A Geeky Viewpoint

This post probably needs to be re-written, but it just pisses me off what SyFy has become.

It seems like yesterday, honest it does, that my plans for Friday Evening included three hours of Television, you know the Sci Fi channel's Fantastic Friday evening broadcasts of The Invisible Man, Farscape, followed by Lexx.   To be honest The Invisible Man wasn't required viewing but it was on before Farscape, and Lexx well I still don't know what the heck the show was actually about.

 

Farscape at the time was the most watched television show on cable, imagine a low budget (well not that low) show telling of Homer's Odyssey it had a 1.6 TV rating in the valued 18-49 demographic and was watched by millions of viewers.   Today that show would be on broadcast TV, not cable and advertisers would be lining up to pay.  

 

Things changed and Farscape's ratings declined to a .9 and 4 million viewers, the show was cancelled after being renewed for a fifth season.    I like many Farscape viewers returned to watch the mini series Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars and the occasional episode of Eureka and Warehouse 13 since Farscape ended in 2003.   Yeah I know grudges die hard.  I tried over the years to catch Dresden Files and Flash Gordon, I might even admit to catching parts of season one of Alphas.  

 

Under full disclosure rules I watched the Battlestar Galatica mini series and the first episode of the series, but that was it for me.  Caprica I made it through the first 15 minutes of episode one.  I cannot tell you why those two series didn't excite me, rather they just weren't my cup of tea (and I loath tea).
Stargate-SG1, Stargate: Atlantis were a couple of other shows that I might have watched two episodes.  Being Human was no where near as entertaining as the British Original which aired on another channel.   I tried Bitten but it didn't sink it's teeth into me.

 

Starting in 2009 any hope Sci Fi Channel had with individuals like me went out the window as they rebranded SyFy (I thought it was dumb then and still think its dumb now).    The quality of the shows they were producing dropped markedly and there was an in rush of reality TV, bad reality TV.      Reality TV is cheap, dirt cheap.

 

Today SyFy offers 11 scripted TV shows,  only 143 hours of new programming per year.   In comparison ABC offered just over 400 hours of scripted TV this year.   That doesn't include any of the reality TV shows or WWE.

 

James Hibbard of Entertainment Weekly offered us a look at SyFy's plans to lure viewers back in this weeks edition, which can be found online here.   Five new shows 60 hours of programming ... um wait a second...

 

Here's the deal, if SyFy really wants to bring back fans it needs to do so with actually programming.   Five new shows and 60 hours of programming coupled with the 143 hours is no where near what the Channel needs.   Its like handing a Band-Aid to the guy who just cut his arm off.  

 

I totally understand that Sci-Fi shows are more expensive, but come on...

If I was in charge of programming at SyFy here is what I would do...
1) WWE Smackdown has got to go.   It doesn't belong on SyFy. 

2) A decision has to be made on how you are going to cluster shows.
Do you put Supernatural shows together, do you spread them out do you...
Me I would cluster shows together.
* Supernatural
* Superhero
* Historical / Steampunk
* Fantasy
* Sci-Fi

You need to cluster in a way that makes sense.   For example if you air a Ghost Hunters type reality show you should pair it with a Supernatural Show. 
Using shows that currently air on SyFy:
7PM - Repeat "Being Human"
8PM - Ghost Hunters
9PM - Haven
10PM - Lost Girl

3) You have already started down the road with short series of shows having entire story arcs encompassing six seven eight shows.  Do it more.

4) You need Science Fiction on Sci Fi, not just supernatural, or near future Sci-Fi.   Something akin to Farscape and Battlestar Galatica.   Two shows, not one.

5) SyFy movies need a bigger budget and have to encompass not just campy Sci Fi but serious movies as well.   There needs to be at least one new movie a month.

6) SyFy needs a lot of new shows, in the 300 hours of scripted TV a year.   That's 22 to 25 scripted shows in production during the year not 11 to 16.