It seems the Sci Fi channel has hired aliens for marketing consultants. They are changing their name to “SyFy,” perhaps the worst TV branding mistake ever.
They are trying to go for a less “geeky” image:
In some universe, the name “Syfy” is less geeky than the name “Sci Fi.” Dave Howe, president of the Sci Fi Channel, is betting it’s this one….
“What we love about this is we hopefully get the best of both worlds,” Mr. Howe said. “We’ll get the heritage and the track record of success, and we’ll build off of that to build a broader, more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.”
If I was an investor in the Sci Fi channel, I’d be scared for their future. But since I’m not, I’ll just laugh.
As Cynical-C said, “Looks like the SciFi network just changed their brand from one that is instantly recognizable to one that sounds like an abbreviation for an STD.”
Though their tagline is pretty good: “Imagine Greater.” I just think they left off “Names” from the end.
Update: As Jonathan points out in the comments, another reason for the change is they can trademark “SyFy” whereas they cannot trademark “Sci Fi.”
Don’t be so quick to judge. ‘Sci-Fi’ is a widely-known phrase and impossible to trademark. ‘SyFy’ can be trademarked.
Back in the late 90s, there was a network called “The Nashville Network” – often called “TNN”. The suits in charge of TNN didn’t think that the niche network that appealed to a certain kind of country music fan was making them enough money. So they went on a rebranding kick – first changing the name of the network to “The National Network” and adding reruns of Star Trek: TNG and other non-country related shows to their lineup. A couple of years later they trashed the “TNN” branding altogether, renamed the network “Spike” and turned it into a blatant “men’s channel” targeting an 18-30 year old male demographic.
I suspect that this is what the owners of the Sci-Fi channel are also doing. Sci-fi is too “niche” for them, and they’re drooling over the idea that they can attract a larger portion of the 18-30 year old male demographic if they just lose the “nerdy” associations. Adding more wrestling and more reality shows to their lineup hasn’t done it so far.
I give it a few years, then they’ll drop even the remnants of the “SciFi” name and finish the transition from a channel that served a small niche audience reasonably well (though not perfectly) to a channel that shows the same schlock that you can already see on a dozen other channels if you’re inclined to search it out. I watched it with TNN, I watched it with MTV and VH1, and I can see the same things going on right now with Sci-Fi. I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect not.
That’s just sylly. I would pronounce that Siffy.
According to the science fiction author John Scalzi, “SyFy” is a polish swearword derived from “syphilis”.
Great research, guys. You’re now the VD Channel.
As a complete science fiction guy, I have to say that this is just stupid. A name change will not change the fact that it is crappy content that is bringing down the Sci-Fi channel.
This post offers a question: what is the relationship of sci-fi geeks and atheism?
@Laurie: hah.
They did a similar thing in the UK with UKTV Gold 2 – changed its name to “Dave”. The rationale? They were trying to appeal to the average English bloke of c.25 who was into copious amounts of beer, cigs and shagging. Thereby alienating all the women, blokes called Dave who weren’t into those things especially, blokes of 25 who hated being typecast, in fact everyone who wasn’t stupid and/or neanderthal.
Thing is, the progs were/are actually quite good, which I guess is the main thing if you’re a TV station with or without a silly name.
I really wanted to pronounce it [Sigh-fee], to rhyme with ‘hyphy,’ as in “I come from East Oakland where the youngsters get syfy.”
All this rebranding is part of the death throes of the American economy. We get to watch all of these companies thrash and writhe to stay above water, desperately gasping for the last remaining bits business, when we all know that soon, they will become still, and sink motionless into the dark abyss a la Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.
No but seriously, look at all the companies that are rebranding lately, Pepsi, KFC, Sprite, ’7 up all natural’. They ain’t doin’ it for fun — them crafty mofo’s is up to somethin’.
I like to pronounce this “see fee”. Mainly out of spite.
I still think this is all just an early April Fool’s Day joke, though. I mean, it’s pretty much universally acknowledged to be a stupid decision.
This is an example of the reason we cancelled cable: 100 channels, and it’s mostly crap, and the de-niching of the specialty cable channels means it will soon all be crap, and all the same crap, too. For the $50+ per month you are spending, you can rent or buy a hell of a lot of good movies, or entire seasons of your favorite shows, and watch them at leisure, commercial-free. Local news, we can still get on rabbit ears (yes, we actually have rabbit ears hooked up to our new-fangled LCD HDTV. The new face of Luddism for the 21st century….).
I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. There are a few bits of rationale behind the move. The term Sci-Fi is far too generic. Think of it from an ad sales and brand category perspective. They can now create blocks like SyFy Kids, SyFy Store (retail), the list goes on and on. It wasn’t working with Sci-Fi.
The name incidentally was developed by Landor after 300 options were developed.
The rebrand is being handled by two London shops, one called Proud Creative, the other 4 Creative. I’m continuing to post updates about the rebrand including a few interviews with some marketing folk at SyFy/Sci-Fi. My blog is located at http://dennytu.wordpress.com
Without giving my own personal opinion, I do find it interesting that EVERYONE is giving their opinion on this decision. In a land of pedestrian cable channels, have you seen so many folks take an interest in what a network is doing? I have a sneaking suspicion this will cause people to tune in, if not just to see what the idents look like. In a cluttered marketplace, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with trying to stand out.
Netflix is the new cable TV.
With an xbox 360 and a gold account, I can stream all the netflix instant watch shows right to my big screen plasma TV. And I will never again have to watch a commercial.
Broadcast TV can kiss my hairy buttocks.
This is much like when National Geographic started going by Nat Geo. Do you have any idea how much time they’ve saved me in conversations now that I don’t have to pronounce those twelve extra letters, those four extra syllables? None. I still call it National Geographic.
I agree with arkonbey that, no matter what they do to change the name, it won’t rescue them from their deteriorating content quality. SciFi used to be my favorite channel (being one of those geeks that they now seem to abhor), but over the past few years, they’ve shown less and less good stuff and have added more and more complete crapola. Now that BSG and Stargate are done, they’ve got nothing left but reality TV (Ultimate Gamer?! Huh?) and wrestling.
I don’t think a name change will save them.
IF they needed a trade name, like “Kountry Kitchen”, because you can’t copyright real words. OK.
If they were being cute like McDonald’s advertising itself as “Mickey D’s”, well, their right to do it, but still I get a bit leery of losing my lunch.
Let’s not lose sight of what’s important here, people. Will SyFy still show such groundbreaking movies like “Manticore” or “Polar Storm”?
The problem here is that they look to be considering primarily people who either still tolerate the current flawed programming mentality or people who are not deeply entrenched in the genre. Science Fiction fans tend to be both territorial and respectful of aggressively defended boundaries. And the more “SyFy” spokespeople stonewall the justifiable criticisms of this move, the less inclined their theoretically-desired fan base will be to cling to their broadcasting.
I just find it difficult to take a man serious who refers to the fans of science fiction in the third person. To be blunt, if you’re not a fan of the genre yourself, get out of the business!
Well, since they’ve canceled SG-1 and Atlantis, and Eureka, and BSG is over, they’ve pretty much tapped anything that their former fanbase would stick around for. Now they’re all about the ‘original’ films, (ie. tacky monster movies that nobody else will make of show). Oh, and ECW. That just drove me to give up on them.
I’m a sci fi buff. It’s a pretty big stretch but I can see how this insignificant name change might tie into religion. I’ve always pondered the number of stars in the visible universe: “today that there are 70 sextillion stars in the visible universe, or some 70 thousand million million million. That’s a 7 followed by 22 zeros.”
“Another NASA Web site sagely puts the count at zillions, a word that does not represent a real figure but rather an “extremely large, indeterminate number.” That presumes we’ll never really know.”
Now you would need to multiply that by some number to come up with the number of planets.
- if Jesus saved us did he also save intelligent species on all other planets, which could be trillions or more?
- what was god doing for the 13.99999999 billion or so years before we humans existed? Warming up before he started smiting people dead for offering strange fire?
- in 5 million years what would “humans” on this planet think of Jesus? They would no longer be recognized as the homo sapiens that we are today, assuming we evolved and still existed.
People tend to think in terms of the here and now. Our minds simply are not designed to fathom millions or billions of years. Millions of years are incomprehensible let alone 70 sextillion stars!!! If you could allow yourself to contemplate that many stars – suddenly things on this planet become amazingly insignificant.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/star_count_030722.html
Maybe you should re-brand “Unreasonable Faith” into “UrFy (TM)”
Or maybe not.
The ECW on Sci Fi (I immaturely refuse to recognize the new moniker) reminds me a great deal of the head-scratching corporate decision that put reality shows like Deadliest Catch and Axe Men on the History Channel.
The difference is that I actually enjoy those shows… ECW? Not so much. I really don’t care what the name of the channels are, if they’re showing decent programming. And those are few and far between.
Sci Fi or SyFy. It makes no difference to me. In the end, they’ll still play way too many awful, awful, awful Sci Fi movies. “oh noes, attack of the giant bug/cat/snake/lizard/fly!”
Seriously. I guess it’s nice that there’s somewhere on TV that caters to that crowd, but man. Why can’t there be a channel that focuses entirely on bad Kung Fu? I’d watch that.
Admittedly, every now and then they have a good TV series… but I think FX is more reliable for better TV series.
Well, I’d still watch it, whatever its name was–Assuming it was part of the basic cable package. I only got cable for the intertubes.
However, I’m bound to say that SyFy sounds like something nasty you picked up on shore leave.
@Vidlord:
It’s one of the moments I’m waiting for: The day the saucer lands on the White House lawn and two aliens with name tags and sober suits walk down the ramp and ask the planet: “Have you heard the good news of the Book of Mormon?”
That’d get some folks spinning in their retroactively Mormon graves, eh?
More importantly – is this an example of macro- or micro-evolution?
no one used the word “frak” it any of their reviews. And yes I think its a fraking stupid name.
The name change is ridiculous. I hate it. I hate it as a consumer of their shows and as an English teacher. I hate it. Their shows are iffy, but they kill a Saturday afternoon. I hate the name change.
Definately a headscratcher. Humorous commentary here:
http://stupidfuture.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/you-may-have-syfy-if-you-are/
http://stupidfuture.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/jeff-albertson-weighs-in/
They loose their identity branding and building for the last 15 years. They are aliening and ticking off their fanbase.
Perhaps this will serve their long-term goals better and they’ll reach out to a less geeky audience, but it seems to me they are shooting themselves in the foot.
It reminds of of the new tropicana packaging. Everyone hates it. But at least they didn’t change their name as well!
I just posted SyFy President Dave Howe’s response to the controversy and his answers to some direct questions from fans, includes video.
http://dennytu.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/syfy-president-dave-howe-on/
Why give people a better product when you can give the product a better image?
Same here. I can get pretty much everything I want with a $15 netflix subscription. If I need a new episode of something that isn’t available on Netflix yet, I can always turn to the torrents.
If channels were available pick-and-choose, as myself and others have been suggesting for years, there would be no reason to de-niche. In fact, the incentive would be just the opposite: networks would be pressured to offer original and unique content.
The problem for these companies is that there’s too many people like me, who refuse to pay for 100 channels when we would only watch 5. So we go without. However, if I could cherrypick the Science Channel, HBO, Showtime, (pre-Chopper) Discovery Channel, and a few others, I would totally buy in.
I am generally skeptical of the free market, but this is one place where we should let it do its thing, IMHO.
I can see how it is better from that standpoint.
But when your fans don’t like your new name, it doesn’t matter that it can be trademarked. They don’t like it. Didn’t they ask people about it before they made the decision? Was there anyone who said, “Oh, yeah, what a great name! I love it!”? I haven’t heard anyone say that.
Daniel-
(btw- LOVE YOUR BLOG)
I agree. I’ve been following this closely, and I don’t hear many people who say they love it. For those that either hate it or love it, see how you feel after some branding spots come out. Apparently there is a :90 commercial spot being developed now. For those that are pronouncing it differently, once you hear it on air, it might click.
Some feel like its a knee jerk reaction by the network to being an “attention grabbing” move. It also is a bad time in the economy. Any perceived decisions by companies to “waste” money is jumped on pretty quickly. Gone are the days of multi-million dollar rebrands where we as consumers just sat back and watched, picked the ones we liked, and went about our days. We are actively engaged in the dialogue these days.
As another reader added, the change in the UK from UKTV Gold 2, to Dave was a resounding creative and commercial success. That name was panned pretty hard at announcement date.
Btw, if you like Sci-Fi or you’re into design, you might want to take a peek at the UK campaign for Sci-Fi here: http://dennytu.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/atmospheric-branding-idents-for-sci-fi/
Really curious where we’ll be in a few months once some bits of the campaign start leaking out.
Denny
Yeah, the problem with that model is that it ends up with only MTV getting sufficient funding. The niche channels are niche because a majority of the population would not pay for them if they had the choice. Channel bundling is a compromise that allows niche content to get made by siphoning off a little cash from the channels that the free market can support.
Sure, it’s not always so clear cut (HBO can probably survive on its DVD sales, for example), but I think that overall, de-bundling is a very bad idea.
It drives me crazy when people and companies try to “shorten” or “economize” the pronunciation of something by making it an acronym or clipping.
Case in point: EVOO for ‘extra virgin olive oil.’
English is a stress-timed language, which means the length of our utterances is based on the number of stresses occurring in the words therein. We mutter or mash together the non-accented syllables so we can get the spacing between the stresses uniform. Listen to what happens to the syllables between the stresses of ‘National geographic.’ If you are speaking at a normal pace, they become ‘shnljee’.
Spanish, on the other hand, is a syllable timed language. They give each syllable equal care in pronunciation. This is why spanish sounds stacatto, and when spoken quickly, like a machine gun.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil has four stresses, so its timing is four. EVOO also has four stresses. English gains nothing in this abbreviation, except some kind of cute factor.
Aceite de Oliva Virgen Extra has eleven syllables, and so its timing is eleven. Rachel Ray should reallocate her abbreviative aid to the Spaniards.
Yeah, I know why they do it, but look at what bundled TV is becoming: homogenized reality-show, drama-rama mind rot. They’re all obviously on the fast train to shitsville, and with competitors like Netflix, and Hulu, they are taking a huge hit.
The bundle model was great for the reasons you give above, but it’s outmoded, and it’s failing, because the networks’ competitors are offering hyper-selectability.
I guess what I’m saying isn’t a plea for what I want, it’s an observation that if they don’t get up with the times and start offering customizeable service packages, they’re going to bite the big one.
I have never understood why they had to put wrestling on SciFi. I never watch it and they lost a lot of my respect when they did start it. Hey now how about that exciting show this last weekend? Spring Break Shark Attack what a name to draw those 18-30 males.
If you have high speed internet you can also hit all the different channels websites to watch some of the episodes. They make you watch about 4 ads of 30 seconds each for a one hour show(actually usually about 45 minutes without the commercials).
Eureka hasn’t been canceled. It’s pretty much the biggest show they’ve got at the moment, too. And thank God (not literally, of course) that it’s coming back in July. Show’s great, but it’s been on break forever.
And, luckily, most of Sci-Fi’s biggest shows are up on Hulu. I get almost all my TV from that site now.
I imagine that people who were fans of shows on the Sci-Fi channel will still watch those shows if the logo says SyFy instead. There’s a helluva difference between mildly annoying people who will not change their behavior, and ticking them off to the point they will leave.
This isn’t New Coke; they aren’t changing the formula, just the packaging.If BSG were on a channel called SyFy, I’d still love and watch the show. You?
New coke was soooo grody, yeah, gag me with a spoon…. now I’m dating myself…
In my Firefox instant-link bar, I called it “UnFaith”.
“what was god doing for the 13.99999999 billion or so years before we humans existed”
rubbing his hands together and smacking his lips…
Oh come on, you picked the silliest religion in the universe for the aliens. If aliens actually showed up with the book of mormon, it would just prove to me that we live in a computer simulation run by a practical joker.
FYI. I read some golden plates and wrote a new Mormon book. But I lost the first draft in a hard drive crash, and I don’t feel like making up a new one.
Mormonism is less silly than Scientology.
Scientology makes me lose all faith in mankind. If people willingly believe that… then there really are people that are just flat out broken.
But Mormonism is far more provably untrue.
Scientology at least has the sense to avoid claiming things that are easily disproved.
The book of Mormon is filled with things that are quite easily disproved.
Wheels, gold coins, glass beads, and iron swords in pre-columbian South America?!
An Egyptian funerary scroll that was ‘intepreted’ by Joseph Smith as the book of Abraham?!
I mean, come on. That’s like having a religion whose holy book claims the sun rises in the West.
Oh, I dunno, changing the name to Dave did allow them to call Dave +1 “Dave ja vu”, which is silly but amusing. But I think the important factor, which you’ve mentioned, is that Dave shows good programs, many of which aren’t on British TV on any other channels any more (Red Dwarf, for instance) plus, while the name Dave may have been intended to appeal to the lager-swilling unreconstructed demographic, the actual branding and style of the channel seems more aimed at the general student market – the feckless young people in uber-trendy clothes mucking about in a stately home, for example. (Contrast with Bravo, a channel that couldn’t be more mindlessly offensive if it tried.) And, as a student in a house full of students, I can assure you that it seems to have worked. Well, either that or all students are totally obsessed with Top Gear.
My problem with Sci-Fi is that increasingly the stuff they show is barely countable as science fiction, and I don’t think a name change is going to do any good on that front.