Sci Fi Channel becomes Syfy
Three months ago, the Sci Fi Channel surprised everyone, including their most dedicated fans, by announcing that the channel was rebranding itself to be called Syfy – pronounced “sigh-fie.” The idea of the rebranding was to expand the audience of the channel to people who might be put off by the science fiction genre. On July 7, 2009 Sci Fi officially became Syfy, with the new slogan “Imagine Greater.”
CNN.com quotes Dave Howe, the president of Syfy, on the reasons why the channel needed the rebranding:
“We needed a unique and distinct brand name that we can own for the future, that works in the multiplatform, on-demand world,” he said, adding that “Sci Fi” isn’t a brand name, it’s “a genre name.”
“Syfy,” he said, “gives us a unique brand name.
“The last thing we want to do is alienate our core audience,” he added. With the new name, shows such as “Galactica” can be exposed to a wider audience, one not scared away by all that “Sci Fi” connotes (“space and aliens and the future,” in Howe’s words).
Howe continues on how the name was chosen:
“This was a two-year exercise,” he said. The new name, he says, needed to be usable all over the world in Internet URLs, brand extensions and merchandising, and “the only way to do that is to create an empty name.
“We explored them all,” he said. “We wanted a word that was uniquely ours,” while not straying too far from the sound of “Sci Fi.”
It’s an interesting rebranding case study. On one side, you have the channel that is looking to expand and grow and feel that they need to break out of a general genre name that they could never fully own. Syfy explains the name change in their FAQ on syfy.com:
Why are you changing your name?
Although we love the name Sci Fi, because it’s a generic term, we can never own it. As the way people watch TV changes, that’s becoming a growing issue for us. When we started out 16 years ago, we had one cable network in the U.S. and everyone watched TV live. By the end of 2009, we’ll be in 50 countries, our content will be distributed across dozens of new platforms – from Hulu and iTunes to mobile phones and game consoles – and a growing number of viewers no longer watch live.That creates problems we’ve never had before, such as when a search for a “sci-fi show” might not turn up any results for a “Sci Fi show,” when we compete in other countries with another network that uses “sci-fi” in its title, and on the text-based menu systems used on many devices, where the name Sci Fi and the category “sci-fi” are indistinguishable. As we expand our brand into new areas such as gaming and technology, Syfy will also help people tell the difference between a game that we’re involved with and the hundreds of other sci-fi games out there that we’re not.
On the other side, you have science fiction fans that are voicing their displeasure at the name change. Current Sci Fi viewers feel like the channel’s rebranding was done without the current fans in mind.
The channel is in risky territory. Are they going to turn away so much of their current viewership with the new name that they won’t be able to recover with new viewers? Is Syfy watering down the brand? If so, this might be an opportunity for competitors to jump in to satisfy the Sci Fi genre niche.
What are your thoughts on the rebranding? Were you a viewer before? If not, will the new name entice you to watch?
Well as in most things, in the end the name doesn’t matter all that much. It’s the content that will bring in viewers or drive them away.
I was a casual viewer and probable will remain so, I didn’t go to SciFi to just see what was on and I probably won’t go to SyFy to do that either. But I will tune them in for a specific show that I want to watch.
It’s been a long time since I just turned on one channel and left it there for the evening, with all the choices we have it’s content that bring people to you, not a name change.
July 9, 2009
I’m not a big fan of the new name, but I’ll get used to it. Reading their explanations and justifications do make sense. Especially since they seem to have more non-fiction/reality shows on their network lately.
What’s funny though is that the whole reason that I started watching that channel was because I like Sci-Fi, I think that if I saw SyFy in the channel I would’ve just skipped over it.
July 9, 2009
@Wolfman-k – I totally agree the name change isn’t going to stop me from seeing the content that I’ve grown to love. For instance I can’t wait till Battlestar Galactica: The Plan and Caprica come out. Plus it’s the only station that currently runs Star Trek: TNG reruns.
But will the name change succeed in its mission? Will it trick viewers opposed to Sci Fi with a name that sounds exactly the same? Will its reputation from the change sustain through? It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
July 9, 2009
What they are not saying and what I think is interesting is they are changing the name to open the door for perhaps a broader format. Personally, I like the niche cable channels and I tend to stop watching them when they move away from their niche.
This reminds me a little of when The Outdoor Life Network changed their name to Versus. Maybe by being OLN they were too niche and changing to Versus allowed for additional programming like mixed martial arts and hockey. It seems they increased their market share after the change, but I don’t remember seeing any studies noting whether or not they alienated their old audience.
I think the change will be OK if the programming stays the same. Then, they will only alienate their characters. ;)
July 9, 2009
@Larry – With Versus they had to change and they had to change fast. I remember picking on them too at the time. They had just landed the NHL contract and hockey has nothing to do with the outdoors. At least that made plenty of sense.
July 9, 2009
I agree with you guys in that they want to do a broader format that’s not specifically sci-fi and this way they can do it without looking like total sellouts (Like MTV keeping their name long after they stopped playing music videos).
Expect more and more non-sci fi to creep into their programming after the name change.
July 9, 2009
A two-years exercise to go from Sci Fi to SyFy? Remember these two names are pronounced the same!
Also, taking a cursory look at their Web site, they have created a bit of a mess in their communications. You have SyFy, followed by SCI FI UK (and other countries), Sci Fi Wire and Sci Fi magazine. While it is not rare to see gradual brand implementation, this hodgepodge sits right on the home page and dilutes the impact of the change.
July 9, 2009
This name was a strange choice….but the content is the bigger problem
the SciFi channel has had weak programming for many years – lots of B and C movies, along with Twilight Zone and Star Trek reruns. I’d rather see it called The Fantasy Channel, which gives it permission to bring lots of different types of content..
July 10, 2009
SyFy doesn’t have the same brand recognition as SciFi. Denis mentioned calling it The Fantasy Channel, which has a ring to it, but also sounds like an ‘adult’ channel. I kinda like some of the old zombie movies and oddball TV shows that appear on Sci Fi. The name change isn’t going to lose my attention or that of fans, but I think it will be hard to grab the attention of channel surfers who actually enjoy science fiction.
July 11, 2009
Oh man, such nonsense. What they did was pay a lot for marketing “research” to tell them what they wanted to hear: you need to change your name because people will remember your brand.
Utter rubbish but a boon to those consultants who have made tidy profits bamboozling their clients (be it cable networks, local channel broadcasters and other businesses) into thinking it’s what they have to do to survive. To whit: remember when it was just ABC, NBC and CBS. Anyone remember their taglines from the the 50s, 60s and 70s? You can’t because there were none. Now they all have it but no one identifies the network as such. Yet there they are.
July 18, 2009
what an utter load of rubbish. 2 years to get to SyFy. What next? WyFy? HyFy? MyMyOhMy…
October 9, 2009
Fantasy is also a genre name that is if anything more narrow than science fiction — in this case it’s about magic, myth, spells, etc. To devotees of these genres the names are important. Many authors prefer the overall name “speculative fiction” to allow for stories that have neither science/technology nor fantasy content.
The network has a good case for wanting to get away from the sci-fi niche, but I bemoan the rise of trash reality programming on the network that has resulted from the move, like the current spate of paranormal “investigation” shows, at the expense of good science fiction.
November 9, 2009