Wednesday, March 18, 2009

SyFy: Imagine Greater (Stupidity)

So, according to the news over at Sci-FiWire the Sci-Fi Channel is changing its name, next summer, to "SyFy" with the tagline "Imagine Greater."

Well, I guess this proves that even in a turd of an economy like this one Marketing types are still working. Ok, fine, I've worked in a Marketing Department before myself and I understand their reasons for wanting to do this. Primarily that the name of their network basically couldn't be trademarked because it was a generic term for a genre.

Not that they seemed to restricted to that genre in their programming anyway - I ask again, "What the HELL is wrestling doing on this channel?!?" Yes, wrestling is fiction and a degree of science likely created the wrestlers but PLEASE keep that crap on USA where it belongs! I remember when I first heard of an executive at Sci-Fi Channel talking about "broadening the brand" to include programming that was definitely NOT science fiction. Yeah, WTF?! Well, that's how TV executives and marketing types think (if you can call that random neuron firing they experience "thinking." Most of us call it a "brain fart").

Here's an excerpt from the wire:
the new brand broadens perceptions and embraces a wider range of current and future imagination-based entertainment beyond just the traditional sci-fi genre, including fantasy, supernatural, paranormal, reality, mystery, action and adventure
. . .In other words, embraces the wider range of programming seen on every other entertainment channel. They say "broadens" but I say "dilutes."

I have to wonder if the people running this channel have any idea who their core audience actually is? You'd have thought that the name of the channel itself - the current name - would have been clue enough, but apparently not. So we end up with the aforementioned wrestling abomination, idiotic game shows, and amateur ghost-busting (both domestic and international) by night-vision camera.

Once the series finale of "Battlestar Galactica" airs I don't have much reason to keep the basic cable TV package that includes Sci-Fi Channel anyway. . .especially if they're going to keep "broadening" (diluting) their programming with more and more non-science fiction.

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