The SciFi Channel is planning to change its name to SyFy. Fans are understandably outraged. Me? I’m just sad.
I’ve always been disappointed with the SciFi Channel. They actually have very little science fiction. They have had a few good shows but it’s mostly bad horror movies, Ghost Hunters and wrestling. So they’re trying to rid themselves of the “geeks and dysfunctional anti-social boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that” type of fans. (note the comic strip) Do you get that? Even the SciFi Channel doesn’t respect science fiction fans!
So this is sad but not surprising. I don’t like it but the change is actually appropriate since it’s never been (at least since I’ve been watching it) really, primarily, a science fiction channel.
Thanks, Andrea.
March 19th, 2009 - 7:36 am
I’ve often wondered what their purpose was. Even back in the early days of cable tv I seem to remember them mostly for showing the same few syndicated series over and over again. (Twilight Zone, Tales from the Darkside, Star Trek the Next Generation…) They did used to carry Mystery Science Theater, but that wasn’t strictly a science fiction show — it was a comedy. It seems to me that even in the Dark Ages of no cable when all we had were the Big Three broadcasters and a few local UHF stations that I saw a whole lot more science fiction television than I did in the whole of my twenty+ years of cable tv watching.
March 19th, 2009 - 12:03 pm
NBC Universal also own Chiller TV, which is oriented more towards horror than science fiction. Could SciFi’s renaming be part of a move toward different sorts of programming, with Chiller taking over its old role?
March 19th, 2009 - 8:13 pm
I want to believe.
Seriously, I don’t know. I hardly ever read any “insider” type stuff.
March 23rd, 2009 - 9:02 pm
From what I’ve read, the rebranding to SyFy had to do with the fact that “SciFi” was a generic term & not copyrightable.