Last year the SciFi channel in the US became the SyFy channel.
The fans weren’t that happy but the channel wanted to broaden the group of people it appealed too.
Many fans grumbled; one my favourites is this Open Letter to SyFy from marketing guru Roger Wehbe at the Tribble Agency. In it Wehbe complains about the wrestling and paranormal shows which now haunt the channel rather than everyone’s favourite sci-fi shows.
On the other hand, the re-branding has been seen as a success by others. Just a few weeks ago Geek Native covers the news that Brand New had rated the rebranding effort in the top 10 for 2009.
Like it or not – the new name is rolling out globally. It’ll come to France next but I’m sure it’ll come to the UK soon enough.
Not sure about the rebranding myself. Comes across as trying to make science fiction more appealing to the 'txt spk' generation. Still, I care less about how they spell it and more about the future quality of the content.
It's less about appealling to txt-speakers (because 'Sifi' would do that better, or possibly even 's1f1'), than it is appealling to people who don't consider themselves sci-fi fans, but may enjoy their output. Or to allow them to broaden their output without people crying “that's not sci-fi”
I wasn't seriously suggesting that it was done to appeal to text obsessive types, just that the offbeat spelling came across as a rather artificial attempt to appear different and, dare I say it, 'cool'. Even so, I can't quite see it being a truly effective means of trying to appeal to those who don't consider themselves science fiction fans, after all, a rose by any other name…
They're just trying to reorient their brand on the back of the unprecedented success of BSG. I can't blame em for that, there's a lot of Sci-Fi in popular culture being enjoyed by people who don't consider themselve sci-fi fans.
LOL… the switch from Sci-Fi to SYFY, rebranded them alright. They took the sci-fi (science fiction) out and replaced it with Y,Y (why, why…and instead of science fiction they now have the WWE No.1 on their schedule, in their No.1 day/time slot as well. Along with the WWE they added reality shows…hmmm REALITY??? isn’t that like the opposite of Science Fiction???? Take a look at their line up 70% reality based shows and they keep on taking the hammer to their science fiction shows, and canceling them. “SYFY – Imagine Greater”???? NOT!!! “SYFY – Imagine Less” (less science fiction, that… Read more »
Please to say that I’ve never seen wrestling on SyFy in the UK… but I hear the points you make again and again. I guess SyFy US will drop the WWE from the line up once the ratings show that no one watches.