might have been. Personally, I would have been interested in SciFi (full disclosure: I despise "SyFy") if it were a premium channel. In fact, it might have been the only premium channel I would have purchased.
Therein lies the rub. If set up as a premium channel, it would likely end up in a premium bundle rather than as an a la carte offering. I don't know that enough people would have paid (would yet pay) for the service.
The fact remains that they've already set and sailed on a course that alienated many of their (formerly) loyal viewers. After such a disastrous decision, it would be hard for any network to come back.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I know that Being Human was a British show first, but the American one that is showing on SciFi/SyFy is actually pretty good. It may not be original, but the content is there and worthwhile. I'm not saying they can carry a network on one show, but the ability for them to create shows that don't suck is still there. They just need to exercise it once in a while.
I haven't actually followed the channel that much, living in Norway for about 99% of my life. But I have enjoyed several of its shows, and I would like to see more of them that fit the sci fi genre.
We are all God's parents.
Wrestling, ghost shows, and now a cooking show. It is obvious that Syfy has fallen and I don't think science-fiction is a big enough draw to be a premium channel (too much of a niche).
I'm sorry but they screwed up. I'm not going to pay $70 to $100 a month, have to watch a ton of commercials I'm not interested in, and THEN have to pay extra to get the content I want. Not gonna happen. Besides, if we did that, you don't think other channels would do the same? Next thing you know Cartoon Network will start charging for cartoons.
No I've been much happier with Netflix/Hulu, and been able to watch some actual Science Fiction (Farscape, BSG, Dr. Who.. ALL of Star Trek is coming to Netflix this summer). I just wish the cable/satellite company would wise up and realize where our TV is going to come from now.
I think the content leads to the premium value. Starting with the premium price and promising future content will not work, especially with the slime merchants at syfy.
With the single exception of BSG, syfy has been a worthless wasteland. Zero dollars is still overpriced in their case.
It seems like Science Fiction shows struggle to avoid cancellation on any channel, not just SyFy. Apparently there just are not enough of us tuning in. The fact that premium channels avoid sci-fi shows too should tell you something about that idea.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Do we have to wash the executives' cars, too?
Why is this on Ask Slashdot? The question does not contain *any* indication that SyFy actually considers this, so at the moment it's just one person's speculation, nothing more. And anyway, (almost?) nobody here has the data or experience to make a qualified answer to the question in the post title.
Ask Slashdot should IMHO be limited to questions where our collective *experience* can actually help.
Seriously, the biggest problem with the channel is that they're trying to do all original sci-fi content, which, for quality stuff, is EXPENSIVE to produce. Each episode of SG-1 had the budget of a small movie. They're bringing in the Ghost Hunters and that other BS because it's cheap. Buying the rights to failed series from other networks (for example, what they did with Sarah Connor Chronicles) will enable them to stop spending money on production of mediocre crap, pooling resources onto a few shows that they can then put some quality into. I'd much rather see the channel divest itself of the wrestling crap and continue to cater to the original geek culture it was marketed for - buy and air re-runs of things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Legend of the Seeker (hell, restart that one!), Witchblade, Dark Angel, and maybe some anime.
FINE! I'll just go start my own Sci-Fi channel! With Blackjack! And Hookers!
In fact, forget the Sci-Fi and Blackjack!
Would it bring Firefly back?
The entire industry is shifting AWAY from linear, "TONIGHT AT EIGHT PM/ SEVEN CENTRAL!!" linear, in-your-quaint-lil-living-room networks and over to multi-screen VOD offerings. PVR devices have killed "time" and tablets and mobile devices are in the process of destroying "space" as considerations for cable programmers. No kind of content -- not The Naked Ladies with Chainsaws Channel, certainly not The Quality Science Fiction Channel, could possibly influence the launch of a premium linear network in today's fractured, VOD, multi-screen, cord-cutting environment.
Remember when Sci-Fi used to have that "Adventures in Japanese Animation" block on Sunday nights (IIRC)? It's where I first heard of Lensman, Vampire Hunter D (the first one, not the terrible sequel) and several others.
/.ers up for starting a new premium channel called Sci-Fi? I don't have any capital to start it but I'll be a seat polisher or a janitor or something.
I was really bummed when Sci-Fi changed its name to siffee, and irritated when it started showing burley men hugging eachother into submission. I liked the TinMan remake as well, and I was really into SG:U until I heard it was canceled, and I haven't watched an episode since it went on hiatus. Now that I know it ended, I'll torrent the episodes and watch it then. Also pretty miffed about Caprica. Alessandra Torresani was soooo hot to me, especially in that little dress she always wore that showed off her legs.
Damn.
ANYWAY - maybe it's time for another channel to step up to the plate and rename themselves "Sci-Fi" and start showing Sci-Fi! I never got to see all of Farscape, and apparently it's still waiting for its conclusion, so how about it? Any rich
Lets talk to Joss - maybe he'll be down! We'll make him president of the Universe!
I stopped watching anything on that channel around the time they changed the name... not a conscious decision, it's just the way it's worked out. Turns out, I'd rather watch Sci-Fi shows than wrestling or ghost hunter show. Go figure.
" Plus, with a paying audience, the ad space would become much more lucrative and SyFy could lose some of the seedier ads it has been saddled with lately, and better fund new original content.""
You want me to pay and watch ads?
No really imagine if TV was free. I mean what if you could just stick a wire into the air and like magic suck the shows right out of the air for free! The people could pay for the shows by just running ads. I know it is just a dream but just imagine if it could work.
Actually if you live in any good sized metro area you really should go buy a cheap antenna and plug it in to your HDTV. The picture quality OTA is so much better than what you get over cable. If you can get the major networks and if there are not other shows you really like then drop the cable people. Think about how much you are paying a year for your Cable TV. If you have internet than you can get a ROKU box and stream NetFlix. It is insane that the TV business has gotten this messed up. You shouldn't have to pay for a channel and watch ads! People forget that CATV means Community Antenna TV. The way it was supposed to work is if you live in a town with crappy TV reception someone would put up a tower and amps and everyone would share the Antenna. You paid a fee to support the infrastructure. Now that local stations want the cable company to pay for the right show them even when the customers could just use rabbit ears and get them for free.
The cable companies then compress the crap out of the signal and put on a bunch of channels some of which very few people want and then charge you for packages! Why can't I just pay for the channels I want?
The whole system is out of control and completely broken.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
No. They lost all credibility the second they aired their first wrestling broadcast. I fail to see how throwing more money at the network will make it stop sucking at this point.
You give them more money, you'll get Sharktopus sequels. Guaranteed.
Syfy is irredeemably blackened by its association with WWE and made-for-TV movies that were so shitty that they made Roger Corman spin in his grave. I gave up cable TV when I moved out of my parents' attic. Syfy as a paid channel, even if cable moved to a la carte pricing, isn't reason enough to get cable again. For the good of science fiction and fantasy as art forms, Syfy must die.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I know the Slashdot audience would probably trade a few dollars a month if it meant replacing wrestling and ghost-chasing shows with relicensed classics and more appropriate treatment of original content.
I agree. Greetings from the Netherlands.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
SyFy is run by morons and has been for ages. You can't fix stupid.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
So, I didn't want to cram up the submission block, so here's what I really wanted to say.
A lot of you already sound jaded beyond the point of wanting Syfy to continue existing. Fair enough. It could be someone else doing things properly. I mean, right now the Science Channel seems to have more going for it than Syfy. BBC America is *increasing* its science fiction lineup where it already had more content than Syfy did. I don't know how the figures are working for Discovery, but BBCA has to see something if it's able to keep this stuff going. It's not like BBCA gets to use the UK TV franchise fee.
I'm not proposing an ad-free network like HBO. The market is niche but it's still not tiny. I mean, a MILLION people watched SGU last night, and that's with a whole bunch of Atlantis fans up-in-arms over it. Let's say that 1M is the audience. At $3 a month, that's $36M a year alone for SGU. Plus, as I mentioned in the summary, their ad revenue will go up because the spots become more valuable. Let's figure four TV tiers - nationwide network OTA (IE - free), local OTA (free), cable (paid), premium (paid AND personally invested). On a premium niche network, these are people that are specifically interested in a narrow segment of content that the network is carrying and not just putting that channel on because Son of Sharktopus is on. You know more about these people and can spend more money marketing to them because they have the money to spend not only on cable but on a premium channel.
And while I personally don't have a strong taste for the cheesy monster movies that they've shown lately, I was amused by the terrible disaster flicks. Not everyone's sci-fi tastes are the same, but they're close enough that I think if they weren't tainted with wrestling and other assorted crap, we'd have a really good network on our hands.
Let's not forget that SG1 started on Showtime, and Game of Thrones is doing *quite* well on HBO. The market is there. Maybe Syfy can't do it, but someone can, and I hope they do.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
It may be a good idea to have a premium sci-fi channel, but syfy isn't it.
As a service I can subscribe to on a roku Box? YES. itunes? YES,
Sorry but Cable TV is dead, it's body just has not stopped flailing. Why would a company be silly and continue a dying business model.
Also they can cut back on production costs and still out out a fantastic show. SGU did not need to cost that much to produce.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Note: The shit programming is there because they wanted to attract a broader audience -- Hence them dropping the "nerd's only" Science Fiction abbreviation and adopting some syphilis sounding name... SyFy
Even the SciFi shows themselves have been dumbed down (little to no hard sci-fi; It's mostly just fantasy-fi in my book), romantic interludes and who's mating with who drama are inserted for no apparent reason other than to attract the "wider" audience (those with narrower minds who can't pay attention unless erotica is involved -- hence "wrestling" shows for those wrestling with their latent sexual tendencies...).
Shows that get dropped are dropped because SyFy doesn't care about SciFi, they care about viewer-ship. Let's face it, there just isn't enough interest from intellectuals to generate the numbers needed to convince the Nealson hypnotized execs that SciFi is worth anything, esp. not at this late stage in the game.
Perhaps if they transitioned to support media consumption technologies that the geeks get excited about (instead of TV), they could re-claim their niche. As it stands, they see the niche dwindling and say: "Add More Tard TV, the geeks have left the building"
AMC is able to produce Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, The Killing, etc. in the basic cable space. I don't think that going premium is the cure for what's ailing SyFy.
I would pay if they changed their name back, if they'd continue with good programming like SG:U, and if I could get that channel by other means. I haven't had cable TV in years and I will not until I can pick and choose only the channels I want to buy without getting ~any~ others.
Very few channels can hack it in the premium space. Disney did the math in the 90's and figured out it was way more profitable to get small amount of money from everyone as a basic channel rather than a lot of money from a few people as a premium channel. The money is so much better that Disney started playing hard ball with the cable operators. You want to carry the local ABC affiliate on your system, you're going to put Disney in the basic tier.
SyFy's issue is that they are owned and operated by NBC Universal. The same no talent ass clowns that took NBC from number One to Number Four were in charge of the network. Things aren't going to get any better for the network once Comcast takes them over. Competing cable companies aren't that keen to pad Comcast's bottom line.
If the cable companies could get enough subscribers for a Premium Service, then making SyFy premium might be a good idea. I too am sick of the wrestling, ghost-chasing shows and low-grade sci-fi shows. Sadly however, the media network executives seem to regard science fiction as a sub-genre with a small audience made up mostly of children and 40 year old virgins who live in their mother's basement. So, I don't think SyFy will ever go premium. I see a problem with the History Channel too. The History Channel has become over-run with Ice-Road Truckers, Ax-Men, Swamp-Men, and Larry the Cable Guy featuring obscure elements of American society (like rodeo clowning)...That's not history. I'm also sick of the plethora of pawnshop shows such as PawnStars and American Pickers. I would pay for History Channel as a premium service if they would do away with all that cr*p but again, I see a problem similar to that of the SyFy channel: too small an audience.
They have Star Trek TNG, Doctor Who, X Files. Syfy is a lost cause but maybe we can encourage other channels to show more sci-fi.
But I would have paid for SciFi
They abandoned their core demographic as soon as they put that wrestling crap on.
Then they proceeded to crap out bad programming.
Pretty much the only show I watch on SyFy is Stargate Universe.
They need to stop putting on B- movies, stop the silly run away from Science Fiction, and get back to their roots of GOOD Science Fiction.
If they had done that earlier, instead of putting wrestling and bad B movies, then I would have paid for it. Now, I don't trust them.
Seriously, that would be a bad idea. WTF is going to pay for the SyFy? No one. Make it pay and ppl will just leech the torrent or use the netflix. And the name change... seriously... go back to SciFi... the SyFy is just... .
Anyone asking this question needs whack over and over again with a huge rubber chicken.
There is much that I agree with here. Yesterday, I was terribly dissatisfied with the SG:U series finale. I think SyFy took a big turn for the worse when they elected to change their branding from SciFi and target audience to a non-scifi crowd. Their news release states as much. The network has definitely left is roots. Notice that even Eureka and Warehouse 13 have changed their target audience. Even the low budget movies and mini-series are lacking. I can remember two in last year that I made sure to watch - through commercials and all.
they would need to change the name back to Sci-Fi and have Sci-Fi Content again. Why would anyone pay for sy-fy content?
Unless they emulate HBO and have movie like shows...
I'd pay for the cable channel. Seriously, when you rename yourself "SyFy" (sounds like a venereal disease!) and start hawking smackdown wrestling, you have dissed your base. That being said, SyFy ( I hate that name) has developed and aired some of the best scifi programs ever (Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Stargate SGU (I'd include the other Stargates as well), and others I am forgetting at the moment. There is enough scifi content out there to feed a niche cable station, including programs originally aired in other English-speaking countries. The secret is, I think, a sensible rotation, so that the same thing is not on all the time.
all a cart cable can do the same
They certainly don't. People are being put in charge of these channels to turn them into profit centers. That really struck me when I turned on G4 a while back to watch X-Play, and saw something called "Cheaters" on after it. I kept watching, thinking it was another gaming show with hints and cheats, and it turned out to be a "reality" show about videotaping people cheating on spouses. o.O
The broadcast model is dead. Let it die. You watch to watch Firefly? The boxed sets are $15 used on amazon. Got a hankering for some Gerry Anderson fun? The remastered and lovingly put together UFO megaset- all 26 episodes- is less than $30 brand new.
Want some new SF? Hey, here's a crazy thought: READ A BOOK!
As a certified Nerd, all I watch on TV is SyFy, PBS, Discovery Channel and Big Bang Theory. I pay a hundred dollars or so for cable every month - I woudl gladly pay all that money to SyFy if I coudl get just their quality shows (Eureka, Haven, Warehouse 13, Caprica, Batllestar, Stargate).... AND I woudl pay more if I coudl get back other killed before their time SyFy like Firefly, and pick and Trek Universe show. Too many stupid reality shows and XYZ whatever stupid crime shows on regular TV.
No one is going to pay for bad content; they've already cancelled anything remotely interesting. The fact of the matter is that sci-fi shows don't work for advertising-based broadcast TV. The low ratings inevitably lead to weak advertising revenue. The original poster has 50% of the right idea: to get good sci-fi shows, people will need to pay for it, but not on TV, but online. These two posts sum it up well:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1915236&cid=34591784
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/19/netflix-cult-hits/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
Personally, I really like the idea of Netflix picking up cult hits like Stargate Universe and Firefly. Please send a message to Netflix to let them know that you want sci-fi cult hits on Netflix: http://www.netflix.com/ContactAlliances
Here's a post on the SaveSGU discussion board on Facebook with a similar idea: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=179223788758992&topic=418
SyFy is not basic. Therefore it is cable. You know: those premium channels that were lauded in their early days for higher production values, lower censorship regulations and zero ads (as you had to pay extra for them)?
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
I would pay, in fact I would pay to NEVER see wrestling on Syfy ever again! Yeah, I would pay good money to see monster movies, and not the same old drivel like weeks of tremors, in fact I might pay to never see tremors again. Bring back the old style saturday monster movies and outer limits, and other shows.
My interest in science fiction does not include stuff they would print in The Enquirer, nor does it include nonsense fiction such as giant 50 foot long pythons with tails that spear people and that bite heads off. A python couldn't bite the head off a petunia let alone bite a soldier in half. My suspension of belief only goes so far.
Its time for the shows we love to start giving the finger to distribution channels on tv, and post their shows once a week to a website directly, with either a monthly charge, all you can watch... or a premium charge to watch it the week it is first posted, less charge for the first month... and free of charge after that. Throw a bunch of content around the shows to enhance things maybe... but we want the shows. We don't need SYFY. at all.
That way the dead horse that was once a science fiction channel can finally be put to rest.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
This is the real issue at work here. The idiots in charge of SyFy are astoundingly inept and lack a real focus. When the network first started, they had about half of their entire schedule filled with repeats of old science fiction shows and so on and a few new things. But lately, it's been them spending stupid amounts of money on made for TV rubbish and failed series that have worse writing than sitcoms and pulp science fiction from the 80s. Honestly, the guys from Fox can churn out better stuff at this point, and that's not saying much.
With their last big franchise that drew in viewers gone, and no serials from the 70s, 80s, or 90s to act as filler,(even old MST3K episodes would suffice to draw in a consistent crowd of retro-viewers, let alone old Dr. Who or similar) it's dead in the water. They simple need to die off at this point. I hope that Stargate gets picked up by someone who has the vision to make it live again. But I doubt it at this point. I think it'll die off a slow and agonizing death (or has at this point, most likely) like Star Trek did. And at the hands of many of the same idiots - big surprise!
Cable is doomed. I download my content one way or another. Long live Netflix.
if SyFy actually produced great original shows (like it has done before but seems to have forgotten how) then yes, i would pay extra for it.
what i would really pay extra for is my fave shows getting a longer run. Farscape and SGU definitely come to mind as being canceled too soon.
better yet, how about a series that was paid for purely by fans buying episodes, with no commercials or network necessary? will that ever be possible? how much would it cost us? SGU had a $2 million budget per episode, with 1 million viewers... doesn't that equal $2 per viewer per episode?
as soon as they changed the station name to SyFy... the person that first thought that idea up and then the one that made the decision to let it happen should both be stuffed into a space capsule and shot off into the bowels of space!
Snake moves are boring. Reptilian movies are boring. Ghost movies are boring. Vampire/undead movies are boring.
Seriously, vampire shows are just vehicles for skinny girls and sexual content. The plot is 'save the girl, sweep her off her feet, live undead happily forever and ever and ever'. Thin soup.
HBO figured out that as a premium channel, they could command an even more loyal subscriber base by producing exclusive content. So we got Sex and the City and The Sopranos. And they kept on producing series. While you might complain that you got a few weeks of Sopranos, you got 60 minutes, no ads, and real good work.
sYfY could take a lesson here and consider establishing the series they have available. SG doesn't have much life in it unless you want to do an Indiana Jones treatment and go back to the 1920s or further and work on the arrival of stargates. I, for one, would like to know why a System Lord would abandon Earth. Something in the water? Or finish Caprica. Or get the band back together and make a Firefly extension. Personally, I would like to see the Dune series done right, or Asimov's I, Robot fleshed out for the first time on film, or the Foundation series. If you like vampires, the Crystal Singer series is close enough to keep you entertained, maybe. HBO is doing Game of Thrones, which is what sYfY should be doing. The Event is better than anything on sYfY, faint praise, and the new 'V' was just unsnake enough for me to sit through it. We live in a golden age of video production, and it isn't that damned expensive. You don't even have to build sets like you used to. Hell, you don't even have to buy film.
It's just a matter of time before there is enough out there on YouTube to blow sYfY off the map. Actually, YouTube may eventually blow half of cable off the map.
sYfY has lost its way. I doubt they can find it again so long as they can't figure out how to make money doing what they used to.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I'd pay to have shows like SGU and Caprica back. SGU was one of the best shows on TV.
'Ghost Hunters' isn't Sci-Fi (not to mention that, if you've sen it once, you've pretty much seen every episode). I stopped regularly watching years ago. Some of the original content us watchable, but most of it is sub-B movie schlock. Same cheesy CG. If I want classic Sci-Fi, I can grab it on hulu or netflix (or any of a number of online sources).
What would I watch? Good, original, thought-provoking shows. Not movies, but documentaries, even 30-minute anthology shows (think Twilight Zone or Outer Limits). Turn down the Fiction. Turn up the Science. "Mythbusters' is more Sci-Fi than 90% of that's on there now... It's at least good science.
btw, has anyone noticed how little History there is on the History Channel? American Pickers and Pawn Stars? People, Puh-l-eeeezzzeeee....
AMC has been hitting home runs as much as HBO lately. You look over at SyFy and they greenlight stupid movies like MegaMonster vs MegaAnimal, Mosquitranasaur, and other stupid inane movies that no one will ever watch. They've been doing this for years, just throwing money away. I'm sure budding directors are happy to cut their teeth on this stuff, but for the actual viewers, and the sponsors that bring in money it is painfully obvious no one wants to see any of them. They used to have amazing shows like Farscape, Lexx, and now SGU.
Everything AMC has been putting out has been really great. I especially love The Killing and The Walking Dead.
It maybe time for a syfy G4 merger with sports getting one of the old slots.
Well next year the NHL playoffs may end up on g4 or syfy and comcrap may push it to g4 just to get it back on Directv . NHL deal force may force Directv to add G4HD E!HD and StyleHD.
But long term with Versus becoming a more of a main sports channel maybe being coming part of the universal sports sub channel (they had plans to make it HD like as non sub channel). They may need a Versus 2 / extreme sports channel with hunting from VS, WWE from syfy and stuff like ninja warrior from G4 and NHL games when the main Versus / universal sports has a other game on.
SciFi/SyFy has being going downhill since Bonnie Hammer took over over CEO in 2001. They never gave a Babylon 5 series a real chance, interfering with the one pilot they did attempt. Add on to that the whole fiasco of promising two seasons to Farscape before pulling a bait and switch, followed up by bringing in Shannon Frickin' Doherty to do that godawful Scare Tactics, and the writing has been on the wall for some time.
Now she's on to killing NBC Universal. How people like this keep getting more chances after abject failures is beyond me.
Time to kill it, not fund it.
So lets see. Not enough people watch SyFy. So you want them to raise the cost of it so that the demand will increase.
You should work for congress!
They'd just keep the wrestling and ghost-chasing shows and pocket the subscriptions.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Technically everything SyFy does is paid for by NBC/Universal. BSG was a Sci-Fi Channel series (before the rebrand) that also aired on it's British sister station SkyOne.
The NBC/Universal overlords have ruined a relatively decent channel with weekends of nothing but idiotic monster flicks even Irwin Allen would wince at, weeknights of dumb ghost and monster hunting and rehashed, worn out vampire trash, and because they are doing such a great job to reward them you want to pay for access to that crap? Let them provide quality content worth paying for, then we can discuss it. Your logic is like saying the government has screwed up VA health care so much let's give them the keys and money to control everybody's health care. Let SyFy prove they have the mojo to give us entertaining quality programming again, then we discuss the issue.
What happened is the following.
SciFi appealed to a demographic similar to the one here at slashdot. The problem started when the cable companies started charging more for the same or less service. (In the past I could plug a tuner into any outlet now I need a special (at cost) decoder for each outlet). So, pay more and get less. The SciFi demographic said screw this and put up antennas or went to the internet for content. The effect was that SciFi lost its viewer base. So what does SciFi do? They change their name to SyFy and target the dumbest of the dumb (Ghost hunters and Wrasling). Then the economy goes south and who are the first people who can't afford cable... The SyFy target demographic. So... All that is really left is to go out of business. They will only be a few years ahead of the cable TV providers.
Side note: In general, there isn't anything wrong with TV. Unfortunately, the providers are destroying their content by squeezing their customers. What the providers don't realize is that WE HAVE OTHER CHOICES besides TV.
ESPN should be a premium channel as well disney.
There are alot of people who don't want ESPN and others who just want ESPN + there RSN + maybe VS, TBS, TNT, BIG TEN and other just for sports.
There's a saying that you "shouldn't throw good money after bad." When someone keeps reducing their quality and their product consistently disappoints, DON"T GIVE THEM MORE MONEY.
Nathan's blog
Pay extra for the crap that is SyFy? Not in this universe.
I've never liked their original shows very much, and their movies are absolutely laughable garbage. (well.. Grendel was watchable) They remind me of B-rated monster movies from the 60s, and there's usually not a shred of originality in them either, they just rip off the plot of much better SciFi/Fantasy movies that are currently in circulation either at the theatre or on DVD.
I was never a Battlestar fan, nor did I watch Caprica, or Farscape. You'll never catch me watching any of the Stargates on a faithful basis either, I just never got that into them. I have caught Sanctuary from time to time, mostly out of boredom, although Warehouse13 and Eureka are half decent shows, granted, and given that 98% of television sucks anyway.. what else is there to watch?
The only thing I really watch on SyFy now though is "Merlin" since NBC dropped it. SyFy didn't even have the decency to pick up Legend of the Seeker.
They've been the biggest disappointment. I was really psyched when they first came out. Instead of being the "go to" channel for Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Dr. Who, Terminator, Predator, Aliens, Buffy, et all.. though, the vast majority of their programming is home brewed camp and schlock. I guess it's not all that shocking though.. TV's track record isn't the best when it comes to SciFi, but with a few exceptions..
It's not that I want to see them gone or anything, I just keep hoping they'll better someday... and hoping.. and hoping..
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
For a good chunk of the last decade now, the tattered remnants of the SciFi Channel have been badly BADLY mismanaged in an utterly wrongheaded attempt to "appeal to a wider audience and pull itself out of the niche it had so firmly defined itself as. It's programming director simply "didn't get" SciFi.
Hence the prevalence of "ghost hunter" shows with boobs standing around going "I imagined I saw something there! ITSAGHOST!" and John Edwards "I can talk to dead people" faux psychics. as well as *GAG* "rasslin".
The fact that they picked up and ran with some rather fine SciFi series, even as late as this year is a source of unending awe to me.
Simply throwing more money at them and going premium is NOT an option for them now though. They've gone on to define themselves as just another general content channel that happens to have a SLIGHTLY higher quotient of science fiction stuff. As such, they have nothing that makes them a worthwhile, marketable premium channel. And I mean NOTHING.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Yes, many of us actually do pay for our iTunes downloads and DVD releases, but let's face it, the Sci Fi audience is, in general, way to familiar with the term "torrent".
...for someone else to rescue SyFy from its current management. Until we achieve that, nothing else will work.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Why do I need BSG on BBC America? I don't want them to show American series. I want interesting British programming that I might not have seen otherwise. I thought that was the whole point to the channel.
I can turn on Spike or any number of cable channels that are re-run mills.
SyFy blows. WWE and Ghost Hunters crap. I'd love to see a new station with content like it's Science Fiction Channel days.
I agree. It blew my mind that BBC America does reruns of Star Trek TNG and the X-Files and not actual BBC shows.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
It's time to stop cancelling every ******** show, or they should go away, not premium.
SciFi implied that the station focused on showing Science Fiction content. They abandoned that premise, so calling the network SciFi was false advertising. SyFy, on the other hand, as a word with no meaning, suits a network with no focus.
They are the network that's not about anything.
Then cable networks should adapt. Instead of paying for a linear network, we should pay for an on-demand network. It would eliminate people with PVRs skipping commercials by inserting commercials directly into the on-demand stream. They could even do different commercials based on locality. I know people don't like commercials, but its becoming clear that we have a choice between watching quality shows with commercials or timeshifting and accepting whatever reality/wrestling crap a network can put together with $10 and a camcorder. Unfortunately, there's enough people willing to watch reality tv that I don't think we'll ever get back to quality entertainment.
I'd gladly pay for the right to be able to watch it, even if it was on cable TV; that is if they get some good original programming and not those cheesy D-rated movies that they normally show.
As for the people who say that it should be an online channel, I still say that there's just something to be said for being able to watch your favorite show on a big 52-inch television at 720p instead of on a small computer screen with YouTube picture quality. I know YouTube says they have 1080p content but it still looks like crap according to the HD service I get on my cable service.
If it becomes a channel I have to pay for like people have to pay for HBO, I don't care. Give me good science fiction shows with compelling plots and stories and I will be more than glad to pay for the right to watch those shows. And no, I will not torrent them because I know that if the producers don't get paid they don't make new shows for me to enjoy.
"I know the Slashdot audience would probably trade a few dollars a month if it meant replacing wrestling and ghost-chasing shows with relicensed classics and more appropriate treatment of original content."
Uh, not only would I not do that, but:
- I don't even want to watch SyFy for free, or any of those shows that you mention.
- And I don't even bother to have cable of any sort.
- And in fact I don't bother to own a TV anymore at all.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I know it has been mentioned, but maybe a merger needs to happen. The networks screw up most SciFi, and anything good gets cancelled typically because it will never get the audience needed for a network show. We shouldn't need to worry every year that a show such as Fringe may not get renewed. But a merger needs to make sense. G4 : Already mentioned. This would seem to be the likely candidate. Half the shows on G4 are barely watchable. The station is directed towards the same type of crowd, etc. They even sometimes get the rights to air repeats of the network SciFi shows. A combined channel will have SciFi content, technology content, and AOTS :)
Spike : Man's station, so audience is very direct. However, SciFi watchers tend to lean towards the same demographic (not claiming this is an absolute obviously). Fewer shows though that would be commonly watched.
Mega-merger (SyFy, G4, Spike) : Now this would be the channel, with content of each type being the 'primary' set for the night. You do not need to worry about continuously coming up with new content (like SyFy has to), you aren't focused too much on geeks (like G4), and you draw in those who like the manly shows. Yes, you'd still have wrestling (since both SyFy and Spike have that). But you don't need to fill 7 days of SciFi, and no need to make 'Cheesy Monster Movie of the Week' for every week.
The problem, though, is that you still need something that will be shown during the day, when most people aren't home. This is where specialty stations have the most problems.
Its time for them to start playing more original twilight zone episodes. Seriously. The reason istay up till 5 am
Maybe in the past it could have went that direction, now days? after basically saying "we don't like the sci-fi nerds that helped us get to where we are, we want to get away from that and go with the more hip SyFy to bring in new types of people". Well they can go choke on a ****.
Siffy doesn't need to go premium; it needs to go away.
Most of their original content is pure crap, and they've obviously decided to switch to a format showing something other than science fiction (hence the name change). They don't need to be a premium channel to show wrestling and "ghost hunter" shows to mentally disabled people. Can you tell I've stopped watching?
I have been saddened by the loss of Caprica, and Stargate (SG1, Atlantis, and Universe) before (long before in some cases) they're stories had been told. I look to pioneer-one (http://www.pioneerone.tv/) for the way forward. They have proven, in my mind, that we the geeky will spend our own money to support quality science fiction. (I have no affiliation with pioneer-one, other than that I have donated some money to their cause).
Yes please, there is so little on theses days that i miss the content that SCI-FI used to have (thats right i intentionally spelled it that way) before the dumbing down of the programs. Just like when G4 bought TechTV. Seems that theses days everything is pointed at the lowest common denominator. I would gladly py a couple extra dollars a month if it meat having some thing decent to watch again. Sigh......
>> "Any episode of these TV shows: Star Trek (all series), Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stargate (I liked 'em all), BSG (sure both eras, why not), Firefly, etc.
Movies: Star Wars (all 6), Star Trek (40 now?), Blade Runner, Serenity, The Day the Earth Stood Still (original please), old Japanese monster movies, all the comic based flicks, etc."
Most of what you've listed is on Netflix or in the case of Trek it soon will be. 8 bucks a month. Look into it.
As far as I'm concerned it is a paid network. That also shows me ads for the hoveround and the sunsetter retractable awning... Because you know a lot of boomers are getting their Sharktopus fix...
I don't think anything could save SyFy from the marketroids, reminds me of G4 which I stopped watching when they described their target audience as "Males 12-45 years of age" with a straight face (that and they seem to have no actual programming). Maybe as revenue continues to drop we'll see some consolidation. Get the 2-3 decent shows from each channel and build one channel actually worth watching. G4, Spike, SyFy on one channel, all the discovery owned channels on another, a&e channels on another, etc. Then do some actual research on your viewers and target Ads accordingly (or get cable to open up and do alacarte and do away with ads all together).
Or they'll just blame pirates and sue a bunch of people...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
You can't switch to being a premium channel based on the promise that once you do so, you will offer good content. You need to offer good content, get people hooked, then go premium. As-is, I have no faith that any new series produced by SyFy would be decent. Their "original movies" are horrible with bad writing and cheap special effects. Once they offer something serious, then they could try to go premium. If they really want to do this, they need to go with a new name so that people don't associate it with SyFy.
I think your assumption about "The Slashdot audience" is wrong since Slashdot readers are notoriously anti-TV and very internet savvy. In addition, making basic channels into a premium channel is driving customers away from cable television. When I had Comcast, every other month I got a notice that some channel was being moved to the next level of service. I think I had 70 channels and it 60 of them were showing one show 12 hours a day. I had all day cooking, all day gardening, all day house hunters, all day America's Funniest Home Videos, all day Ghost Hunter, all day Spongebob, etc.
I often have either the SyFy or Discovery channels always on in the background as I'm on my computer, lately the Discovery channel has taken over...While I admit I chuckle at the Mutant versus Monster and psuedo-remake of current movies (like 2012, but not the real 2012 that was released in theaters) I can't imagine actually having to pay for this channel. It's a collection of not very good things.
IMO the shows mentioned in the blurb here were terribad. Caprica (no thanks), SG:U (puke), SG:A (space vampires weee), SG (was good for the first few seasons then went downhill). Eureka - campy, but alright, it is a good fit on a free nerdy network. Sanctuary - meh, it's not a great show, not really good, but it's cheap and easy to make so it's not going anywhere. Warehouse 13 - similar to Eureka (and set in the same world as they do cross-overs) but it's not like an "omg this show is great".
Occasionally the SyFy channel will get a decent show, like BSG, but it doesn't market it well and ultimately it does little to actually benefit the network, because they don't know what to do with good shows. Hell if they knew what to do with a good show, they would have played Firefly in order and it'd done well.
Let's just be honest, SyFy is the place for misfit toys that nobody wants and to think it'd actually be able to get people to pay for it is wishful thinking at best.
Ave Molech Setting
"I want interesting British programming that I might not have seen otherwise."
Well, then we'd actually have to make some, which seems to be too much trouble these days. Dr Who is still OK, but here's the programme they run immediately before it in the UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010w1y2
'Dont Scare the Hare - Jason Bradbury presents an innovative family game show packed with humour and jeopardy, and featuring a 4-foot animatronic robot hare...Episode 4/9. Two teams of contestants battle angry frogs and laser-beamed carrots to win 15,000 pounds.'
It's probably 'interesting' after serious LSD intake, but then so is watching the clothes go round in the Economy Wash cycle on laundry day.
I'd pay for it, if I still had cable, but cable is so over-priced I cut the cord.
I would agree, yet the marketing mantra seems to be that women make the majority of purchasing decisions in households.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/feb2005/nf20050214_9413_db_082.htm
and from elsewhere:
Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care:
91% of New Homes
66% PCs
92% Vacations
80% Healthcare
65% New Cars
89% Bank Accounts
93% Food
93 % OTC PharmaceuticalsAmerican women spend about $5 trillion annually
Over half the U.S. GDP
Apparently this is part of the reason why you don't see 70s/80's action programming now, and why outside of sports, most broadcast network programming is female oriented. It probably accounts for why more men are spending their time playing games than watching TV as the broadcast networks have little scripted programming to offer. The female oriented purchasing premise however seems outdated since fewer people are getting married, and that more and more households are single parent households. This leaves a fairly large body of men who are shopping on their own independent of women. Syfy would seem to be a place to show plenty of ads for games, action/comic book movies, DVD box sets, cars etc, yet the ads shown don't always seem to match that demographic.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
SyFy has seen several GOOD shows come and go; some, like Caprica, were canceled rather nonchalantly and without much comment from SyFy. My sense is they are struggling, like many other media, with where to get funding along with reliance on an antiquated (IMHO) "ratings" system.
As with music, the cable/movie/television industry is going to have to jump on board with new technology and explore alternative content delivery and revenue mechanisms. These are already evolving out there. I would personally pay a premium if it meant shows like BSG or Caprica would (and could) continue to be produced. It could be that the sheer production costs of these ventures is so high, but they're going to have to figure out how to make it work -- just like everyone else.
I have pretty much stopped watching SyFy. Though I miss BSG and the other shows, to me "out of sight is out of mind" and I've long since moved on. They are marginalizing themselves. It's really disappointing.
"Imagine greater"? Yeah.... gotta work on that one ;-)
Star Trek TOS didn't do too well until it ran as re-runs on other networks. Later it got more popular and man TV networks tried a Sci Fi series. This has become a trend with SpikeTV, and the like to pick up the old TV rerun shows.
Syfy if they were smart would make a Syfy Movies channel for a premium service included with new movies and reruns of their old shows on it for the fans. Syfy Movies and maybe a Spanish version of Syfy Movies as well, then expand into International cable and satelite as translated to other languages and subtitles. Then maybe movies for the big screen to bring in more money or/and the shows that ended to be a rerun on other networks or released as DVDs, Blueray disks, Netflix/iTunes/Hulu etc video shows, and so on.
If there was such a channel available in the US.
The closest we have, unfortunately, is BBC-America although that is pretty good.
There used to be a SciFi channel in the US but it went out of business or something.
Now there is one that tried to capitalize on that large albeit niche market by calling themselves SyFy (pronounced "siffy" I think. I basically look at that as the syphilis channel. There are a couple of decent programs on it accidentally but most of the programming seems oriented towards the same lowest common denominator types who watch "American Idol" and such shows.
Wrestling??
GHOST HUNTERS???
You have got to be kidding me.
If that is the channel you mean- hell, I would pay a couple of bucks to have it removed from my channel listing!
There IS good SciFi around and when you include the Fantasy genre as is most commonly done, even more.
Plenty of content for a 24/7 channel with some new stuff and the classics.
I wish we had one.
Linux computers, watercooled, photography
SyFy would have done better going paid before they put in all the junk. At this point, I doubt I would actually pay for SyFy until they'd come up with a lineup which has stuff I would watch. That means they'll need to take the jump, change their lineup, and see who stays. They're probably too risk averse for that.
I would love to be able to pay $3/month for BBC America or an improved SciFi. I can't: I have to go up an entire tier, getting a bunch of channels I could care less about and paying a lot more money. Not going to happen. I'll watch Dr. Who on DVD a few seasons late.
I don't consider skiffy (I'll go back to pronouncing it "scifi" when they fix the spelling) a channel worth watching. Rather, I consider a couple programs worth watching, that happen to reside on skiffy. It's very liberating, and a lot less frustrating, to think in terms of content rather than content providers. I don't care that skiffy shows wrestling or ghost busting or horrible shite "original programming" because I don't watch same.
And... c'mon. Caprica was carp. Not on the scale of "megaoctopus vs giant razor clam" but nevertheless. Had it not a connection to BSG it would have sunk without a trace. It tried to appeal to the soap opera crowd by having too many characters and unnecessary plot lines, and was about as fun and satisfying to watch as laundry drying in the rain. SGU started out carp and finally got good in the last few episodes when the writers realized the clock was ticking and they needed to get off their collective butts and quit stalling the plot hoping to reach the magic 72 episode threshold. (I got out of breath just writing that.) I tell newcomers to watch episode 1-3 and then skip the rest of the first season.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It was pretty much over for me the moment they changed their name.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I couldn't agree more with the original post.
After moving to the USA I got cable specifically to get SciFi (as it was at the time), but over time I've been wondering why. Most of the good sci-fi shows are on other channels, and the majority of SyFy today doesn't come close to science fiction. Reality TV is not fiction, even if the word "reality" is being used loosely. Monster movies really don't do it for me (though I guess they fall into the sci-fi/fantasy genre), but I just never understood why SyFy would take on wrestling. So what they're saying is that they don't care about their demographic at all?
I'd happily pay for access to a premium sci-fi channel, even to the extent that I would consider dropping most of my other current TV subscription. If the shows were good enough, I'd even be happy with a production company that produced content that went straight to the ITMS (which is a *much* more expensive way to get a show).
But alas, apparently sci-fi fans are doomed to never being able to hand over their money to producers whom they really want to give it to. Curse you Roddenberry, for the influence you had on my formative years!
Why can't the BBC do that in Britain? It would be much better than their 20 antiques and property shows they broadcast a week.
To be honest I've been scratching my head about this network since they changed their name to pay tribute to a sexually transmitted disease. Then the whole wrestling thing. And those abominable remakes/mini-series (did anybody really like Dune? How about Fire Starter?). As a science fiction author and fan I have to say that very little of their programming is actually sci-fi at all, it's mostly fantasy, even though some of it has a gleaming metal shell around it to make it look superficially like sci-fi. Perhaps someone called them out, and that's the reason for the ridiculous name change? Just saying...
SyFy needs to die, to get out of the way for an actual Sci-Fi channel.
As long as SyFy is around, it sends to wrong message to the clueless cable execs that "proper" SciFi isn't popular.
I mean which moron exec decided lame ghost-chasing and horror have any place on a Sci-Fi channel? I want names/email addresses.
I'm in. Dump the crap shows and start showing some classics and new content.
Somebody actually watched Caprica?
You must be the only one out there, because after the end of BSG I wanted nothing more from that franchise.
It was so bad it made BSG 1980 look good. The Star Wars Christmas Special had more redeeming moments than the BSG finale; and I'm not joking.
Find a chief executive who actually likes sci-fi, rather than one who admits he hates it.
BSG was also a British series - it was cofunded by the Sci-Fi Channel and the british channel SkyOne. For much of its run episodes were aired in the UK well before they were aired in the US, until they figured out that this just made US fans download it from UK caps.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
"with lately"????????? I seem to remember that the adverts were ALWAYS inappropriate. :(
I own the complete DVD sets of Stargate:SG1 and I simply fell out of Stargate:Atlantis due to the horrible experience of watching it on that channel... even with DVR some of that channel's stupidity still leaked through... they broke my love of the franchise
They really missed the boat on the Science Fiction part, and started playing nothing but poorly slapped together fantasy or horror, often with not even a modicum of Science Fiction in the plot or foundation.
I no longer watch "TV" and I certainly don't want to pay for cable if all I would watch is 3 or 4 channels, so SciFi / SyFy could go completely away and the world would keep on turning.
The ending SUCKED! I'm thinking that by putting everyone in hibernation for three years they thing that the show might get picked up again in a few years. Also they sorta implied that Eli isn't going to make it. Why didn't they just put TWO people in one of the hibernation chambers?
much too easy.
" find myself asking if the fate of Atlantis and SG:U might have gone differently if SyFy had been a paid cable network."
it would have ended much sooner. Please, is't quality is no where near the quality of shows on HBO et al. At it's quality it would need a much, much, wider interest base.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Seriously, I thought they had driven off all their more intelligent fans when they started catering to the developmentally challenged. I found this turn of events very disappointing until I realized, the Syfy channel isn't just for the learning disabled, it is run by the learning disabled as well. I mean look at them, they sent a marketing bot to slashdot to do some market research and try to find out why real geeks don't watch Syfy anymore.
Wll, Mr. Retarded Marketing Bot, please take this back to your superiors: premium channels require premium content first, not last. You don't get to create literally the dumbest channel on television anywhere in the world and then complain that you could make it better if only you had some more money. You don't have money because you are doing it all wrong. You won't get more money until you start doing it right. You don't get to skip over the "getting it right" part. We are not a captive audience. We have other choices.
Until I realized that Syfy is actually a retard employment program, the idea of having to explain any of this to grown adults would have blown my mind.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Caprica and Stargate Universe are part of the reason I dropped cable entirely. I can't see myself paying for any of the stuff that they currently produce.
Instead, they could just produce stuff straight-to-video, except in the off chance they came up with something good enough for a theatrical release.
I personally would pay up front for upcoming science fiction from names I actually trusted, like say JMS. So I think that's a valid model for at least the first interest with enough money to make it happen that gives it a serious go.
Maybe this could be what Netflix does to continue to exist into the future as ISPs and content creators merge further to bone them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They _are_ paid by cable cos., as they do not broadcast over the air; They are usually lumped in with your "premium" or "extra channels" package fees though, rather than being broken out like HBO, which seems to be your point. To that, I say nah -- broadcast is dead, and requires too much "miss" per viewer hit.
PVR+subscriber-multicast is the way to go; Something akin to hulu+Amazon-VOD -- I like SGU, so I 'subscribe' to the channel, paying some fee/episode or /month, retain my 'license' outside of the model, and a large portion of which would go straight to the producers; After some amount of time (or advertiser interest), the producers could switch it to a free (stream-only) with advertiser support, or a hybrid in-between.
The exact model will depend on the big content houses & broadcasters accepting their fate, which may be a few years, but this is the model that will allow you your 20$ "cable" bill for only the shows you like, while making a little bit of money for everyone involved.
I want to see Syfy continue right along its current trajectory. Same goes for all the cable channels. Here's why: The entire business model is a failure. The business is the selling of eyeballs to advertisers... quality, small-brain-behind-the-eyeballs eyeballs belonging to humans who buy the advertised products and services. When that business model delivers high quality art that's only appreciated by those with sufficient depth of mind... that is an accident, and they remedy such accidents with a quickness.
Subscription channels without ads still don't get it right... We live in a totally new age compared to a couple decades ago. We can have direct financial relationships with artists, artistic teams... content producers. Middlemen who "manage" and arrange and stream content are dinosaurs, and their time is up.
Let's take another look at an ancient method of funding the arts: the patronage system. Wealthy nobles, at the dawn of the middle class, would fund a favorite artist, commissioning works, keeping the artist on a retainer of sorts. Well, now we have a world of PayPal and BitCoin, and a larger middle class. We have the Internet. If an artist solicits funds so he or she can pursue his or her craft... to fund a specific project or just to do more work... They'll get paid in pennys, dollars, and other fractionals... from a ton of fans. The more impressed the consumers are with the art they've already seen by that artist (for free), the more likely they will be to pay to feed their craving for more. And if not, not. This revolution is already underway. When mainstream artists of the prior business models start switching over, this will get even more pronounced. Distribution, funding, filtering... we, the viewers, the listeners, et al have replaced the middlemen with much better, little robots.
Goodbye Syfy. Hello Iron Sky.
I have been saying for years that I would like to get my channels al la carte. If I can get channels for between $2-$5 each, and not have to get a stupid package, yeah, sure, I would pay for SyFy. Lets see,
1) SyFy
2) BBC America
3) History
4) History Channel International
5) Discovery
6) HDNet
7) TLC
8) Travel
9) Science channel
10) HDNet Movies
Multiply by, oh, a few bucks, say, $3 a channel, and, wow, look at that, $30! Add in Taxes and box rental, I am at $50. That is half of what I am paying now, and those are the only channels I watch. Yeah, I would pay a few bucks a month for these.
You were thinking of Space Above and Beyond which ran on fox for one season before being canceled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_above_and_beyond
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
No one is going to pay for bad content; they've already cancelled anything remotely interesting. The fact of the matter is that sci-fi shows don't work for advertising-based broadcast TV. The low ratings inevitably lead to weak advertising revenue. The original poster has 50% of the right idea: to get good sci-fi shows, people will need to pay for it, but not on TV, but online. These two posts sum it up well:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1915236&cid=34591784
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/19/netflix-cult-hits/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
Personally, I really like the idea of Netflix picking up cult hits like Stargate Universe and Firefly. Please send a message to Netflix to let them know that you want sci-fi cult hits on Netflix: http://www.netflix.com/ContactAlliances
Here's a post on the SaveSGU discussion board on Facebook with a similar idea: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=179223788758992&topic=418
Who the hell wants "relicensed classics"? I'm not going to pay a monthly premium to a channel to rehash old material that I can easily get elsewhere.
Now, I WOULD be willing to pay for a channel for access to shows. I pay for HBO pretty much solely for True Blood and Game of Thrones. I'd gladly do it for science-fiction centric shows on a dedicated channel, but honestly, at this point I'm convinced that SyFy ain't the channel to do that. They'd probably go premium and use that new cash to get an even BETTER selection of wrestling.
Personally, I'd rather see a new channel pop up and offer something like this. Better yet, not even a cable channel - put it online. If someone could work out the deals with Netflix, iTunes, Xbox Live, and Amazon, I'd like to see a "direct to download" TV series take off. No ads, no middlemen - just straight sales to the consumers. Felecia Day has done great work with her "The Guild" web series working on tight budgets - I'm sure with just a bit more funding someone else could do good science fiction in a similar manner.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Some of their kids shows actually make you think someone has slipped you some LSD without you realising... Teletubbies, "in the night garden", and waybulloo among others...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Personally, I think that instead of going Premium and shrinking their viewer base even more, they should try a slightly different viewer model; Put their shows up online and charge for it.
I think that there is a real opportunity for Netflix and some of these cable channels to team up and offer premium Netflix content.
Example: Say you pay an extra $5 to Netflix a month, and get access to streaming content the same time it premiers on TV.
So say SG:U shows on SyFy Tuesday night. For just another $5 a month, you can start streaming it at the same time that it airs on cable. If you don't want to pay for the premium subscription, then you just wait till the end of the season like usual.
Cable TV is dead? Only because of the networks incompetance. From a technical perspective cable tv is quite sound. For this reason, it is impossible to stream millions of individual streams of HD video over TCP/IP to millions of users. Cable TV does provide a selection of HD video feeds in a relatively efficient way by having many, many users tune into the same feed. . Also, because of the fact there is not enough bandwidth to carry millions of HD streams to users in a city, the quality of streaming video can be quite bad, and network congestion problems become acute.
Cable TV programming is crap but this does not mean the technical concept is. Its really the only way to bring many, many HD feeds to a large number of people without maxing out bandwidth. I would say, as far as the management and content of the network, why not let users democratically decide what is shown rather than leave it in the hands of corrupt network executives that try to force their preferences for wrestling and cooking shows, celebrity gossip and so on on everyone.
Wow.. the OP makes it sound like there is nothing else left on SyFy with all the space opera gone. What about Eureka and Warehouse 13 starting up another season? Both enjoyable shows. Sanctuary's been pretty fun as well. Kudos to all three shows!
Sure the wrestling and the ghost shows are annoying, but I can work around it. I finally caught a few episodes of 'Sarah Conner Chronicles' because it seems SyFy has picked up the license. Awesome! what about all the other classic shows they dredge up: Sliders, StNG, First Wave, Earth 2, and so on?
Regarding what BBC America is doing - I could care less. I don't have the channel, never was a fan of Dr. Who, and I am a well adjusted person.
All I hear is a large squawk from the Stargate fans. Is that what this is all about?
Can't say I would really care what they did with the channel, why in the world would anyone want to reward their owners and investors by buying into a "premium" service...they chose to chase other markets with their programming scheme and can ride that horse to bankruptcy as far as i'm concerned. Support the channels that support your viewing habits, if you like wresting and ghost hunter shows by all means continue to enjoy syfy, the rest of us will and have long since gone elsewhere for entertainment. Hell I never bothered with SGU because of where it was...
BBC America has actually done a great job of catering to former SciFi viewers, their Saturday night lineup is fantastic with Supernatural, Being Human, Doctor Who and soon to be Outcasts. BBCA even has STTNG and Battlestar Galactica now.
That was easy!
Be More, Be Manly, The Manly Geek Ubergeek Extraordinaire Blogger: www.manlygeek.com/blog Podcaster: podcast.man
Actually, IMHO, ever since BSG went off the air, I've had no reason to watch that channel. What's it called??? "SyFy" ???? What the FRAK is that supposed to mean? It doesn't mean anything. It is totally meaningless. It was a colossal insult to the audience in thinking "If we call it 'SyFy" instead of "SciFi" then "normal" people will watch instead of just the geeks. Typical pointy-headed, micro-managing, bureaucrat, idiotic thinking. Well, now you have wrestling and ghost chasers that "normal" people AND geeks go out of their way to avoid watching. Caprica could have been successful if they didn't botch it up with scheduling like they always do. I say blow SyFy out the airlock like the fake, skin-job Cylons that they are and bring back the original!
We had a song over here about a little rabbit that made nr. 1 I believe, and you could hear it was made by two guys heavily under the influence of something a lot stronger than mere alcohol or marihuana (which they admitted to :)). I think that would be a wonderful tune with this show :)
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Syfy is even more of a joke than it was when it changed it's name
Any model that isn't on-demand and is polluted by Ads, is a model I'd be happy to punch in the face.
I hope SciFi shows certainly won't have to die as easily in the future - due to the emerging abilities to "narrowcast" content to niche markets. In big network terms, perhaps a couple of million viewers isn't too motivating in the "broadcast" model..
Do you really think the future of this media can possibly avoid narrowcasting? Sad SGU is over, glad the set viable models is growing.
SyFy IS a pay for, cable-only channel. Jeez.
No advertising channel is worth a few bucks.
I spend it on:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html
No advertising unless part of the plot.
Usual channel layout:
- advertisement
- actors suitable for one role
- succesful series get a spinoff with same characters, slightly adapted plot, new decor and franchise.
Hm-m-m-m. If it weren't for cheap internet, I'd have ditched TV by now.
The people that make the shows need to make their content available direct-to-consumer via the Internet for a reasonable fee. I cut the cable long ago and will never waste $100+ a month for a half-dozen shows.
We also downloaded it because the American version (in season 1 anyway) had really shitty title music, courtesy of meddling by the head of Sci-Fi Channel at the time.
Thankfully Sci-Fi Channel wised up, because season 2 onwards it used the UK version.
Sci-fi is really bad television!
I might get modded into oblivion, but when you look at the numbers truth rears its ugly head. When WWE wrestling programming first appeared on SyFy it gave them the highest ratings in the network's history. The same probably goes for Ghosthunters and the like. They attract a mainstream crowd that advertisers can cater to. TN networks(even those owned by NBC) need money to run. How do you earn money? Run shows that bring viewers to your channel.
It might have something to do with genre oriented networks as well. MTV once played straight music..... now they're all about reality with music as an after thought. The only genre-oriented network I know that stayed on top for a long time was Spice; it was premium. With the explosion of internet porn i wouldnt be surprise if that crashed and burned
SyFy had gotten so bad that I dumped cable in December.
SG-U was the only show I was watching on that channel.
Caprica was too much like a holodeck episode, which basically all sucked. Virtual reality anything in scifi sucks, I'm sorry to say.
The Ghost crap and wrestling sucked. It said the company didn't understand their core clients. I'd love to see old, bad, Scifi shows - ARK, 6 million dollar man, lost in space, Space Above and Beyond, and all the other 1-season attempted shows. Starlost, Starhunter ... you get the idea.
Since I'm OTA only now, I would consider paying for access to specific streamed shows. If SyFy worked with Netflix or Hulu for distribution, that would be good. Their current NBC overlords basically suck. Last time I tried to watch a SyFy show, I think they redirected everything thru Facebook - which I block at the router over privacy concerns.
I do miss some of the travel channel shows. That might get me to hook up cable again, but not SyFy with their Monster-of-the-week vs Dino-of-the-week crap. There are some really smart SciFi stories that haven't been made into TV/movies. Some don't really need many special effects.
Epiphany moment. Forget the boxed sets. Let's set it up so that people are permanently buying the content and can burn or record their own on their hard drives and are fully licensed to transfer ownership. That last part is important because it's the difference between illegal downloading and supporting a show. You buy into a show you can watch all the episodes at low quality live on the net. And depending on how much in total you have bought into the show you can download so many full resolution episodes. People casually downloading don't watch full resolution most of the time. Make episodes outrageously cheap like a $10 buy in and $3 a show. That's 10+22*3=$76 dollars an episode. And $15 more for the extras that would be on a boxed set. So call it $90 for a show I actively watch. I call that a deal and being a fan of the show I feel like I'm contributing to it's continuation and I essentially own the boxed set. And if you follow this model you don't necessarily have to conform to TV formats of so many episodes. Also if money falls short you can slow down the release of new content or even speed it up. Slowing it down potentially increases it quality which will bring in more subscription money.
Umm hello, In order for me to get this "free" channel I have to have a certain level of subscription on my satellite television package, same goes for AMC.
unless they're going to start showing higher quality movies or something they should be making money off all the ads they show.
so in short, Hell no SyFy shouldn't become a premium channel.
I quit watching it after the name change and the direct put down of science fiction fans by them. It's become a purveyor of putrid shows pandering to mundane pustules of human flesh.
It is the Syphilis channel.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
They started producing crappy sci-fi and calling it something like 'Crocodile' or 'Eel' or some shit like that. It just kept getting worse. Then they started this wrestling shit. I haven't watched it in 2 years now.
The channel is horrible.
Honestly, I think they had an audience when they actually did sci-fi. It was once they started those shitty movies that they started really dying. We never watched after that.
I'd certainly not watch or pay for wrestling.
Fucking idiots.
I also don't watch ice road truckers, stupid ass ghost shows, paranormal, NOSTRADAMUS - he was all over the history channel.
At this point TV sucks.
Even Food network has all the stupid reality shows on now. We used to watch food for at least 5 hours a day. Now, maybe 1/2 hour.
All these stations are horrible
TLC, History, Discovery - Wow, what a waste.
They all started putting on crappy programming and then decided that since we all quit watching it that nobody wanted what they had. The problem was none of them stuck to their mission. They tried gimmicky crap and lost their audiences. Now they mass produce tons of shit thinking that will save it. Wrong.
We're actually about to drop cable
Haha, Guys, Sci-Fi channel Australia (partly owned by foxtel over here) already do this: http://www.scifitv.com.au/home/
No wrestling, no crap, sci fi all the time. Lots of it old, and because we are in Australia not the latest and greatest, but watchable.
I'm all for.
Going premium would just make even MORE people turn to BitTorrent and P2P to obtain the shows.
The #1 problem with TV Sci-Fi is that its core fan base is also likely to be the kind of people who know how to obtain content without paying for it.
I watch very few shows. I'd pay money to be able to access them on the web, and maybe get some premium contents and forums. That would have been perfect for Caprica.
Hulu the shows when they start to build an audience, or put them on a standard cable channel. Then convert the successful ones to premium subscription internet access, with some extras. Let you see the shows earlier, see them longer, see them in higher resolution, and maybe have rights to view them for years. Create search capabilities for scenes, characters, etc.
I wish the NFL would do that in the US too. Let me subscribe to my team. Be able to do video searches for all targets to a specific player in a game, season, etc. Let me look at the contents of all cameras. See all the plays with one player on the field. I want the content, and I'll pay for access and increased functionality. Just show a little creativity and make it available.
Decline of SciFi channel left me little reason to continue paying Dishnetwork. All the animal shows became evolution sermons. Now I watch no TV from any source.
Plenty of other ways to spend over $1k/year without TV.
Had we a real good SciFi channel, I would still be watching.
They could make money on sci-fi.
But they could make more money with reality, ghost, and wrestling shows.
Look across the universe of cable shows and this is widely true.
I was shocked to tune to "network" TV recently and at 1pm to 4pm on a saturday-- infomercials.
That's the modern business model-- if you can make $99 showing sci-fi but make $100 showing 18 hours of non-sci-fi and 6 hours of sci-fi, then you do it.
It's not just TV stations either. It's everything.
Only black items-- because 70% of customers bought black-- 30 % bought 6 other colors. So just drop the 6 other colors and only sell black.
It's horrific- the incredible loss of choice we are experiencing in every arena for marginal improvements in profitability.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You dont realize how digital cable works do you....
IT's all ip based for the most part. right now it's a mpeg2 broadcast stream that you "tune into" but it does not need to be that way, they are doing it that way because they are live feeds of video. if they were not live feeds than it can all be On demand without any changes to how the digital cable TV distribution works.
It's specific streams ONLY because the channels are "live streams".
And CableTV is dead because they dont want to change their business model. Comcast 10 years ago should have focused on the internet side first, they would be kind right now... (also get rid of the "we hate the customer" attitude, but that has been there for decades)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You have a naive belief that ALL cable channels don't slowly migrate towards the same generic dark beige colored pig slop. The trough forged from the charred bones of MTV's carrion; the putrid smell of decaying encephalon; the insidious jocularity upon grinning undead peddlers. NOM NOM NOM indeed.
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
I've been cable free for over 2 years now and love it.
What we don't need is another $X per month subscription. SyFy needs to hook up with netflix to distribute original content through that means. If I have to pay $7 - $10 per genre I want to watch, I might as well switch back to cable.
SyFy has abandoned us not the other way around. I am seriously considering dropping cable BECAUSE the SyFy channel has gotten so bad.
I remember when SciFi started up with the "Were coming for you." playing in the channel before any content arrived. That was better than where the channel is headed now.
Kill the channel and start over with people who care. The current SyFy is so incompetent they can't even spell their name correctly. How can we expect them to know what Science Fiction means? The IT Crowd is more science fiction than wrestling ever could dream of being. Its been stated before even BBCAmerica has more SciFi content than SyFy.
Yes it is time for a for pay for a channel, on the internet.
SyFy went down hill when they started getting cute with the name. I don't blame any of the Stargate shows largely because they were going the way of Star Trek (in need of new blood and bold ideas). But this nuclear poliferation of reality shows runs away a lof of intelligent viewers (and consumers). More original shows like Eureka, warehouse, being human get me to tune in. silly stuff like ghost hunters or stan lee superhero show make me tune out. why is every original movie campy and dumb. give me miniseries like taken, tin man and river world. pipe dream I know but that the kind of channel I would pay for.
Maybe if they stopped throwing money away on seriously crappy c-movie, or lower, productions, like megasomething vs. giant something, or gargoyles, or anything with "a syfy original movie" in front of it, we wouldnt lose great shows that I enjoy, like the SG series
It is an insult to both pigs and slop to be compared to Jersey Shore.
The sad thing is not only are you right, but I watch several channels wondering in the back of my head "Hey, this is pretty good. How long before someone screws it up?"
Mtv has a sister station called Palladia that actually shows music and concerts. There's no on air personalities or abrasive VJ's. No off subject documentaries, game shows, Real World, Jersey Shore, or any of the other stupid crap Mtv has done on it's flagship channel. They aren't perfect (too many re-runs) but it's light years better than Mtv.
So I guess the clock is ticking on "how long can it last?"
TLC (remember when it was called The Learning Channel?) shows nothing but Kate Plus Eight and Cake Boss crap. "Learning"?
A&E used to show high-brow Art content. Now it's "Dog the Bounty Hunter"
In 5 years many of these channels will be dead as people are canceling cable in favor of streaming services like Hulu and Netflix.
>>"You have a naive belief.."
no, I simply voice my frustrations. I'm certain BBC:A is showing BSG because it was an affordable piece of syndication to fill a programming slot. But I would still prefer if they were to show syndicated content or reruns that they would be British.
Let's put it this way: The original "The A-Team" TV series was extremely successful ratings wise in the UK. Perhaps even more than it was in America. But I don't want to see it on BBC America. Same for "Baywatch" - more successful internationally than in the US. But I also don't want it on BBC:A
(LCD as in Lowest Common Denominator)
I would love to see some channels aimed at intelligent niche markets. Unfortunately, every channel tries to go for the same lowest common denominator market as every other channel. I was really excited when I heard that there was going to be a Sci Fi Channel. The reality was ... disappointing, but there was good stuff on it occasionally. At first. But they cancelled everything good to make more room for brain-rotting abominations like wrestling and psychics. Actual science fiction is on other channels.
If they go pay, they would have to put some real science fiction on it that generated a lot of positive buzz before I'd even consider looking into what they're offering. I think the odds of that happening are as close to zero as makes no difference. "Ca
Its true that the number of viewer for sci -fi type shows doesn't compare to the viewers of other genres but even a small % of dedicated viewers could represent thousands and then the people who like some sci-fi shows as there second choice could be millions.
Now that isn't enough for all the main channels to share but there aren't really any other channels going after sci-fi type shows. If SyFy cleaned up there channel it would become the only place for sci-fi lovers to turn to. It used to be a channel I would turn to when surfing for something to watch because there was maybe a 25% chance it had something interesting on. Now the only time I ever tuned in was for a couple specific shows because everything else I felt was a making fun of their viewers.
As it stands though with the end of SGU there is absolutely nothing that interests me on SyFy any more, and they can complain its because they don't have enough viewers or funding but thats their fault. As stated first you have to produce something of quality, that will draw the viewers, and in turn your funding will rise, you don't get to reverse the order.
You can use my hot body for a date any time, Claude.
http://goo.gl/info/S3bh
It's not free, over the air.
If I want to receive the broadcast as they send it out, I have to pay about $105/month. That's with no 'premium' content'. I would hardly call anything but a 'paid' option.
Comcast, in my area, charges a basic $49 for a downgraded analog version of all digital stations for those who don't want to pony up an extra $50 to receive stations in the digital form that they are broadcast in.
Actually, that's not entirely true, I'm told, since in order to make more space for more channels and compete with satellite and fiber offerings, they further compress their digital signals fit 50% more stations into the same space (fitting 6 into the space normally taken up by 4).
Scifi has sucked heavily for some time with the BSG remake being their last partial success. Really, things have gone downhill since they ended the original Stargate series, with Atlantis being not quite as good, and SG-U really sucking.
Caprica? Was that scifi? Looked like a poorly done soap with special effects with glacial pacing that lost me within the first few weeks.
When they added things like ghost-hunting and Tim-Edwards 'guesses' -- a series that might have impressed audiences back in the 1800's when they first did such shams it was obvious they were looking for anything stupid to catch audiences.
Then they started censoring japanese anime (like a 'butt' shot of 'Ghost in the Machine' among others -- "butt cracks were considered too adult!) -- but when they dumped their night of anime completely and replaced it with WWF wrestling, that was the final straw.
What a load of garbage!
pfff.... it has been gone like over 5000 years ago.
It is time for SyFy to simply go.
why not let users democratically decide what is shown rather than leave it in the hands of corrupt network executives
That's pretty much what happens. Modulo differences in the dollar value of various viewers an election is held with the winners staying on the air. The more people like particular programming, especially cheap to produce programming the more of it that exists.