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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jdavis" data-source="post: 1304061" data-attributes="member: 8704">Vivendi/Universal was in trouble with 13 billion in debt, thus the sell out to NBC (80/20 merger with Vivendi having the option to sell their 20% in 2006). Sci Fi channel was a very small fish in that bucket but there was a push for them to actually generate revenue and grow. When the parent company is in financial trouble then it does effect everything below it. There was a tremendous amount of pressure on Sci Fi to turn a profit and cut cost.  Some of the decisions I am talking about are that Sci Fi has killed almost every new show it has had in the last five years. Many of them in a very public and ugly showing. No reason to go into why they killed Farscape but the how they did it was PR nightmare, they are still being eaten up about it and it's hard for them to do a press conference without it coming up even now. Galactica was a PR nightmare for them, after years of fans trying to get a show made they finally decided to do it, then basically told all the fans that their opinions didn't matter. The fan drives and Richard hatch making his own trailer is what got the Galactica property remade, but Hatch was a victim of politics and Edward James Olmos basically came out and told fans of Battlestar Galactica to avoid the new show. Yes it got good ratings, but even in the midst of that sucess they took a big PR hit with the very core group of thier target audience, science fiction fans. B5 Crusade bit them in the ass, Invisible Man was a PR disaster and Bonnie Hammer has cone out looking like a complete political tyrant with no love for science fiction. I mean really when has a organization had such a negative image with with the very group they claim to champion? What would happen to Cartoon Network if they started acting like they didn't give a crap about what kids liked, what would happen at Comedy Central if the head of programming said they were going to take a new direction away from Comedy? Sci FI channel needs a really good PR man, there is only so long you can get away with insulting your core audience (wheter intentional or not) before it starts to really affect the bottom line. I'm sure the last thing they ever wanted was to look so bad on the Farscape issue but they can't even keep their own story straight, and just how hard would it to of kept even a cordial relationship with the Galactica fanbase (several hundred thousand people), I mean really it's one thing to do the reimagining and another thing to insult the people who are concerned about it. Instead of talking to these people and at least pretending to listen they basically called several hundred thousand raving science fiction fans nutjobs whose opinions didn't matter. Science Fiction does have a stigma associated with it but that shouldn't pop up on the freaking Sci Fi channel. What if Peter Jackson came out and told all the Tolken book purinst who had questions about the movie that their opinions didn't matter and they were just a unimportant fringe group? It would be a PR nightmare. Yes we are not the normal viewing audience here but then again when you have a channel called Sci Fi that is supposed to cater to the science fiction fans but it doesn't then maybe they need to change their name to something else. Science Fiction is in a rut right now and it does have a stigma of not being considered mainstream, but gee isn't the title of this thread about science fiction? I mean really this thread is about what we like and want and how it could be a good buisness move. Everybody who is looking forward to the zany reality show raise their hands. Everybody who wants to see Science Fiction be replaced by Jerry Springer style shows raise their hand. Sci FI channel stays on the air because this niche audience is starved for entertainment, lets face it most of us will watch just about anything with a sci fi twist just to get our sci fi fix. I hated the new Galactica but I watched the first episode three times and the second night four times, why because at least it was some sort of science fiction. I was willing to suck it up just to watch something from the genre I love, heck I got in to Stargate basically because nothing else was on that grabbed my attention. I watched it for weeks not liking it before it started to grow on me. I'm sure a lot of Star Trek fans are the same way, they will stick with a show they don't care for just because it's Star Trek well until they eventually just burn out and tune out, which seems to be what is happening right now.  Basically what you are saying is that SCi FI channel should close up shop and start pandering to the masses just like all the others but in the cable market pandering to a target niche audience is a much safer bet, it's why TNN changed to Spike TV, to pander to a tighter demographic. Demographics are more important than general ratings anymore, and while science fiction fans might be a small market they are in the prime 18 to 31 male demographic for the most part. What we like and want in our programming should be important to people who are trying to sell into our demographic and our niche market. What happens to Sci FI channel if they loose their base audience of science fiction nuts?</blockquote>

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