MainSTREAM = Watered-Down: Is Sci-Fi Evil?

I found a great article by Ryan Tate on The Gawker a few weeks back and I wanted to discuss it then, but never got around to it. It popped-up in Zemanta a few nights back and I made a note of it, so here it is:

Tate makes the point that Sci-Fi Channel executives are intentionally diluting the brand and genre in order to improve ratings and it's a slap in the face to die-hard fans who have helped make it NBC Universal's second-most important network (behind CNBC). The article is entitled Evil Corporations in Action, and though it may be a stretch to say that Sci-Fi's desire to capitalize on their branding is "Evil," I agree with where he's going.

Sci-Fi Channel is launching sister networks internationally, including one already going in Russia. One spokesperson said, "We are what MTV was 15 years ago." And this is very true, though I couldn't say to what extent.

Let's face it: superhero movies are the current fad - and a "fad," it is; "trend" is just another word for fad - and given the rate at which they are cranking them out, I give the fad another year - two, tops - before they blow the bottom out of the whole thing, and the Sci-Fi Channel might as well go along for the ride. These executives realize this because this is basically what they know - what they went to school for and why they were hired - and we really can't fault them for doing their jobs.

These guys realize their time is now and they need to seize this opportunity before it passes them by. They have to dilute the brand at this point if they want to increase their audience because this is the time to do it. Once they have captured that larger audience and acclimated them to the content, they can begin "experimenting" with the hardcore sci-fi we fanboys expect - the stuff they used to show and/or we always wanted them to. In this regard, they could come full-circle.

However, Tate's point is more valid than mine because most corporations follow this same model (courting trends in the market) and few, if any, ever come back around to deliver the quality goods. Still, the Sci-Fi Channel situation is not a Metallica.

Metallica became a worldwide, platinum-selling band because of its die-hard fans and the band later turned on us - quite viciously, actually. Metallica are just a bunch of douchebag jerks who rode over their fans to get where they wanted to be, then dropped us like the useless nonsense we are to them. Sci-Fi Channel, on quite the other hand, all but lucked-out by being the right brand at the right time; Hollywood's current sci-fi/superhero obsession is what has given Sci-Fi this chance to expand their viewership, not rabid fanboys.

Face it: as a fanbase, fanboys suck. We are a mercurial, outspoken bunch who bear grudges against people we have never met, and while we may spend a significant portion of our disposable income on entertainment, the sad fact of the matter is that we - as a class - don't have a significant amount of disposable income. And while I completely agree that corporations are evil, specifically because they are designed to be sociopathic "individuals," if Sci-Fi Channel doesn't expand its fanbase while the market is "hot," it won't be able to generate enough revenue to continue producing the hardcore sci-fi entertainment we enjoy - which I'm sure they will continue to do, even if they keep making more and more "mainstream" fare.

Besides, Sci-Fi's more "mainstream" fare, such as Eureka, is far better - far more entertaining - than its hard sci-fi (like Battlestar Galactica and all the Stargates).

© C Harris Lynn, 2008