Tuesday, March 17, 2009

How is that pronouced again?

It was announced earlier this week that the SciFi channel is changing its name to the SyFy channel. I think the new moniker is pretty silly-looking, but I do understand why the S_F_ channel might want to use a more trademarkable spelling. But what's really annoying is what they are claiming are the reasons behind the change:

“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.

And I'm sure that the association has nothing to do with the SciFi channel's prime-time wrestling, or the video game-based game shows, or their choice of advertising that focuses on hot women (my "favorite" being the one for Enterprise with the green Orion slave girls and sexy scheming mirror universe ensign Sato, which had pretty much nothing to do with the actual series).

Full article here:

http://sciencefictionbiology.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-is-that-pronouced-again.html

Biology in Science Fiction is a great blog, by the way. The author gives you
perspectives from an often neglected part of the SF genre.