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."

Comments

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for it to go away.

Re:Nope

[delinear]

What we need is TNG where we get to vote who gets kicked out of the airlock every week. Adios, Wesley...

Re:Nope

[Surt]

Or it could be that people who tuned into the other two stargates to see interesting interactions with alternative societies and aliens in a big open world didn't find a claustrophobic ship with episodes almost completely restricted to humans and their emotional dramas interesting.

Re:Nope

[Picass0]

>> "...which is from all the reports I've seen a *much* better channel than SyFy is in the US."

That's a low bar. If you had "The Moose Channel" (Deer not allowed, eh) that would be a better channel than SyFy. If you had a channel called "Bacon" for bacon enthusiasts that would be better than SyFy.

On the other hand if Space is a good station I wish we could get it here. Exiled SyFy viewers need a new home.

Re:Nope

[_Sprocket_]

Which just means that the producers will introduce another Wesley every week or two. So instead of one Wesley, you get a constantly repeating series of Wesley and Wesley-alikes (some Wesleys will be the same Wesley due to time travel, holodecks, and tachyon particles).

Of course... that may lead to more meta geek culture moments where post-Wesley actors (who are considerably more cool than their character) work out their personal issues in front of the world with the simple question "are we cool?"

Re:Nope

[Shotgun]

But will the Wesleys all wear red shirts?

Re:Nope

[Kreigaffe]

Now now -- SG:1 and SGA were decent shows. It's SGU that deserves its fate. Show was garbage and I gave up before the first season was over. Just a derivative piece of overblown melodrama trying to cash in on BSG, which itself was more ridiculous and unrealistic than any daytime soap.

Re:Nope

[Kelbear]

Well, let's think about this for a moment: What is the appeal of Sci-fi for you?

As a layman, I'm more interested in the stories being told rather than technobabble about the setting. My only criteria for their technology is that the rules of their universe remain consistent enough so that they don't draw attention to themselves.

Beyond that, I'm just interested in the human story that is laid out over the framework established by the futuristic setting. I'll freely admit that Star Trek is full of camp, but it also engaged viewers to look at how we treat those that are different from us, what is to be human, how to behave ethically in the face of uncertainty, and many other interesting quandries. While the settings may be fantastic, and may involve a myriad of strange and unfamiliar races and creatures, I find that my favorite science fiction are fundamentally human stories; stories about humans as individuals or our society as a whole. When sci-fi removes the familiar trappings of the world that we know, we can take a closer look at humanity in a new context, and perhaps learning about ourself in the abstract.

I also appreciate the general sense of optimism in the franchise. It's something that has been lost in the cynicism of the times. As technology allows us to get closer to the news and revealing the horrible acts that we commit against each other, we're left with a pretty low opinion of our species as a whole. I like that Star Trek presents a relatively progressive humanity. The Federation has plenty of room for improvement, but even the idea of having resolved so many of our deepseated problems and conflicts gives the franchise a sense of hope. BSG for example, takes the opposite approach of showing our terrible inclinations through the future and into what appear to be humanity's last hours. Perhaps BSG resonated so well with audiences because that is the kind of future we expect.

I wonder if a "Section 31" series is the best route for a new star trek. It would be able to adopt the dark and gritty atmosphere of shows like BSG and 24, and may be better suited for today's audiences and their expectations of how people would really behave in dire circumstances.

Re:Nope

[tm2b]

Yeah. The writing was on the wall when they first renewed Farscape for an unprecedented two seasons at once, and then broke their contract and canceled the final season, leaving a number of plot lines up in the air. Yes, they halfway made good with the Peacekeeper Wars, but there was much that never got resolved because of the collapse of one whole season of 22 43 minute episodes into 3 hours of action.

BSG only got made because it was cofunded by the British channel SkyOne.

Re:Nope

[Candid88]

The first half of the first season of SGU was absolutely awful. Since then SGU has actually been pretty exciting and entertaining, with actual 'sci-fi' stuff happening, but unfortunately it had already lost 75% of it viewers within that first half of season 1 and its fate was pretty much sealed.

Add to that, Syfy playing a game of musical chairs with its schedule and giving it minimal promotion (instead focusing on monsters and wrestling instead), couldn't have helped either. Many people I know who watched the show didn't even know the show was on at times, and it's frustrating trying to pickup a continuing story arc halfway through, so not surprisingly many didn't bother.

I thought SGU was a great innovation for the franchise to make, they couldn't keep doing the exact same format forever. Unfortunately SyFy (with bigboy NBC input) utterly screwed up. Not that they care, they're going after the lowest common denominator now with shows like wrestling, reality ghost shows, and similar rubbish.

Re:Nope

[Creepy]

The problem with Syfy is they say their cheesy monster movies are extremely profitable and keep slamming them out at the expense of better shows. Their (initially) high budget shows like Caprica targeted a niche of Battlestar Galactica fans and in that respect I think it was doomed to failure from the start. The special effects in the last few Capricas was terrible. I never got into the Stargate... or any other show based on a bad movie (Buffy and Highlander to name two, but to be honest I liked the first Highlander until the second one came out...). I failed to get into Eureka, Sanctuary, Warehouse 13, or any of those (to be honest, monster/horror based sci-fi isn't really my thing). OTOH, programming wrestling and such turns me off the channel even more. Sci-fi on network TV has fared poorly with a few exceptions like Battlestar Galactica (which had great ratings despite being essentially a 1 year show - the network canceled it because it cost too much to produce) and Star Trek:TNG. I think the V reboot is doing ok, but the list of short lived failures seems endless (like Bionic Woman reboot, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Moonlight [that one made me wonder why they didn't just re-air Forever Knight], etc).

  Hollywood seems stuck in the same rut as the gaming world - no will to try original material, especially if it costs a lot. I was going to cite a 1990s sci-fi show that was a huge flop and I think only aired 3 episodes (marines fighting aliens in space is all I remember), but I can't think of the name for it and failed to find it on a search, so I'll use Firefly. The networks use flops like Firefly to validate not creating more sci-fi, even though the audience for that particular show was probably niche to begin with.

  It is possible to create good sci-fi on a budget - Moon, which I saw a couple of weeks ago was actually a quite good movie made with a tiny (for a full length movie) $5 million budget. Pay TV has advantages (like no forced morality rules), but staying on a more basic cable/satellite package does as well by offering a much broader audience. If Sci-fi put in the production values like Starz and HBO have with their shows I would consider paying for it, but I would expect them to put out something more like Forbidden Science, which was a short lived soft-core show on Skinimax (basically, follow a friend of mine's "bad movie rule" which requires boobs every 10-15 minutes to distract you from the bad plot and acting).

Re:Nope

[Tetsujin]

What we need is TNG where we get to vote who gets kicked out of the airlock every week. Adios, Wesley...

You know, you may find Wesley annoying but is a TV show where all plot developments are determined by majority rule really what you want? That's a quick route straight to lowest-common-denominator crap. The ultimate in low-risk storytelling.

The thing to remember is that the viewers, for the most part, aren't particularly good at telling stories. Not that the people behind TNG, etc. were always aces at this either, but for good TV you generally need good leadership establishing direction of the show.

Uh yeah...

[MickyTheIdiot]

Then they can make Megamonsterdragonfrog vs. Interstellar Goldfish with even better production values.

This whole story is a joke, right?

Re:Uh yeah...

[Scutter]

Hey! Sharktopus was a thespianic masterpiece of the B-movie genre. Ok, D-movie.

Re:Uh yeah...

[Legion303]

"I guess I missed a lot of cinema..."

I don't know that "missed" is the right word. "Narrowly avoided," maybe.

Re:Uh yeah...

[WhirlwindMonk]

Yeah, sure, the people inside the Comcast-NBC monster never use such phrases to describe what they think they are doing.

And you're suggesting they shouldn't be forcibly relocated to some sort of leper island?

Re:Uh yeah...

[pelrun]

Absolutely - the lepers deserve better than to be stuck with those people.

Re:Uh yeah...

[delinear]

Or, to put it another way, SyFy was the name the channel changed to when they decided to stop trying to please people who enjoy science fiction and instead adopted the "So Yeah, F- You" approach to scheduling.

Probably Not

[realcoolguy425]

A lot of Stargate fans were turned off by SGU - even Atlantis was too much of a stretch for me.

Sure, why not?

[Rennt]

I just download the good stuff anyway.

Re:Sure, why not?

[Scutter]

There's good stuff?!

Re:Sure, why not?

[jeffmeden]

About 4 of the 9 Caprica episodes were good (by most standards...) so that makes for an enjoyable 3 hours or so before you come to the conclusion that SyFy is now a zombie cable network feeding off the brains of slow and unsuspecting victims.

Hey, come to think of it, I have a show idea to pitch to them.

Re:Sure, why not?

[grub]

Download Doctor Who. They're up to Ep3 in the new season, you won't be too far behind if you get it now.

Seriously?

[scotts13]

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.

Re:Seriously?

[MickyTheIdiot]

Really... they stopped being a network for the fans when they dropped MST3k for more "mainstream" audiences. That was a good indicator that the executives of the channel stopped caring about people like me.

They've had some good stuff on occasion since then, but that's where it really started to die for me. Having a network where you could watch "Lost In Space" in the middle of the day as well as *thoughtful* new content was cool, but they don't run their network like that any more.

Re:Seriously?

[ImprovOmega]

They jumped the shark when their named change to "SyFy" it was the final confirmation that they'd abandoned anything to do with real science fiction.

Re:Seriously?

[JMZero]

Yeah. Some executive did an interview at BoingBoing a while back. He was joking about how people give these suggestions but "they just don't get it". Apparently, people don't understand that the way SYFIE is currently being run is literally the only possible way to run it, that the revenue streams they have now are the only revenue streams they could ever possibly have, that there must be no variance from how things have always been done, that people who want different shows actually, uh, don't, etc...

It was terribly sad - guy was clearly intent on business as usual until business as failure (which I assume he'll blame on everyone/anyone else).

Re:Seriously?

[EQ]

Same reason TechTV died - when the cable operators bought it out, they moved it to LA, it became G4, they killed much of its original programming, and they picked up crap reality shows like Cops, Campus PD, Cheaters, a pile of Japanese humiliation game shows, and endless reruns of Ninja Warrior.

The entire sci-fi market has been shrinking

[j0keralpha]

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).

The audience you want don't want cable

[Albanach]

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.

Re:The audience you want don't want cable

[stms]

Broadcast television is so 20th century. If you want access to quality older issues, your best hope is from Netflix, Hulu or Amazon.

And if not one of them then Piracy will continue.

Re:The audience you want don't want cable

[Eponymous Coward]

Problem is that each episode costs a couple of million to make

That's the entire problem right there. Only the entertainment industry can make the government look lean and efficient in comparison.

Re:The audience you want don't want cable

[fermion]

I would take it another way. Cable, due to the number of channels, has the possibility of providing much more targeted programming. The question is if half a million viewers can fund the production of costs of a science fictions show with high production values. This is the thing with SGU and Atlantis. Mostly the shooting can be done on sound stages with only occasional location shooting. SG1 had a lot of location shooting. Could something like SG1 be done on a small cable budget? Probably not. Richard Dean Anderson probably would not be there on a small cable budget, and in this climate Michael Shanks may have stayed gone.

But the lower production values is not really the big problem. Caprica, for instance was trying to be smallville or 90210 or the OC, but instead was hellcats. Pure and simple. SGU was too serious, too many random plot devices meant to push forth a incoherent story. Recall at the end of season 1 SG1 basically made fun of itself and the incoherent incomprehensible situations.

I don't watch cable, only the shows that are online, and I think that SyFy is producing some affordable and reasonable scripted products. Sanctuary, Eureka, Haven, Warehouse 13. Obviously they need syndicated and unscripted product for filler. If I had any complaints it is I would much rather see more or less original products rather than extension of existing franchises, like SGU and Sarah Conner. The later probably has higher costs due to licensing. If expensive products and high ratings is the goal, then syfy and cable in general is not the solution. But we can have some good products that might be covered with small audiences.

Re:The audience you want don't want cable

[daveywest]

Most of the articles I read show cable continues to grow despite pressure from "cord cutting" and Netflix. The Hollywood Reporter puts cable sub counts at an all-time high after the first quarter of 2011: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/analyst-pay-tv-subs-hit-185858

Re:The audience you want don't want cable

[mjwalshe]

hmm so working that out for a full 20 week season the SAG scale is about what I get (and arguably I am underpaid) and they don't get company pension and 29 days leave you do realize that $65,000 is a round the mean for household income in the USA - not exactly a gold plated salary.

oh try telling your suggestion to James Bamford (AKA Bam Bam) the fight arranger for a lot of the stargate shows.

Re:The audience you want don't want cable

[Darinbob]

I agree here. There's a bit of disconnect in the original question I think. Some people assume that because they would pay for something that most others would too. If it were premium even with quality shows it would die out anyway. There's just not enough people willing to pay it. Sure you may find some people willing to pay for HBO and Showtime for a few hyped original series, but the vast majority of subscribers are there for the movies. The original series are only used as a differentiator so that you subscribe to their channel instead of the competition (extremely few people subscribe to more than one premium channel). Note that SG-1 did not become popular until after it got off of a premium channel.

I see a lot of early adopters with the same disconnect: they're confused that their favorite technology is not more popular with the masses, or they try to correlate the interest that their local clique has with mass market interest.

Most content is going to be basic cable or major broadcasters first. So even netflix/hulu/whatever are going to lag in quality if the mass market quality goes down. You won't get good programs from your weekly DVD in the mail or via lengthy download if there's no content for it to start with. The masses are still going to want to see new content, and the new content will generally be crap, so nothing will change until there's a mass trend towards only watching older shows.

The ultimate problem I think is that it's too expensive to make shows that the masses want (they want special effects, graphics, action, big name stars, etc). Cable is splitting the dollars into too many channels. The internet won't help this, it will only exacerbate it. That's why there's reality TV and wrestling - cheap to produce and lots of consumers (just like youtube).

Just start a new sci fi network

[syousef]

Sci-fi not Sy-phy-lis, like the current one. There's nothing to salvage after what they've done.

The content is out there

[softWare3ngineer]

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.

Re:The content is out there

[i kan reed]

Here's a hint: everything has a license fee, even stuff they produced themselves because they have to pay the actors per credit. They moved away from science fiction for pro-wrestling because intellectuals are too diverse and critical an audience to reduce to a simple demographic to advertise to. If there were a premium package from my cable company that focused on real documentaries, non-action oriented science fiction, and absolutely no ads that belittle my intelligence, I'd pay 3-5 times as much as people pay for their sports packages. I get miffed because absolutely every single television channel assumes I'm a blubbering moron or blubbering moron compatible.

The following were good, but are now blubbering moron bait:
Discovery Channel(trucks driving on ice? REALLY?)
History Channel(we're 100% certain that this piece of rock was portal to alien jesus, here's an "expert")
Sci Fi(Covered in depth here, but REALLY bad. Hasn't touched the ideas of real speculative fiction in a decade)
Animal Planet(Nature documentaries? Screw that, pet reality shows!!!)
TLC(babies are all anyone ever wants to see!!!! We're SURE!!!)

The following still make some attempt an any real depth
BBC America
PBS

I don't inherently loathe television as a medium, I loath spoonfed bullshit supportded by psychologically manipulative bullshit.

Re:The content is out there

[The Moof]

I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by what I find on PBS these days. Hustle, the original Life on Mars, and Spooks were entertaining, not to mention semi-new Dr. Who. Granted, this is literally just BBC programming from a the past few years, but it's still new to me.

Re:The content is out there

[lordmage]

Science Channel is running Firefly. Funny isn't it?

Re:Internet

[Sarius64]

Easily. I'd pay $10 a month without blinking for SG:U to continue. Wouldn't it be interesting if Netflix started supporting entertainment based upon the numbers and not some flipping idiot's Hollywood version of science fiction. Seriously? Wrestling? Ghost freaking hunters?

Not sure you understand supply and demand

[Hydian]

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.

Re:Not sure you understand supply and demand

[SomePgmr]

I think the idea is that viewing numbers, correlated with ad dollars, will always be less appealing than those of wrestling and ghost chasers. But the lesser numbers of scifi fans might be more willing to pay for a genuine scifi channel, which in theory, might offset lesser ad revenue and prove beneficial to everyone.

There will always be more oatmeal-brained pro wrestling fans out there, but scifi fans are passionate... and they might very well pay. I don't know if it'd work, but seems like an interesting thought anyways.

Re:Not sure you understand supply and demand

[Spyder]

It's a question of price discrimination. In a broadcast free-to-view environment that is ad supported, you are required to seek as many viewers as possible. If your high desire viewers (the ones that will pay) are willing to pay 10x the rate of ad dollars, you only need to attract 10% of the audience. That might even be better than break even, first because your audience will likely be more loyal, and second with a shift toward quality the income from rebroadcast licensing may increase (you can sell DVDs or get Netflix/Amazon to pay you to stream BSG, but not The Jumping of Sharktopus (in 3D)).

It would be a high risk strategy in today's world. We are just beginning to test what people will pay for long tail content, and how it needs to be distributed.

How about they just go away

[Shivetya]

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.

An interesting point

[HikingStick]

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.

Re:There is no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Stargate should have ended... um... as the movie.

Being Human

[Goboxer]

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.

Sci-fi not SyFy specific problem?

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Why is this on Ask Slashdot?

[misof]

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.

Re:Why is this on Ask Slashdot?

[savanik]

I would wager the questioner works for SyFy's marketing department and wants to test the waters for additional fees. Hopefully the response on here will be a huge wake-up call for their executives. I stopped watching about the time I dropped cable entirely - it wasn't worth me paying $30 a month for the two channels I actually watched, SciFi (before the name change) and Cartoon Network (Adult Swim).

To quote another great Sci-Fi show: "They are a dying people. We should let them pass."

FINE!

[Anonymous Coward]

FINE! I'll just go start my own Sci-Fi channel! With Blackjack! And Hookers!

In fact, forget the Sci-Fi and Blackjack!

Re:FINE!

[Carewolf]

In fact, forget the Sci-Fi and Blackjack!

Which incidentally is the exact same thing the producers on Sci-Fi thought when they made SyFy.

Story submitter here

[Cutriss]

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.

Re:Story submitter here

[itsdapead]

BBC America is *increasing* its science fiction lineup where it already had more content than Syfy did.

Well, BBC UK has recently had several successful SF/Fantasy shows (Dr Who, Being Human, Torchwood, Life on Mars) - which is a pretty unusual state of affairs for them (what I suspect is happening is that the kids who grew up on Dr Who, Blake's 7, Quatermass, Thunderbirds etc. in the 60s and 70s are now old enough to start cropping up in important roles in the BBC). In the UK, 'Who is not just a successful SF show, its a successful mainstream TV show that goes out on a major channel, early evening, on a Saturday, and gets decent ratings against talent & quiz shows on other channels. Torchwood and Being Human have been bumped from the small-beer BBC3 digital-only channel to the more prestigious BBC1 & BBC2 (respectively). So its not surprising that they see SF as a potential market for the US.

The latest series of 'Who is clearly pitched more at the US. The 2-part opener was set in the US and featured that international hero of the American Way - President Nixon - and a distinctly darker, more adult feel plus a "wibbly wobbly timey-wimey" plot (with added memory-wiping and fractured narrative brainfrack). Not sure how that will play long-term in the UK where it's always been a 'family' show (i.e. partly pitched at kids). I had to explain it to my dad :-)

It may be that it has finally dawned on BBC that if Dr Who can be the biggest SF franchise brand in the UK then maybe they ought to be able to persuade a few Americans to watch it.

Of course, UK shows have the advantage of short "seasons" (usually 6-13 episodes) : a better length, IMHO, for story arcs that avoids the BSG syndrome of 2-3 great episodes at the start a good 2-3 episode season climax and 12 episodes of tedious padding in the middle. I also suspect this helps shows find an audience: there's usually a whole series "in the can" before the show starts airing - so a show has to tank bigtime to be cancelled mid-series. Writers/producers even finish shows for creative reasons rather than cancellation - Its amusing to note that the original Life on Mars (a huge success) only runs to the same number of episodes as the US remake (which flopped and was cancelled) - although there was also a successful spinoff.

Re:Story submitter here

[Pretzalzz]

A season should only be ~13 episodes. Virtually every quality television show not on the major broadcast networks follows this rule of thumb. So a season of SGU only gets you 3 months or $9 million by your estimation[this is ignoring the fact that some of the audience was only watching it because it was on and won't actually pay extra for it]. If Syfy is still attempting 22 episodes a season perhaps that is part of the problem, it ensures that 10 of the episodes are crap filler bringing down the average quality of the product and people's perceptions of it.

As for BBC America, I can't believe everyone is lauding it. It does no original programming. Are you counting reruns of X-files/ST:TNG as part of BBCA sci-fi programming? I hope not cause I view that as part and parcel with jumping the shark. Or just Dr Who/Primeval/Being Human? Remember when I said 13 episodes is ideal? Being Human has had 3 seasons for a total of 20 episodes. Primeval after the upcoming season will have had 36 episodes over 5 seasons. Doctor Who hits the 13 episode sweetspot, but inexplicably failed to produce a season for 2009.

Re:Syfy must die.

[KYPackrat]

> made-for-TV movies that were so shitty that they made Roger Corman spin in his grave.

Considering that Roger is still alive, that's a great accomplishment.

Even worse, to quote Wikipedia about Roger:

Corman most recently produced the 2010 films Dinoshark and Dinocroc vs. Supergator for the Syfy cable television channel. Dinoshark premiered on March 13, 2010. Sharktopus, his latest Syfy production, had premiered in September 2010.

Re:Remember when (elitist post)

[The Moof]

Saying "I watch anime" is like saying "I watch television" - it's a medium, not genre.

Re:Internet

[petscii]

No, you probably would not have.

I paid amazon on demand $1.99 per SG:U episode. I don't know anyone else who did so. I simply refuse to justify torrenting something like that. As I write this I'm still waiting for the finale to be available via Amazon. I'd buy it on Itunes but I already "own" the other thirty-something episodes on Amazon.

I emailed TVbythenumbers.com asking what my purchase did for the way ratings are computed. They never answered. Zip. Was the answer I wager.

I've not had cable for 2 years and really don't miss it much.

I'm super annoyed with HBO/Showtime that I can't buy their shows from Amazon/Itunes/etc. So that means no Dexter, Treme, Boardwalk Empire, or the Sorkin show for at least a year. HBO thinks you should pay for HBO to get their shows. I don't have a problem with that other than the fact that you have to get crappy cable. so a $8-$12 purchase of HBO actually costs you $78-$100.

Pass.

Re:Internet

[overlordofmu]

I want to make it clear that it is not your cable company keeping you from buying individual channels.

90% of TV channels are owned by one of seven large media conglomerates. Viacom, for instance, owns Comedy Central, Logo, BET, Spike, TV Land, Nick@Nite, Nickelodeon, TeenNick, Nick Jr., MTV, VH1, MTV2, Tr3Ìs, CMT, Palladia. The cable companies cannot buy just one network and they are contractually required to group certain channel in certain ways. If the cable company doesn't agree to Viacom's terms, then no Nick, no MTV, no Spike. It is an all or nothing proposition.

How long do you think a cable company will stay in business if they don't have Nick or MTV? No Comedy Central?

The media companies hold the scarce resource (the channels and content) and they dictate the terms. One of those terms is that the cable company cannot a-la-cart the channels.

Don't blame the cable company, blame Viacom, Disney, National Amusements, News Corporation, Time Warner, General Electric and Sony.

I don't mean to rant, just trying to educate.

Don't like it? Write your congress-person, pay them more than the media company lobbyists do or boycott mass media. But don't blame the wrong group.

Re:BBC America showing American stuff = suck

[tm2b]

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.

Re:Internet

[tm2b]

Look for that to change with HBO. They are already exploring direct delivery of content to their cable channel subscribers via HBO Go, which will make it easy for them to start taking on subscribers directly.

I can not wait for the cable monopolies to be disintermediated.

Are there any fans of Syfy left anywhere?

[spun]

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.

What do you mean by a few dollars?

[gravis777]

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.

Re:Internet

[johnlcallaway]

(Comment not directed at parent post ... just adding to what parent post stated)

My wife and I went with DirectTV a few months back and decided we would have a media room and only one TV. We don't have a DVR and don't schedule our lives based on what shows are on. It's amazing how much more time we have together to do things.

Then we dropped all but basic. It is far cheaper to use NetFlicks to always have a couple of movies lying around, plus the instant play list, than to pay all of that money for reruns of movies and shows we have already watched. Our instant queue is over 100 items, and continues to grow as we mark things we are interested in watching ... someday.

People need to remember that "it's only TV. My life will go on without it". Enjoy a show every now and then, but if tonight's final episode of favorite show is missed, life really won't change. Unless someone is the kind of person who likes to spend hours going over every detail of what was on the night before, ruining it for everyone who didn't watch it but intends to later.

So let's blame the right people ... the viewers who scream out "I'm too stupid to entertain myself .. you do it for me". THAT is what empowers those media companies everyone rails against. Boycotting is the best answer. Asking a lobbyist to do it is just more government intrusion into my life. I don't care if someone wants more government involvement in their life, I prefer as little as possible. I am perfectly capable of deciding whether to watch TV or sit on the patio with my beautiful wife sitting with me, while I enjoy bourbon, a fine cigar, and fine conversation. And just enjoy another beautiful Arizona evening.

I feel sorry for folks that need TV so much they actually pay attention to what's on.

Re:Internet

[saikou]

Alas, Netflix won't be able to save cult shows. Mostly because it would eat up all of their cash with dubious return.
Unless ratings are wildly underestimated, $10 a month won't cut it to make anything more advanced than a talk or "reality" show with no special effects