wolven7 | My Letter To Dave Howe:

Here's my letter. Again, copy, if you want. I know it may not do much, if anything at all. But I've done what I know how to do, for now. If something else presents, then we'll see.

June 27, 2009

ATTN: David Howe, President
SciFi Channel
30 Rockefeller Plaza,
New York, NY 10112

Mr. Howe:

A few months ago, I found out that, rather than utilizing existing revenue streams to emphasize product quality over style, shore up your fan and customer bases, learn from your past mistakes, give the people what they want, and perhaps put your name and face in more and more comic book, horror, science fiction, and fantasy conventions in a sincere effort to shore up your “cred,” your parent company—NBC/Universal—and your division, in particular—SciFi Channel—have decided to “Change Your Name and 'Brand Image.' ” (http://www.syfy.com/). By which I of course mean, "You Have Decided Do Exactly the Opposite of Everything I Just Said."

Many will tie this marketing manoeuvre to what they see as your continual and near-habitual cancellation of popular shows, the moment they become "too expensive to produce" (Farscape, Galactica, Stargate, etc.), your ill-conceived and clumsily-executed Product Placement foray in the 2008 season of Eureka!, and your seeming inability to properly inter-connectively market what popular properties you do have and those you create, via the aforementioned parent corporation. To these observers, it paints a picture of a network which doesn’t actually care about the people who care about the programming that you’ve produced, over the years. To them, it's really just a matter of time before SciFi (or "SyFy," if you prefer) tanks in a maybe-not-so-massive-anymore ball of flames.

You were the only network that was actually and in fact catering to an increasingly-out-in-the-open crop of Science-Fiction/Fantasy fans—a group with disposable income, as well as distinct and definite (if varied) opinions—and you have decided that you want to turn your back on them, entirely, to try to make yourself seem "Edgier," "Cooler," more "Textable " (http://www.airlockalpha.com/news426164.html). And you decided to do this at a time when you were cutting several well-loved shows, and making newer, worse movies, by the dozen? Rather than take the (relatively cheaper) opportunity to change the discourse surrounding what “Science-Fiction” means, you have chosen to pander to an audience you’ll never fully capture. You have decided to cater to an increasing crop of people who say things like, “Well, I don’t like Science-Fiction, but I watch Lost,” or “Heroes,” or “Terminator,” or “the Spider-Man movies.” As if these things are “Cool” enough that liking them doesn’t make one a “nerd.” These are people who could have been shown that Science-Fiction can be about bigger and better things, than “nerdy” concepts. To make a reference you mayn’t get, You Chose... Poorly.

And then there’s this: '"We couldn't own SciFi; it's a genre," said Bonnie Hammer, the president of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. "But we can own Syfy."'

Fans should all be deeply dismayed and not at all surprised by the fact that you have not recognized the following facts: A) most long-term lovers of science-fiction will either say "Science-Fiction" or, if they abbreviate it, at all, will do so as "SF," these days. B) "Sci-Fi" was originally coined as a mirroring echo of the then-new term "High-Fi," in an effort to make it (and here comes the irony train) sound cooler and more hip. In terms of books, it never made that much sense; it did not map, because the "Fi" in question was a completely different thing. One stood for “fidelity” the other for “fiction.” Hence: "SF." But with the advent of an entire Television Channel, the "Fi" not only mapped, again, it fully internalised the initial dichotomy of meaning. It became Clever.

Essentially, it took a meaning that it couldn't have had if the genre hadn't been given a misnomer, to begin with; a meaning that makes the changing of that channel name a Very Ill-advised Thing. The best possible thing to do, here, is use the brand recognition. Hold the existing market, and draw more attention to the fact that you are "High-Fidelity. Science-Fiction. Sci-Fi," or something like that. Is that really so onerous? Is it really that hard?

Mr Howe, I understand the drive toward making yourself a more “robust” brand, a network with a wider appeal and opportunities, but every marketer I know says that you’ve gone about this completely wrong. You are trying to shore yourself up with older, established brands, like Star Trek: The Next Generation, while clearing the way for derivative, “Aw, Schucks” style shows like Warehouse 13, rather than intelligent, complex work, more like The Lost Room. No, I don’t expect you to completely scrap your plans to rename the network; that ship has sailed. I am trying to dissuade you away from your continued pursuit of merely-potential money and hazily-defined demographics, at the expense of real money and support. In effect, I was simply hoping that I could help you to see that that would-be money and those demographics? Their fruits will be brief, at best, illusory, at worst, and that they will come at the cost of a relatively solid Existent Demographic—again, one with preferences and disposable income—if they come, at all.

In closing, I would simply inform you of what you already know: Many thought that your re-branding announcement was an April Fools’ joke. We thought that, come the second of April, you would go “Ha! Got you!” and then unveil a new, brilliant line-up of smart, action-packed, genre-breaking shows and mini-series, rather than the derivative, under-budgeted things you have shown us, thus far. If you don’t recognise your judgmental error, you're going to lose your base, your fans, your market share, and then your properties will be subsumed and redistributed, quietly, and without "much fuss," because, by that point, all of your former supporters will have ceased caring.

Starting with me.