I watch the SciFi channel all the time. Lately they've been running ads about how they're changing the name of the channel form SciFi to Syfy. At the off, it seems like a ridiculous thing to do, and seems even more ridiculous (and insulting to their audience) when I looked up just why they're changing the name.

In a re-branding move, the SciFi channel is aiming to lose their "geeky" image by renaming the network Syfy. That name was chosen out of three hundred different possibilities, because it sounds the same as the old name, but also supposedly distances itself from Science Fiction and allows them to branch out into new genres and attract new audiences, especially young "tech savvy" people and women.

"The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network."

One of the comments on the article said this, and I agree with it:

"Thank you, idiotic executives, for finally making overt what your programming choices have implied for years: that you hate your core audience.

I might (and I emphasize might) have considered watching the new channel, despite it's absurd and meaningless name. Not, however, after I read this article. It's full of quotes that are not only stupid, but actively insulting to the very people who should be your most loyal supporters.

You continue to perpetuate the very stereotypes from which you wish to distance yourselves. Instead of acknowledging what the literary and academic worlds have known for at least two decades, that SF is more than just "space, aliens[,] and the future," you'd rather continue to sucker audiences in with lowest-common-denominator drivel and derivatives of ideas that intelligent audiences were calling inane ten years ago.

Thank you for letting me know that I am not welcome in your new, hip channel. If you need me, I'll be spending my money in my local bookstore, exploring the real, thought-provoking cutting edge of SF.

-- Jason Ramboz"

It makes me wonder just how stupid they imagine women are. It's like their old ad campaign for Battlestar Gallactica which promoted the show as sci-fi that women can like, as if no woman has ever enjoyed a science fiction television show before. It's especially insulting to a woman like me, who grew up on SciFi and genre in general. A cheap re-branding of the network name is not what's going to draw anyone to the network. What draws people to a network is good programming.

Dave Howe, advertising executive for the channel said “It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.”

Well, you know what, Dave Howe? FUCK YOU.

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EDIT: studyofrunning has posted her own response at her journal. If you're interested, that's worth a read as well.