Goodbye Sci Fi, Hello Syfy!

Talkin' bout change, the Sci Fi channel is ditching the name they had for over two decades for something new: Syfy. Yes, you read that right. Syfy.

Why? Because "Sci Fi" is too limiting, apparently:

The principal reason the idea kept coming up, Mr. Howe said, was a belief “the Sci Fi name is limiting.”

“If you ask people their default perceptions of Sci Fi, they list space, aliens and the future,” he added. “That didn’t
capture the full landscape of fantasy entertainment: the paranormal, the supernatural, action and adventure, superheroes.”

Now, if they only have a fat man as a logo .. Link - via io9


If people understood Sci-Fi, they'd understand that shows like CSI and its spawn are SCi-Fi. Seriously, the only difference between these jokers and the crew of the Enterprise, is that they are playing with non-existent future-technology in a crime lab instead of on a spaceship.

The Sci-Fi network would be well within their mandate to fill out their programming with 2 or 3 hours of Police Sci-fi.
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Since Sci-Fi long ago stopped showing shows (MST3k, Farscape) that I wanted to see, a stupid name change will not now bring me back into the fold.

And no, I don't want to hear about how good BSG is.
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Sounds like 90% of the rest of the channels on cable:

HGTV - 90% decorating crap.
BIO - hardly every shows biographies
History Channel - changed because they wanted to show things that "make history".. whatever
Noggin - which started as a really cool smart channel for kids and showed old school kids tv - is now just The "n" - which shows teeny shows all day
DIY - Barely shows do it yourself stuff any more

All these channels started to focus on a genre, and now that there is so much competition they all want to branch out. Even the Discovery Channel's logo is just D now, and dont even get me started on where all the learning went on TLC.
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I'm a little disappointed that they couldn't at least have come up with a slightly better name. I mean, really, "Syfy" just does not scream super special awesome futuristic robot police to me. And it should.
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"Syfy" - the future nickname for "crap".

Example: "Honey, I think the baby just Syfy'd his diaper".

So start the trend now - you too could be greater in the future (or at least imagine that you are).
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Is it because "Sci Fi Channel Original" is now synonymous with "as bad as Gattica" or "no better than Matrix: Revolutions""

Sorry, just can't bash Revolutions enough. That gash is still bleedin'...
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They've been showing more horror/supernatural crap than real sci-fi for years now. They *might* be more watchable if they didn't show more commercials per hour than any other network...
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I love the corporate jargon but lets face it. You cannot trademark and protect the term Sci Fi. Its a genre and has probably caused problems with them for years. Something unique that still verbally conveys the same meaning "SyFy" on the other hand, can be much more easily protected legally. Its all about the money and branding.
Frankly it is insulting for them to say that the Science Fiction community is so daft that they do not understand the true breadth of Science Fiction. Besides, technically SyFy means nothing and still sounds like the same channel. Therefore in a conversation either term would evoke the same image to the listener.
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The one thing that bugs me about it (aside from the horrible spelling... at least before it was an abbreviation. Wtf is Syfy?) is that they lose the nifty little "if" in the commercials that turns into "scifi"... The sc.if.i was really a neat concept to me. They should call it the "if" network or something.
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"The principal reason the idea kept coming up, Mr. Howe said, was a belief “the Sci Fi name is limiting.”

Yeah, right. Limiting like all of those awful C and B movies they keep showing. But at least they're giving porn stars a chance to work in legitimate theater...

Syfy? Fail. I wonder what marketing genius came up with that one?
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I see all the reasons they chose to do this listed in the TV Week article and elsewhere, but in my opinion the name change will accomplish almost none of those goals. Given the backlash online, I'm now wondering what the odds are that they'll change plans and either keep their current name or create another new one.

More here: http://www.semanticargument.com/?p=175#more-175
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Awh I have fond memories of when the Sci-fi channel was brand new. I was just a teen in 1992 visiting my grandparents for the summer. They had this MASSIVE sized dish satellite in the yard. The thing was expensive, and it got so many weird channels. All those channels didn't even come to our area for like another 3-4 years. I used to LOVE staying up all night watching the Sci-fi channel. That same summer, we went to a fleamarket and I got a big box full of old Asimov science fiction magazines (from the 80's)for like $2 too. I was probably the nerdiest girl alive that year, but it was a great time.

Bye bye scifi, you've been cool but dying for a while now. Hello Syfy. I assume you'll be as retarded as you sound.
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http://www.nosyfyf.com has contact info. on where to complain.

And here's an article about the channel president from a year ago http://www.jackmyers.com/commentary/lunch-at-michaels/16847961.html and how he is going to bring back Farscape and launch other sci-fi pilots...and clearly that didn't work so he thought a name change would work.

Changing the name doesn't address the real issues here.
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