The New York Times has reported the Sci FI Channel is changing its name – to SyFy.  Twitter is buzzing with opinions about the change.  Most people are referring to the move as ‘idiotic’.  It may be, although I can understand the channels decision.

Sci Fi has a ridiculous stigma surrounding it.  When I mention I run a sci fi news site, a typical response is, “Oh, you’re into all that space stuff.”  Actually ’stuff’ is usually replaced with the word ‘crap’.  Yet just as the re-branded slogan for the SyFy Channel says, ‘Imagine Greater’, science fiction is far more than what most people give it credit for.

From the New York Times:

One big advantage of the name change, the executives say, is that Sci Fi is vague — so generic, in fact, that it could not be trademarked. Syfy, with its unusual spelling, can be, which is also why diapers are called Luvs, an online video Web site is called Joost and a toothpaste is called Gleem.

“We couldn’t own Sci Fi; it’s a genre,” said Bonnie Hammer, the former president of Sci Fi who became the president of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. “But we can own Syfy.”

Another benefit of the new name is that it is not “throwing the baby away with the bath water,” she added, because it is similar enough to the Sci Fi brand to convey continuity to “the fan-boys and -girls who love the genre.”

Ms. Hammer and her successor as Sci Fi president, Dave Howe, said they had sat through many meetings over the years at which a name change was debated.

The principal reason the idea kept coming up, Mr. Howe said, was a belief “the Sci Fi name is limiting.”

“If you ask people their default perceptions of Sci Fi, they list space, aliens and the future,” he added. “That didn’t capture the full landscape of fantasy entertainment: the paranormal, the supernatural, action and adventure, superheroes.”

That became more important as Sci Fi expanded its program offerings into those realms, Mr. Howe said, with series like “Destination Truth” and “Ghost Hunters.”

And a shorter, more memorable name is more readily “attached to new businesses,” he added, like movies, video games, mobile content and additional channels overseas.

Of course, whilst I understand the intention behind the name change, you have to wonder whether it will do its job.  Syfy and Sci Fi sound exactly the same when uttered, so if someone hears: “It’s on the Syfy channel” the re-branding isn’t going to mean a thing – they’ll hear: “It’s on the Sci Fi Channel.”

Also,  the New York Times suggests there exists the possibility that the network will be confused with other organizations with similar names such as SyFi Global (an information technology company), S.Y.F.I. (the Summer Youth Forestry Institute), and Syfo seltzer (a drink sold by Universal Beverages).   I actually hadn’t heard of these organizations and so I doubt this is much of an issue.

Then there’s Syfy Portal, a science fiction news website that recently switched its name to Airlock Alpha.  Actually a quick check of the latest news on Airlock Alpha indicates the name change related to the selling of their brand name to the Sci Fi Channel:

SyFy Portal. Quantum Global Media Inc., rebranded this site last month to Airlock Alpha, leaving behind the “Syfy” brand, and selling it to an undisclosed entity.

Can such a name change really attract new viewers to the network?   I would have thought that those who don’t watch sci fi aren’t going to start because now it is spelled differently.  I can only imagine the boardroom meetings at the Sci Fi Channel must have concluded that the name change will attract people who are too stupid to realize that its actually the Sci Fi Channel. Either that or they intend to expand the network by showing a lot more non sci-fi features.

I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe people will say ‘Well, it’s not just sci fi on Syfy.”   Although I have to say, typing that last statement, I wasn’t convinced.

But good luck to them just the same.  No matter what opinion you may have, if this works, it can only be good for the genre.  I hope.

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