Reform Syfy Now Uberthread - Syfy Boycott/Ultimatum thread

[FrodoFraggins]

I'm boycotting SyFylis but I realize it means nothing as I'm not in a Nielsen household. Petitions don't really mean much.

[Ekras]

Insulting? Craig Engler took the time to explain things better to why SGU was cancelled. However, people still don't get it. This is a business. The network does not owe us anything, If something we like does well then it's great, if it fails there is nothing we can do. I find it petty and immature with some people's nasty replies to Craig, and a reminder of how low this fandom has fallen. I truly thought people were better than that.

How was it not insulting? "Sorry we canceled your favorite show. Despite the fact that nearly 2 million people are watching live, or with a delay that's not enough for us. Oh and we made the decision to cancel it during season 1, but we had a 2 season contract we didn't tell anyone about and decided to wait to see if people would come back before informing anyone. We love science fiction, but have decided not to make any more of it. Why don't you go watch Alphas instead" is the gist of it.

Yes they are a business - a business based around MAKING SCIENCE FICTION. When they stop doing that they should expect to fail.

This isn't petty and immature - If this was a reaction to just the letter, maybe I could see your point. This is in response to years of neglect, arrogance, and flat-out disrespect to the community at large. The letter was just the last straw. When I saw that they had "taken the time" to write to us, I was expecting an apology, followed by a list of ways they were going to make things right. Instead it was a PR move intended to try and stop the bleeding before the network took any more damage from yet ANOTHER bad business decision.

And yes, they ARE obligated to provide us with the kind of content we want to see. That is why we tune in to their network. Companies pay THEM to show US advertisements. We agree to watch said advertisements in exchange for them providing us with the content we enjoy. Since they are no longer doing this, we need to stop watching until they do.

It is BECAUSE they are a business that something like this has a chance of working.

[Ekras]

I'm boycotting SyFylis but I realize it means nothing as I'm not in a Nielsen household. Petitions don't really mean much.

You are right that petitions don't mean much. But there is still a lot you can do!

While you don't count in the ratings, and watching live won't hurt the cause, at a minimum the alternative viewing sites (itunes, Hulu, etc.) does track your viewing. While they don't directly share this information with groups such as Comcast/NBC (the owners of Syfy) this information has a way of "getting out". They are well aware that every person who watches a show elsewhere that aired on Syfy is a lost viewer.

There are also ways you can activly help. Posting on forums, writing letters (to both Syfy and their advertisers), making anti-syfy logos, just to name a few. Syfy is a powerful entity - it's going to take all hands on deck to take them on.

By making this sound like a ransom demand, you are only hurting your own cause. You'd be lucky if anyone at Syfy even got past the title of your letter before chucking it in a waste basket or shredder.

Yeah, I'm still working on the list. If you can't tell I was pretty pissed when I wrote it. The original version included points about terminating executives, canceling all reality shows , and a lot more harsh stuff... I've since toned it down, but am waiting on feedback from the community on what they would like to see changed.

[Tanith0709]

How was it not insulting? "Sorry we canceled your favorite show. Despite the fact that nearly 2 million people are watching live, or with a delay that's not enough for us.

It was actually closer to 1 million people (and below for a few episodes) watching live after the day change which simply wasn't enough.

About the day change I believe they could have had better scheduling but SGU's ratings were decreasing while it was still on Fridays to a level where Syfy decided that it might perform better on another night (I can recall before SGU returned from that Hiatus, that many fans hoped that the day change would help the ratings).

Oh and we made the decision to cancel it during season 1, but we had a 2 season contract we didn't tell anyone about and decided to wait to see if people would come back before informing anyone.

They did not decide to cancel it in season 1. The 2 season contract had conditions attached to it, they did not not need to agree to that contract in the first place I might add.

Yes they are a business - a business based around MAKING SCIENCE FICTION. When they stop doing that they should expect to fail.

They're also a business around making money like any other. Facts surrounding SGU's decreasing ratings suggests that Syfy was losing money which is why they resorted to canceling it.

They were indeed originally a network fully dedicated to Science Fiction but times have changed, they need to have other shows on their network to allow them to make money. If they had stuck solely to science fiction shows then they would have became bankrupt long before now.

I do believe Syfy played their part in SGU's cancellation but in my opinion they weren't the main cause, just one of several contributing factors involved.

[xxxevilgrinxxx]

I don't get SyFy here, so my boycott means even less than it would otherwise. I don't think SyFy cares overly much in any case, although, I think if they hadn't been stung even a little, they wouldn't have had that "explanation" letter in the first place. So. With you in spirit

[Briangate78]

How was it not insulting? "Sorry we canceled your favorite show. Despite the fact that nearly 2 million people are watching live, or with a delay that's not enough for us. Oh and we made the decision to cancel it during season 1, but we had a 2 season contract we didn't tell anyone about and decided to wait to see if people would come back before informing anyone. We love science fiction, but have decided not to make any more of it. Why don't you go watch Alphas instead" is the gist of it.

Yes they are a business - a business based around MAKING SCIENCE FICTION. When they stop doing that they should expect to fail.

This isn't petty and immature - If this was a reaction to just the letter, maybe I could see your point. This is in response to years of neglect, arrogance, and flat-out disrespect to the community at large. The letter was just the last straw. When I saw that they had "taken the time" to write to us, I was expecting an apology, followed by a list of ways they were going to make things right. Instead it was a PR move intended to try and stop the bleeding before the network took any more damage from yet ANOTHER bad business decision.

And yes, they ARE obligated to provide us with the kind of content we want to see. That is why we tune in to their network. Companies pay THEM to show US advertisements. We agree to watch said advertisements in exchange for them providing us with the content we enjoy. Since they are no longer doing this, we need to stop watching until they do.

It is BECAUSE they are a business that something like this has a chance of working.

It had fallen to 1.9 Million viewers by Season 1.5, Atlantis had just over 2.1 Million viewers in it's final season. Now this is counting Live + 7, the Live+SD which really counts more to advertisers was only pulling in 1.4 Million viewers for Season 1.5, Atlantis was hitting close to 1.7 Million viewers in the final stretch of Season 5. See the difference? SGU was a more expensive show to produce than Atlantis.

SGU was supposed to do better than SGA, and it did in the first half of Season one. But things tanked after that sadly.

As per the immature thing, if you read some comments/replies around the net, they are really bad.

[Bagpuss]

The word "Official" has been removed at Darren's personal request from this thread title.

IF at some point he changes his mind and officially endorses this campaign or any other campaign,he or the Mods will let you know.

Thank you .

Bagpuss
GateWorld Moderation Team.

Edit : All sub-headers have now been edited.No post content modified at all.

[Ekras]

It had fallen to 1.9 Million viewers by Season 1.5, Atlantis had just over 2.1 Million viewers in it's final season. Now this is counting Live + 7, the Live+SD which really counts more to advertisers was only pulling in 1.4 Million viewers for Season 1.5, Atlantis was hitting close to 1.7 Million viewers in the final stretch of Season 5. See the difference? SGU was a more expensive show to produce than Atlantis.

SGU was supposed to do better than SGA, and it did in the first half of Season one. But things tanked after that sadly.

As per the immature thing, if you read some comments/replies around the net, they are really bad.

I do agree that some of the posts are somewhat immature, but understandably so considering how upset people are.

Regarding the SGU cancellation, yeah it did make lower numbers than Atlantis - but I DON'T CARE. They were the ones who made the decision to cancel Atlantis, and replace it with a more expensive show. They should be the ones to live with the consequences of their decisions- if that means taking a loss for a few years on a single show than so be it. They could have found ways to lower the shows budget, and increase the shows appeal.

Atlantis shouldn't have been canceled either. It was only about 1/2 through it's story, and I had invested 5 YEARS of viewing time into it (Atlantis) only to have one of their executives decide they knew what was best and end it before its time. Yet another one of many examples where they think we are like a traditional viewing audience.

We don't want our shows delivered with giant ransom notes saying "If you and 10 of your friends don't watch this live, we are going to take it away" - instead what we want is "We are making a new show. We promise it will be on for 5 seasons, and will be given a proper ending. At that point if it is doing well enough we'll give it another 3 years- if not we simply won't renew it" - If the network loses money on the show, so be it. They make more than enough money from their other shows (Re-runs, reality, wrestling, etc.) and are still benefiting because they are able to advertise their other shows to the new shows audience.

Most of us didn't care that they were putting other types of shows on the network. They need to do what they need to do to make money - it wasn't until they started taking away the shows we enjoyed that we got angry.

The word "Official" has been removed at Darren's personal request from this thread title.

No problem - That is the actual name of the site, so that's why it was originally put there. I did not mean to imply that GateWorld was endorsing the Boycott at this time.

[Tanith0709]

They were the ones who made the decision to cancel Atlantis, and replace it with a more expensive show. They should be the ones to live with the consequences of their decisions- if that means taking a loss for a few years on a single show than so be it. They could have found ways to lower the shows budget, and increase the shows appeal.

Shouldn't MGM bare some of the blame on this front?

[Ekras]

Shouldn't MGM bare some of the blame on this front?

MGM does indeed share some of the responsibility - however Syfy was ultimately the one who decided to greenlight the show. They knew from day 1 how much it cost, and if they weren't willing to pay it they shouldn't have done so in the first place. It's not like MGM said "We are done with Atlantis, take SGU or nothing". They would have continued to make it if Syfy had continued to fund it. And if they had- than Syfy should not have agreed to those demands, unless they were willing to see it through.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Just going to chime in with this: as has been noted previously, for some people, this isn't about the cancellation of SGU. I didn't like SGU, so its cancellation doesn't really mean much to me. I didn't even care much for SGA, or the last two or three seasons of SG-1. HOWEVER...

I'm one of those people who are truly annoyed by a network originally dedicated to science fiction having decided in recent years to water down their offerings by including wrestling, horror, the paranormal, "reality" shows and the hideous parade of sub-par movies they've subjected viewers to over the past few years. Most of the new shows they seem to come up with now are either in the paranormal, the "reality" or the soap-opera genre (I'm looking at you, Caprica), with little to appeal to the more traditional fans upon whose backs the network was originally built. Oh sure, they always did include some horror (and it's always annoyed me that horror gets conflated with science fiction so easily -- I blame Alien) and a little fantasy (a little fantasy is fine, but don't pretend it's science fiction)... but these days SyFy seems to be nothing more than SpikeTV's slightly weirder cousin, the one that Spike tries to avoid having to stand next to when the group photo is taken at the annual family reunion.

And that's not good enough. Not for a network that began with much loftier goals, and was originally designed to appeal to a more imaginative, generally more intelligent subset of the viewing public than the average person. I feel cheated, I'm angry, and I've felt this way for at least two or three years.

So count me in. I actually stopped watching SyFy for more than the very occasional re-run of SG-1 or Trek quite some time ago. I know I'm only one person posting here, but I also know there are a LOT of people like me out there who feel the same way. My circle of friends is large, and many of us get together in a group at least once a week... and SyFy has become the butt of running jokes for most of us. That's saying something, since nearly all of us are hard-core, longtime fans of science fiction (and some even of fantasy, which SyFy doesn't even do all that well). So yes, for each vocal person here, you can definitely figure there are many more just like them in existence.

[Ekras]

Just going to chime in with this: as has been noted previously, for some people, this isn't about the cancellation of SGU. I didn't like SGU, so its cancellation doesn't really mean much to me. I didn't even care much for SGA, or the last two or three seasons of SG-1. HOWEVER...

I'm one of those people who are truly annoyed by a network originally dedicated to science fiction having decided in recent years to water down their offerings by including wrestling, horror, the paranormal, "reality" shows and the hideous parade of sub-par movies they've subjected viewers to over the past few years. Most of the new shows they seem to come up with now are either in the paranormal, the "reality" or the soap-opera genre (I'm looking at you, Caprica), with little to appeal to the more traditional fans upon whose backs the network was originally built. Oh sure, they always did include some horror (and it's always annoyed me that horror gets conflated with science fiction so easily -- I blame Alien) and a little fantasy (a little fantasy is fine, but don't pretend it's science fiction)... but these days SyFy seems to be nothing more than SpikeTV's slightly weirder cousin, the one that Spike tries to avoid having to stand next to when the group photo is taken at the annual family reunion.

And that's not good enough. Not for a network that began with much loftier goals, and was originally designed to appeal to a more imaginative, generally more intelligent subset of the viewing public than the average person. I feel cheated, I'm angry, and I've felt this way for at least two or three years.

So count me in. I actually stopped watching SyFy for more than the very occasional re-run of SG-1 or Trek quite some time ago. I know I'm only one person posting here, but I also know there are a LOT of people like me out there who feel the same way. My circle of friends is large, and many of us get together in a group at least once a week... and SyFy has become the butt of running jokes for most of us. That's saying something, since nearly all of us are hard-core, longtime fans of science fiction (and some even of fantasy, which SyFy doesn't even do all that well). So yes, for each vocal person here, you can definitely figure there are many more just like them in existence.

I couldn't have said it better myself (although I was a fan of SGU) - This goes far beyond any single show or franchise.

By the way, the website is now up, although there isn't much on it yet.

[LtColCarter]

Hello all,

Like many of you, I have had it with Syfy (formerly the Sci-Fi channel) and their arrogance. As such I am starting an official boycott of the network in response to their recent actions (starting with the "Re-branding effort" and culminating in a particularly arrogant and disrespectful letter written to fans of a particular show popular on this site. I'm just getting things running, but I wanted to start a thread so that when we open our doors the forum doesn't get flooded with new threads in every board.

The URL for the boycotts website is: http://www.reformsyfynow.com .

If you are as angry with the network as I am, please join me in officially boycotting Syfy.

Important Note: This is not simply in response to the recent SGU cancellation, or the insulting letter issued by the network in response to fans attempts to have the show revived. The boycott is in response to the direction they have decided to take the network (away from traditional science fiction), the absolute disregard to their fans when planning shows, and their unwillingness to accept that fans of the Genre have different expectations than a traditional viewing audience.

Is there a copy of this rude letter somewhere?

[Ekras]

Is there a copy of this rude letter somewhere?

It was on the front page here at GateWorld for awhile. The one where Craig Engler blamed the fans for SGU's demise, instead of their poor business decisions.

[LtColCarter]

It was on the front page here at GateWorld for awhile. The one where Craig Engler blamed the fans for SGU's demise, instead of their poor business decisions.

Guess I missed out on that. I usually come right into the forums and pay little attention to what's on the front page of the site.