They* laughed. They mocked. The parodied. They called it a non-rebranding rebranding. They said it was the stupidest thing ever. They said it was incredible waste of money. They deliberately mispronounced the spelling of the new name.
All that and more happened a few months back in the wake of NBC Universal announcing its plan to rebrand the SCI FI network as Syfy.
While the rebranding was largely assumed to be so the network name could be trademarked, the network specifically stated that it wanted to make itself more accessible to a wider audience. It wanted more than just the fans of typical science fiction shows.
The early indications are that it's working just like they planned it. Syfy just renewed Warehouse 13 which is the most-watched show in the network’s 17 year history according to Variety, averaging 3.7 million viewers per episode. Though I think that number is using “most current” ratings (a combination of live+7 data where available, plus live+sd data where it isn’t), rather than the commonly reported live+sd (live plus same day DVR viewing), most-watched is most-watched.
More revealing is that unlike most shows on the network, Warehouse 13, the first show launched since the rebranding, is attracting nearly as many women as men.
So far Syfy PR has exercised great restraint. Both in not ragging on all the people who mocked the name change, and in not constantly -- or even yet -- touting the rebranding as a huge success.
While it’s definitely still early, given the results with Warehouse 13 it would be hard to argue that the rebranding isn’t working out exactly according to the script. Though I expect we will see the chest-thumping press release soon enough, perhaps sometimes the best Schadenfreude is just being right.
*Pretty much everyone who ever watched SCI FI and even some who hadn't
i love the name change
Yes, but…
I don’t know if this is due to the name change, or simply a change in the type of programming they are producing and the marketing they are doing. They might have ordered Warehouse 13 knowing they wanted to “switch things up,” but its questionable how Warehouse 13 would do a channel named SciFi. Partly correlation without causation.
Good for them. Only an idiot judges a network on the spelling of its name rather than the quality of its programming.
The network could improve consecutively year over year for the next five years, and you could still fairly make the correlation without causation argument. Syfy will say the marketing they are doing is all part of the rebranding strategy anyway.
Is it the rebranding? Does the show just resonate with people in a way no other show on Syfy has? Something else? All of the above? All that really matters is better/worse.
And yeah, it’s only one data point, but you have to admit no matter how it’s sliced “most watched show in network’s 17 year history” is a pretty good data point!
The show is decent, but nothing special. I’m sure it wouldn’t do as well if the name had stayed the same. In the back of my mind, something is telling me the the ratings will drop significantly after the novelty of “Syfy” wears off.
I still pronounce it “Sifee”, because that’s what it looks like to me. And when referring to the channel in text, I still call it SciFi.
The name is the stupidest name in television, but if it helps them actually get good tv on the air I can deal with it. Why on earth the spelling would make people want to watch Warehouse 13 more is beyond me though.
I don’t think anybody knows why WH13 is a hit for them, they’re just picking on the fact that they did the name change when the show was introduced.
Without a poll of some sort, there’s no evidence of causation.
Not that it matters, the show is getting better and as long as it holds its current quality, it should do OK. Whether the second season will be more interesting than the first is speculative at this point.
The return of Sanctuary in October should be a big boost for them. By all accounts, the second season of that show will be significantly better than season one in every respect: new characters, deeper character development of the existing characters, better effects, more intense scripts.
Sanctuary is my new favorite show. I think I like it better than or at least as much as Burn Notice, True Blood, and Leverage. I think it’s better than Fringe in some respects, if not all. If they do in season 2 what they have promised, it’s going to be a huge hit for SyFy.
The only thing that comes to mind with the popularity of Warehouse 13 is that, as I’ve said in other topics on the subject of W13, is that it’s retro sci-fi (“steampunk”) rather than futuristic sci-fi (“cyberpunk”).
While futuristic sci-fi like Star Trek in all its various forms tend to be more skewed to the male demographic, maybe W13 comes across as more story-driven than science-driven and so is perceived as less intimidating to the female demographic, many of whom would turn off sci-fi for drama.
It would be interesting to compare W13′s demographic splits against Battlestar Galactica (which was more drama than sci-fi) or even Firefly (definitely retro leanings) from a few years back to see if there’s any significant difference for various demographics: gender, age, location, etc.
Or could it be that in Eddie McClintock and Saul Rubinek, SyFy have found two male leads that attract this higher (than normal for a sci-fi show) female demographic? I state this because even the biggest fans of W13 will agree with me that some episodes haven’t been that good compared to others. Take last week’s episode with Artie’s backstory, that was very well done. Consider the episode where Claudia debuted, that was also very well done. Have to admit, the other episodes would need me to look them up to remember just what happened.
So SYFY is aiming for a wider audience and the CW is aiming for a narrower one. I’m confused.
I always thought SyFy was a great name (although that is probably because I told myself the “Sy” was from Sylar).
I don’t think the show’s that great to be honest (the writing and shooting just feels cheap and lazy, though this week’s episode seemed significantly more polished than previous episodes), so I’m willing to give the time of day to the notion that somehow the branding has helped bring the network more viewers, if it can be shown that Syfy’s audience is up in general, not just that they have one successful show.
The CW needs some 4Mil+ hits fast. Cable puts the network to shame.
They should have launched with Stargate Universe, that looks like SUCH an all-round better show than Warehouse 13 and would prob do a better job of showing the “Serious” and emotional side of Sci-fi as well as hook people in for the next week etc.
I’ve watched sci fi channel for the past 10 years…
I’ll watch syfy channel for the next 10 years…
the name change is irrelevant to me.
I do think the love of Warehouse 13 is misplaced though. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good show, but Eureka is a ton better, for pretty much the same audience. They should advertise it a lot more during Warehouse 13.
As a man who’d never watched the Sci-Fi network before, the name change was irrelevant to me. What got me to try WH13 was the advertising/promotion that appeared on other cable channels (USA? TNT? Both? I don’t remember). These Syfy ads promoted both WH13 and Eureka. The network guessed correctly that someone watching, say, Burn Notice or Royal Pains, might be interested in a similarly light-hearted “dramedy” on Syfy. For me, it was the promotional outreach and the programming itself that made the difference, not the name change.
I guess when Variety uses the term “show”, it is strictly speaking of “ongoing series’”, since “Taken” significantly outdid these Warehouse 13 numbers back in 2002 for the “Sci-Fi Channel”.
The re-branding can only be credited had all else remained the same. We have no idea how “Warehouse 13″ would have done prior to the re-branding. If “Eureka” all of a sudden gains 2 million viewers, then credit the re-branding.
Great news – thanks for relaying it.
I hope they up the writing level so that the characters and storylines are consistent from episode to episode. They have to “grow” the world in the story so that it’s a bit more real, well as real as a fictional story can become.
It’s still a ridiculous name. All the money and effort they spent on “rebranding” a brand that didn’t need to be changed could have been invested in coming up with some new shows.
People aren’t tuning into the network because of its NAME, they’re tuning in because of the CONTENT. They would have renewed WARTEHOUSE 13 whether or not the network was still called Sci-Fi Channel.
I mean, are they really serious??? Are they claiming the success of Warehouse 13 is due to the fact that the network is now called Syfy? How insulting to the show’s creators.
The old name was an anathema. To me the name pretty much means “bad-science fiction”. The kind of SF that doesn’t even pay attention or minimize the breaking of the accepted laws of physics, biology etc thorough sheer ignorance — or worse, laziness.
Good SF knows what conventionally accepted scientific laws it breaks, and acknowledges it by postulating break-throughs. And it also keeps those numbers to down, preferably to one.