Sci Fi Channel bytter navn..til Syfy...wth?

[b-real]

FOR years, television viewers, journalists who write about TV and services that compile listings have wondered how to refer to a certain cable network: Sci Fi Channel? Sci-Fi Channel? SciFi Channel? SCI FI Channel?

Soon, to paraphrase Rod Serling — whose vintage series, “The Twilight Zone,” is a mainstay of the Sci Fi Channel — executives will submit for public approval another name, not only of sight and sound but of mind, meant to signal a channel whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead — your next stop, Syfy.

 

Plans call for Sci Fi and its companion Web site (scifi.com) to morph into the oddly spelled Syfy — pronounced the same as “Sci Fi” — on July 7. The new name will be accompanied by the slogan “Imagine Greater,” which replaces a logo featuring a stylized version of Saturn.

 

A channel called Syfy will, presumably, not be confused with SyFi Global, an information technology company; S.Y.F.I., the Summer Youth Forestry Institute; or Syfo seltzer, sold by Universal Beverages.

 

The tweaking of the Sci Fi name, introduced in 1992, is part of a rebranding campaign that seeks to distinguish the channel and its programming from cable competitors — 75 of which are also measured by the Nielsen ratings service.

 

The Syfy name is to be introduced on Monday to advertisers and agencies by executives of Sci Fi, part of the NBC Universal Cable Entertainment division of NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric.

 

The name will be revealed at an upfront presentation, when networks try to win commitments by advertisers to blocks of commercial time before the start of the next TV season. Cable channels will spend this month and next making upfront presentations; the broadcast networks will follow in April and May.

 

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.”

Mer tragisk lesning her: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/business...ia/16adcol.html

 

 

Hørte jeg ordet WTF?

[Jokko88]

Er vist mer en juridisk sak, de kan jo ikke egentlig eie "Sci-Fi" det er jo en sjanger. Syfy ser jo ikke bra ut, men det uttales ihvertfall likt Er egentlig mer overrasket over Rimi sitt logobytte..

[Cyberfrog]

Høres egentlig ut som en aprilspøk. Men er ellers ikke noe jeg gidder ha sterke meninger om.

[Groening]

Jeg var veldig skeptisk når jeg først hørte om dette, men det er vel logisk. De kan jo ikke eie Sci-Fi som det har blitt sagt. Pluss, SyFy har jo gått blitt mer og mer blanding av sci-fi og fantasy serier. Så der er det også litt logisk, det jeg liker minst er at de har fjernet den kule Satrun logoen.