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

[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

[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...

[Legion303]

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

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

Sure, why not?

[Rennt]

I just download the good stuff anyway.

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.

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.

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.

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: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:There is no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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: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:Remember when (elitist post)

[The Moof]

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

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.

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.