"9 out of 10 Cylons surveyed hate the word SyFy!"
In the spirit of my friends* at the Sci Fi Channel changing the spelling of their channel name to SyFy in an effort to trademark it, and establish a bona fide brand name for themselves, I am changing the name of the genre I occasionally write in to Sigh Fie, which literally means “breathy disgust.” Why? Because… ehhh… I often find myself in a state of breathy disgust (ironically, usually after watching a Sci Fi Channel original movie) and honestly, fie reminds me of pie and I like pie.
Makes no sense? Neither does changing your name to a word that is a venereal disease in the Polish language. John Scalzi brilliantly commented on this yesterday on his blog. The folks at Sci Fi, or SyFy or,… whatever you want to call them, are undergoing this identity crisis because they can’t trademark the word “Sci Fi.” Trademark translates into exclusivity which translates into cash money. What happened to using initials like NBC or CBS or ABC? Here’s an idea, SFC or you could be really bold and call it the “For Some Inexplicable Reason We Air Professional Wrestling” Channel. Another suggestion, the Ice Spiders Channel (trust me no one will ever fight them over these trademark rights).
The amazing thing is that this decision was not made lightly. They probably held focus groups, hired branding experts, flipped dozens of coins, conjured up the ghost of Robert A. Heinlein, and rubbed Buddha’s belly on more than one occasion, and still, this is the best they could do. I say they scrap the whole thing, sit down with the creators of Battlestar Galactica and have them come up with the new name. Those guys can create the crap out of stuff. Heck, call it the “The Folks Who Were Smart Enough to Air Battlestar Galactica” Channel. Anything would be better than SyFy.
*I’m using friends in the broadest possible terms, as in complete strangers who’ve never, ever met before. In fact, they may hate me. I did make fun of their movies. That could explain why they’ve never called me… or heard of me.
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I vote for SK channel, Series Kill. They’ve killed every series I enjoyed. Ooh ooh! Lasis American Media Entertainment
Maybe this is the most ill-timed April Fools joke ever.
The best thing about their programming is the graphics in between. They make them look much more premium than they really are (except for BSG of course). This proves that network executives or the “experts” are getting a lot of money to waste it.
I was seriously starting to think it was an April’s fools joke, but the 1st has come and gone and they’re sticking to their story! This must be for real.