New York Times: SciFi Channel to become - Syfy?

[prion]

As I've already said, this is all about owning the trademark.

It's plainly admitted in the NY Times story.

If they'd just said that, instead of the crap about "fun, whimsy and imagination." Why not toss in a few Ewoks while we're at it??

[Browncoat1984]

Then why call it SyFy at all?



I may be aging, but I can still turn on the T.V. and hobble to the store. What insulting dreck! It's interesting how rarely people are called on ageism. Where does SyFy cut us off and consider us worthless: age 55? 40? 35? the womb?

Personally, I'm sick of the "the fan base is aging so we have to write differently" BS. What do they consider "aging?" I'm 24. I'm an avid sci-fi fan. Am I too old then? Do they want an audience in their teens? I haec news for sci-fi. When I was in my teens, guess watched? *gasp* Star Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. *gasp* Babylon 5! *gasp* The X-Files. Heaven forbid that they should actually try to make young people watch some intelligent writin gfor once rather than forcing them to watch mindless drivel like wrestling. Oh well, its a moot point though. I can get all of my classic sci-fi series on DVD if I don't have them already and I can watch them whenever I want, with far better picture and sound quality and no crapp commericals or spam popups that take up half the screen durinv the show.

The only new show I'm interested in at all now on Sci-fi is Universe, and I can do the same thing I did for Atlantis, SG-1 and Galactica when I was in school and didn't get sci-fi - I can pursue other avenues of watching my shows. I realized that if I'm patient and wait for the next day to watch my show, I can get a version of an episode with no or fewer commericals, cutting out twenty minutes of viewing time and giving me an extra 20 minutes of my day.

[Hatusu]

Personally, I'm sick of the "the fan base is aging so we have to write differently" BS. What do they consider "aging?" I'm 24. I'm an avid sci-fi fan. Am I too old then? Do they want an audience in their teens? I haec news for sci-fi. When I was in my teens, guess watched? *gasp* Star Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. *gasp* Babylon 5! *gasp* The X-Files. Heaven forbid that they should actually try to make young people watch some intelligent writin gfor once rather than forcing them to watch mindless drivel like wrestling.

You are quite right, BC. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't see the insult to younger people. Why should it be assumed that they would prefer wrestling and paranormal over well written science fiction?

[Browncoat1984]

Even the paranormal wasn't bad. I remember watching it when it was first on and it was actually an interesting show. Even managed to get my mom hooked on it. Watching it recently, however, Ghost Hunters has become monotonous and uninteresting. They constantly feel the need to assume that they're audience is not intelligent (which apparently sci-fi does), and constantly have to tell us exactly what happened right AFTER it happened (seriously, we just saw it! why not use that time to show more of the investigation?) and for some reason, every episode they have to tell us what an EMF or EVP is. Stop wasting our time and just show us the investigation! geeze.

I think its also lost some of its more scientific focus. They are declaring houses haunted that a few years ago they wouldn't have. The International show is a joke compared to Ghost Hunters, they don't try to debunk anything and on a few EVP's are ready to declare a house haunted.

Ghost Hunters showed promise in the beginning but sci-fi pretty much killed it. After the fiasco of their "live" investigation, with wrestlers and actors from lead shows guest starring, the show pretty much lost all credibility for me. Though, as far as paranormal shows go its more viable than most of the other dribble that's out there...Its a show, however, that should be on discovery, not Sci-fi. At least discovery would treat them better (and I'd much rather see Mike Rowe on the "live" special than a stupid wrestler nobody cares about).

[Sela]

Clearly we are now living in an alternate reality.

Yeah, an alternate reality where people have no idea HOW TO SPELL!!!

This is the silliest thing I've ever heard of and that's saying something. They're saying, "Oh, we're not just sci-fi anymore, so we're changing the name to 'SyFy' even though it isn't a real word because it sounds the same as sci-fi ... but isn't."

Right.

[Ulkesh47]

I can't even believe that they would do this. It sounds like a joke some bad comedian would make, not an actual name change. No matter how you look at it, it's just... bad.

[TheoryCraft]

Why should it be assumed that they would prefer wrestling and paranormal over well written science fiction?

Why do people in the entertainment industry seem to think that inorder to attract a younger audience you need cute,happy, and young characters? Why must programs be "targeted" to a young audiance. and why must these "targeted" shows be so dumbed down as to be insulting. Just because your under 30 doesn't mean your totally retarded and can only be entertained by shiney eye candy and mindless reality shows.

I'm 19. and about 98% of stuff that is meant for people in my demographic is quite honestly pathetic.

If a network wants to attract a young audience, then put out some good shows because hey, believe it or not young people are perfectly capable of appreciating good writing as well as older folks.

[Phenom]

SyFy sounds like a stripper....an ugly stripper.

[kennythewraith]

Why do people in the entertainment industry seem to think that inorder to attract a younger audience you need cute,happy, and young characters? Why must programs be "targeted" to a young audiance. and why must these "targeted" shows be so dumbed down as to be insulting. Just because your under 30 doesn't mean your totally retarded and can only be entertained by shiney eye candy and mindless reality shows.

I'm 19. and about 98% of stuff that is meant for people in my demographic is quite honestly pathetic.

If a network wants to attract a young audience, then put out some good shows because hey, believe it or not young people are perfectly capable of appreciating good writing as well as older folks.

is this a shot at sgu????by the way im 18 and if sgu ends up dumbed down to some of the network crap...i wont be watching...thankfully i dont see that happening.

[Sela]

I remember that Dune miniseries- it saved my weekend because I was stuck indoors at a ski resort. Everyone else skiied and I watched Dune.

They have Firefly on Hulu. Last night I was too lazy to actually get out my Firefly DVD's and so we started a rewatch straight from there. My computer is connected to the plasma screen, along with the DVD, BluRay and Wii. It occurred to me we didn't need pay TV anymore and we have gone two months without it. Now that the kids actually have to put some effort into what they watch, it cuts down on their viewing time, too. Which can only be a good thing. Although I did have to shell out $10 for Mythbuster DVDs for the little guy.

This week I figured out that we can load up a couple of dozen CNN or Fox news videos at a time, as well. But really, most news isn't news anyway. 95% of TV is trash. Why pay for it? We have computers all over the house- for us this makes sense.

I spend a lot of time on Hulu and similar sites since I got my laptop last month. I'm watching almost everything on line for the ease and ability to skip the commercials. All of my favorite shows are online and I'm watching a lot less junk that just happens to be on because the TV is on. With the station formerly known as SciFi changing their programming, I think I'll be watching SGU on-line as well.

[ToasterOnFire]

So instead of skiffy now it's siffy?

[Jumper_One]

Amac251 writes: “Joe, What do you think of SciFi’s name change for the network?”

Answer: Really? Y wasn’t aware.

http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/...-translatyons/

[prion]

Variety adds to the mess...

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...&cs=1&nid=2562

Plans for the future include additional expansion into other countries, jumping from 15 to a projected 50 by the end of the year; a Syfy Games division that includes a partnership with vidgame company Acclaim; and a new Syfy Kids venture.

But there's a dweeby stigma behind the term that, Howe observes, scares other nets as well.

"If you listen to anyone (who works on the ABC show) describe "Lost," the letters S-C-I-F-I are never used -- they're ashamed of them, because they're probably one of the most widely accessible shows around."


Gah...

[VSS]

SGU will be a mixture of Stargate and BSG... SG in title and with some plot, but more BSG in style, at least that's what I'm betting and it's what Skiffy wants in order to maintain a grasp on both SG and BSG fans, who will just drift away otherwise.

I thought they were aiming at a younger age demographic. If so, they're not going to get the SG or BSG fans, who are generally older. They are replacing BSG and SG with SGU- but they aren't going to have the same fans, and I don't think they really want to.

When I was younger, I'd watch shows aimed at older viewers. It just doesn't work the other way around, especially in scifi where one kind of expects a believable cast to have skills one can't acquire much before the age of 35 or 40.

Unless your last name is Keller, of course.

[DizzyDrea]

Okay, I get that this is all about copyright issues, and I get that they're trying to be hip and cool, but...SyFy? It looks like someone's spellchecker broke! And the new logo--all I can say is I hope they didn't pay too much 'cuz I could have done better, and I'm a graphic designer.

At any rate, a change in name and/or logo doesn't change what the channel is all about, and as long as they are occasionally willing to put out shows with quality writing that treat their viewers as the intelligent humans we are, I'm willing to go with it. Just don't make me type it or spell it out loud. The humiliation would kill me...