Spaceships by any other name… According to TV Week, the Sci Fi Channel soon will be announcing a name change and rebranding themselves as (wait for it) “Syfy.”
“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.
Mr. Brooks said that when people who say they don’t like science fiction enjoy a film like “Star Wars,” they don’t think it’s science fiction; they think it’s a good movie.
“We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi,” Mr. Brooks said. “It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”
But wait, sci-fi… um, syfy fan! Before you arrange your face into its habitual scowl of personal disapproval, just look at all the good reasons for this completely unnecessary change:
1. “Sci Fi” means “geeky losers.” Always has, always will. But this new brand can be made to present the image that the network wants out there, which apparently (now that Battlestar Galactica is ending) means bad made-for-TV movies and in-your-face wrestling.
2. The new slogan, “Imagine Greater,” has the added advantage of being both ill-defined and grammatically questionable, two things that science fiction fans simply adore.
3. Syfy is way easier to twitter.
4. Insulting your core audience is a proven method of increasing market share, as evidenced by the incredible success of Animal Planet’s new Let’s Euthanize Fido! and the Lifetime Network’s surprise hit show, Stop Crying and Suck It Up, Geez.
5. Manipulating your mind into thinking something is new when it really isn’t… hey, if that isn’t science fiction I don’t know what is.
6. Brand changing provides stimulation to the economy in the form of new advertising, all new logos and shirts and hats and stationery and executive name plates, marketers who desperately needed something to do, new interns to handle the piles of new “WTF?” hate mail, and eventually new executives to replace the ones who thought of this.
7. The Sci Fi channel has just had the best year since it began, ranking 13th in total viewers among ad-supported cable networks in 2008. Clearly, the old name and format just weren’t working. (See “Coke, New”)
8. Now all the old Sci Fi-branded stuff will become collectible.
9. 73% of the coveted 18-35 market responded favorably to a brand name vaguely suggestive of a venereal disease.
10. Now, finally, Sci Fi executives will get to date cheerleaders.
See? Perfectly sensible. But this was not just a marketing-driven decision to shed a public perception that, by all rights, should be targeted and advertised at. No, in true science fiction style there’s a deeper, more nefarious plan in place: by announcing this seemingly needless change, Syfy will rally those science fiction fans who love nothing better than to band together in loud opposition to something stupid (i.e. all of them), who will then have to watch Syfy in order to snarkily condemn it properly.
It’s genius.
Thank you for lifting me out of the funk into which the news about the new “Siffy” Channel had threatened to plunge me headfirst. I needed that.
http://fourthdayuniverse.blogspot.com/
tl;dr, Sci-Fi is trying to market to the same homogeneous base that comprises Spike TV, Lifetime and TNT.
Sci-Fi, if you bother to pay attention to what the unwashed masses are saying about you between schlorping up the dongs of network executives between their snorts of coke off the mirror, please listen to what I’m about to say:
Get over yourself. You’re the Sci-Fi channel. You run science fiction. You aren’t going to suddenly become more popular by downplaying your roots in the nerdy, bleaching your hair and trying to buy the rights to play Highschool Musical or the entire syndicated series runs of Xena: Warrior Princess.
You also aren’t getting anywhere by using bad CGI movies starring Giant Animals in Exotic Locations, starring Dean Cain. You are not innovating, you aren’t even entertaining anymore. It’s not the subject that is getting old and worn out, it’s the fact that your writing staff are full of B-movie makers popping out half-baked, halfassed stories trying to use them as exposure and vehicles for projects they care about. Wanna-be Spielbergs who likely only received their jobs because of borderline nepotist practices. That’s right, I’m accusing the entire channel of innovative incest.
Take an axe to the staff that decides what projects to fund, take a mace to the depleted and uninspired writing staff. Trying to cannibalize the little men that make up your fanbase is suicide. Ask Dylan Dyack about his little dud, Too Human.
wow… as a female “geek” and USED TO BE Sci Fi channel fan, this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of SINCE New Coke. I don’t watch much of the channel anymore because it looks like a clone of Spike TV to me. If they want a female audience, why don’t they show something besides movies no one else will air? I was a loyal fan of Farscape, the original Stargate series, even Sliders… but they don’t invest in quality original programming anymore. The best show on the network right now are reruns of Lost and Firefly – oh wait, they dropped Firefly… Sanctuary looks decent, but you can’t float an entire network on one good show every three years.
And why the freakin’ hell did they NAME it Sci Fi in the first place if that was not their core audience? SYFY?
That’s just horrible…
I am pitching an alternative. UIN Unlimited Imagination Network. Help fill my programming schedule. See here: http://wildandbad.com/article/82/unlimited-imagination-network
The writing was on the wall when SciFi canceled one of their most popular series Farscape, only to add lots of (non scifi) horror and (even less understandably) pro-wrestling.