After Tuesday, you won't find the Sci Fi channel on TV anymore. You won't find scifi.com on the Web, either.
Sci Fi morphs into Syfy, both on air and online.
Syfy: It is all in a name
The network that brought us "Battlestar Galactica" and the "Stargate" series is adopting the new name because, according to Sci Fi president Dave Howe, the network wanted to brand all its products, from video games to DVDs to Webisodes and onward, with a name it could own and trademark.
Sci Fi, being a generic term that applies to a genre of film, books, TV series and other forms of media, could not be trademarked.
"You can't have a brand called 'Sport' or 'Drama' or 'News,'" Howe told the Tribune's Watcher columnist Maureen Ryan. "It's just not a brand name."
Howe also hopes to change people's perceptions of the network and its Web site with the rebranding, telling Mo that "sci fi" conjures up "space, aliens and the future." The network, he said, offers up much more than that, citing the reality shows "Ghost Hunters" and "Destination Truth" as examples.
Howe also said fans sci fi fans shouldn't fear that Syfy will abandon the genre.
The network's slate of original programming seems to back up Howe's statement, and I'm glad for that.
On Tuesday, Syfy launches the new series "Warehouse 13," and on Friday the popular "Eureka" returns for another season. Both shows are Earth-based and about people as opposed to aliens, but they are definitely sci fi series.
Speaking of space, Syfy also is prepping a "Galactica" prequel, "Caprica," for its 2010 launch, and the latest "Stargate" saga, "Stargate Universe." "Caprica" is set on an Earth-like planet and tells the story of the rise of the robots that will one day wage war on humans, while "Stargate" is set on a spacecraft in deep space.
You can't get more sci fi than that. It looks like Syfy will remain this sci fi's fans No. 1 destination.
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2 Comments
GeekToMe said:
Ugh. For all the attention the suits at the SciFi - oops, I mean SyFy channel give to their branding opportunities, you'd think they'd do the same for their programming. For every Eureka and Warehouse 13 they give us, we get TEN embarrassing pieces of dreck like 'Thor: Hammer of the Gods' and the abomination that was the -ahem- adaptation of 'A Wizard of Earthsea.' SyFy does for genre films what Showtime does for soft porn, gives us plenty of it and not even the good stuff.
Curt Wagner said:
LOL. I have to agree with you on Syfy movies. Sometimes they are so bad I think it's inentional. But the series are much smarter most of the time. Hang in there.
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