SciFi Channel wird zu SyFy

Der SciFi Chan­nel be­nennt sich um: ab dem 7. Juli 2009 fir­miert der Fern­seh­sen­der mit Schwer­punkt auf Phan­tas­tik un­ter dem Na­men SyFy, zur Ver­blüf­fung vie­ler und zur Be­lus­ti­gung an­de­rer.

Laut ei­ner Pres­se­mit­tei­lung ist der Zweck da­hin­ter ein ge­wis­ser Wan­del des Images so­wie der In­halte. Man möchte sich auf ein wei­te­res Feld an The­men kon­zen­trie­ren als nur die SF, näm­lich auch Fan­tasy, Hor­ror, Mys­tery und an­dere ver­wandte Gen­res, da sei der Name »SciFi Chan­nel« nicht mehr ganz pas­send. Ein wei­te­res Pro­blem dürfte aber sein, dass der Pas­sus »Sci­ence Fic­tion« oder eben kurz »SF« oder »SciFi« als fest­ste­hen­der Genre-Begriff nicht so ohne wei­te­res zu schüt­zen ist, oder es da­bei zu­min­dest Schwie­rig­kei­ten gab (zu­min­dest wird das ge­mun­kelt). Mög­li­cher­weise gab es auch Pro­bleme mit der Do­main scifi.com.

Der ge­neigte Le­ser möge mir ver­ge­ben, wenn ich an­merke, dass ich das ein klein we­nig al­bern finde. :o)

Die voll­stän­dige (eng­li­sche) Pres­se­mit­tei­lung im kom­plet­ten Ar­ti­kel.

Bild: Logo syfy, Co­py­right 2009 syfy

New York, NY — March 16, 2009 — Buil­ding upon six­teen years of wa­ter coo­ler pro­gramming and soaring ra­tings growth fol­lo­wing its most-watched year ever, SCI FI Chan­nel is evol­ving into Syfy on air and on-line be­gin­ning July 7th, it was an­noun­ced to­day by Dave Howe, Pre­si­dent, SCI FI.

By chan­ging the name to Syfy, which re­mains pho­ne­ti­cally iden­ti­cal, the new brand broa­dens per­cep­ti­ons and em­bra­ces a wi­der and more di­verse range of imagination-based en­ter­tain­ment in­clu­ding fan­tasy, pa­ranor­mal, rea­lity, mys­tery, ac­tion and ad­ven­ture, as well as sci­ence fic­tion. It also po­si­ti­ons the brand for fu­ture growth by crea­ting an ownable trade­mark that can tra­vel ea­sily with con­su­mers across new me­dia and non-linear di­gi­tal plat­forms, new in­ter­na­tio­nal chan­nels and ex­tend into new busi­ness ven­tures.

Ima­gine Grea­ter will be­come the new brand mes­sage and ta­g­line, in­vit­ing both con­su­mers and ad­ver­ti­sers into a new era of un­li­mited ima­gi­na­tion, ex­cep­tio­nal ex­pe­ri­en­ces and grea­ter en­ter­tain­ment. Syfy more cle­arly cap­tures the main­stream ap­peal of the world’s big­gest en­ter­tain­ment ca­te­gory, and re­flects the network’s on­go­ing stra­tegy to create pro­gramming that’s more ac­ces­si­ble and re­lata­ble to new au­di­en­ces. Syfy will con­ti­nue to ce­le­brate the tra­di­tio­nal roots of the genre, while opening the brand aper­ture to ac­com­mo­date a broa­der range of imagination-based en­ter­tain­ment.

»While con­ti­nuing to em­brace our le­gacy and our core au­di­ence, we nee­ded to cul­ti­vate a dis­tinct point of view with a name that we could own that in­vi­tes more people in and re­flects our broa­der range of pro­gramming,« said Mr. Howe in ma­king the an­noun­ce­ment. »Syfy al­lows us to build on our 16 year he­ri­tage of suc­cess with a new brand built on the power that fu­els our genre: the Ima­gi­na­tion. Syfy us­hers in a new era of un­li­mited ima­gi­na­tion, ex­cep­tio­nal ex­pe­ri­en­ces and grea­ter en­ter­tain­ment that pa­ves the way for us to truly be­come a glo­bal life­style brand.«

Syfy — un­like the ge­ne­ric en­ter­tain­ment ca­te­gory »sci-fi« — firmly es­ta­blis­hes a uni­quely ownable trade­mark that is por­ta­ble across all non-linear di­gi­tal plat­forms and beyond, from Hulu to iTu­nes. Syfy also crea­tes an um­brella brand name that can ex­tend into new ad­ja­cent busi­nes­ses un­der the Syfy Ven­tures ban­ner, such as Syfy Ga­mes, Syfy Films and Syfy Kids.

Ad­di­tio­nally, as the Channel’s foot­print ex­pands ra­pidly around the globe, ai­ming to re­ach more than 50 in­ter­na­tio­nal chan­nels by the end of next year, Syfy meets the need of a glo­bally re­le­vant, trade­mar­ka­ble brand that stands for so­me­thing uni­que to the brand in each ter­ritory.

The new brand evo­lu­tion will launch on air and on-line July 7th, in tan­dem with the pre­miere of the new scrip­ted drama, Warehouse 13, and the re­turn of break­out sum­mer se­ries Eu­reka. An ag­gres­sive trade mar­ke­ting cam­paign will kick off this spring. scifi.com will as­sume the URL syfy.com at that time.

SCI FI Chan­nel is a te­le­vi­sion net­work that fu­els the ima­gi­na­tion of view­ers with ori­gi­nal se­ries and events, block­bus­ter mo­vies and clas­sic sci­ence fic­tion and fan­tasy pro­gramming, as well as a dy­na­mic Web site (www.scifi.com) and ma­ga­zine. Laun­ched in 1992, and cur­rently in 95 mil­lion ho­mes, SCI FI Chan­nel is a net­work of NBC Uni­ver­sal, one of the world’s lea­ding me­dia and en­ter­tain­ment com­pa­nies.

Quelle: syfy.com