How to Run Your Television Network into the Ground

Hey, you know that whole science fiction thing, with the aliens and spaceships? Don’t you just hate how there’s, like, all this technology and stuff and it’s, like, really confusing and nerdy and just, you know, childish? Well, don’t worry because the executives at the Sci Fi channel wholeheartedly agree. Looking to rebrand themselves as a hipper, more accessible network, the Sci Fi channel will soon be following in the footsteps of MTV, TechTv/G4, The History Channel, and Discovery by becoming a pale, desiccated shell of its former self. Viva las networks!

Most famous for Battlestar Galactica and their provocative original movies like Chupacabra, Raptor Island, Anonymous Rex, Flu Bird Horror, and Goats: The Final Reckoning on Bloody Billy Mountain, the Sci Fi channel is going to become the SyFy channel, a more palpable brand that will allow them to shed their old name and image, which was holding them back due to its association with geeks and antisocial adolescent males. Yes, they said that. Here I was, mistakenly under the impression that the only thing hurting their image was Chupacabra, Raptor Island, Anonymous Rex, and Flu Bird Horror. Sadly, I must confess that Goats: The Final Reckoning on Bloody Billy Mountain isn’t a real movie. Yet.


But you know, maybe they’re right. Perhaps the old name is keeping the network from branching out like they did in 2006 when they showed Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and WWE’s ECW. I mean, where else on TV will I possibly be able to watch this kind of fine quality programming? Answer: NBC, TNT, USA Network, Bravo, Hallmark Channel, CourtTV(before it became TruTV), MyNetworkTV, and countless local stations like ABC Washington (WJLA) which shows syndicated episodes of L&O:SVU.

The network plans to put the new name into effect on July 7 when it launches the first wave of its new programming, a series called “Warehouse 13” which Sci Fi channel president David Howe described as a modern day “dramedy” that is a mix between Indian Jones, Moonlighting, and The X-Files. Wait, wouldn’t that just be a television version of Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

In addition to this, the channel is hoping to launch a television series that will interact with a Massively Multiplayer Online Game that is affected by events within the show, because MMORPGs are just the kind of thing you want to embrace when you’re trying to get away from asocial nerds.

To be fair though, we can’t come down on the new SyFy Channel too hard (even if writing that out makes me feel like an imbecile) because, as mentioned, they’re just following the beaten path. It was MTV who first decided that music videos and subversive programming like Liquid Television should be replaced with non-stop marathons of The Real World and Next. MTV is so certain that we want these marathons that MTV2 also shows them, despite the fact that the network was originally created to provide non-stop commercial-free music videos and thereby quell complaints about the original MTV.

I can see how the recent end of Battlestar Galactica, one of the few pieces of quality programming on the network, could prompt a mid-life crisis that leads the execs to change the name because this “is how you’d text it” but regardless of what your BFF Jill tells you, there’s a reason we don’t use textspeak outside of our phones (except for those embarrassing moments when we respond to a joke with a verbal “lol” and pray no one heard us).

The key to a better network isn’t alienating your core audience and attempting to appeal to such a broad audience that your product means nothing to no one or alternatively, everything to everyone (which is basically the same thing). A good sci fi channel should be about good sci fi, a good music channel should be about good music, and a good (insert word here) channel should be about good (insert word here).

So if your network is floundering, before you look to hipper marketing for an answer, please ask yourself, “Is spending our money on Goats 2: Bloodier Billier Mountain really the best thing to do?” Answer: Yes, if I get paid royalties.