Reader Tsmacro sent me an article that made my jaw drop. According to Zap2it.com, the SciFi Channel is…oh God, I’ll just quote them, it’s less painful than typing the words myself:
World Wrestling Entertainment and NBC Universal are extending their relationship, bringing the resurrected Extreme Championship Wrestling to the Sci Fi Channel for a summertime run.
Because when you think of pro wrestling, you think of the Sci Fi Channel.
Riiiight. I have a hard time thinking of anything more appropriate to a science fiction network than a run of mindless pseudo-sports whose chief characteristic is appealing to the lowest (and by lowest, I mean worst, not broadest) common denominator.
Now, I know there are those people—one of them is even a friend of mine, but I won’t mention his name—who find this sort of drivel entertaining. But it’s beyond me why. Okay, maybe I’m a little sensitive because I happen to be interested in the actual sport of wrestling, as opposed to the crap that gets actual airtime as alleged wrestling, but still. This is a very, very bad idea. I can only hope that the fans will crucify the network brains that came up with this one.
As a possible antidote to this nonsense, I’ll just pass on a story from the New Scientist. Here it is:
NEWSFLASH: Artificial penis allows rabbits to mate normally.
In a “landmark development” researchers have grown penile tissue that has allowed rabbits with damaged sexual organs to successfully mate.
So, guys, here’s one big worry you can let go of, eh?
substandardTim
I haven’t had cable for years, not since moving out to the middle of nowhere, but when I did have it the sci-fi channel angered me regularly.
First with how they destroyed the show Sliders after buying it from FOX. Then when they cancelled Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Pro Wrestling? Obviously they are run by people who have no concept of what sci-fi fans are like. Science Fiction people are typically smart and want smart television. Pro Wrestling is designed for exactly the opposite type of audience. A dumb audience, an audience that is amused by things like The Water Boy or American Pie or The Fast and The Furious.
And thank goodness for those rabbits, I was really worried the population might die out.
tsmacro
Unfortunately this is a relatively common happening in the television world. A channel is created for a specific genre or niche and then slowly new programming is added that doesn’t have much if anything to do with that genre then it becomes more of a genral interest channel and then at some point it might even get a “hip” new name. Examples of this are of course Spike which started out it’s life as a country video music channel. MTV actually used to show music at one time. TLC actually started it’s life as The Learning Channel and was used for delivering educational programming to schools. All we can hope for is that this new programming doesn’t get good ratings and they’ll leave Sci-Fi alone (by the way this whole movement started earlier this year when things like repeats of Law & Order SVU and movies like Liar Liar were broadcast on Sci-FI). Otherwise it’ll rebaged “SFI” and it’ll end up another general interest channel that might if we’re lucky continue to broadcast some sci-fi shows on friday nights.
~~ Sabre ~~
Hey. I like wrestling AND the Sci-Fi channel and couldn’t believe it.But like tsmacro mentioned, remember when MTV actually showed videos?
substandardTim
i’ve been out of the cable loop for sometime now….what have they done to TLC? I liked them.
tsmacro
To Sabre, it’s cool that you like both the Sci-Fi channel and wrestling, but don’t you agree that they really don’t belong together?
To Tim; TLC is more “Edutainment” now and that’s probably being generous. It’s mostly shows about home makeovers, fashion makeovers, car makeovers, weddings, and “mommy stories”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but it’s not what the channel was originally created for.
Jeffrey A. Carver
I was actually unaware of most of the “channel evolution” that you described, ts. I get cable, but a really basic version with one little digital-extras package thrown in, so I don’t currently get SciFi or any of the others that you mentioned. I had no idea that TLC had stopped being an educational channel.
One channel I do get is National Geographic, and I’m shocked at how sensationalistic and cheezy much of its programming is. I had expected a higher standard.
tsmacro
Well besides the fact that I do watch my share of telelvision, tv is also my job. In the sense that currently I sell Dish Network for a living, so i’m probably a little more educated than the average idiot *L* as to what goes on in the television world. As far National Geographic being sensationalist, yeah you’re right but what’s even sadder is that if they weren’t they’d probably cease to exist all together. Unfortunately if you want to survive in a world where there’s hundreds of channels to choose from you can’t risk being seen as boring by the masses. You have to present with flair and drama, even the news has to do this to compete. You think Fox News became the most popular news station because they’re actually more “Fair and Balanced”?! *L* Yeah right, if you think that you give the average American tv viewer way too much credit. It’s because they’re the best at presenting news in an entertaining way with all sorts of flair for the dramatic. And yeah that’s also the reason why channels evolve, because the owners of these channels see that their original idea for a genre specific channel only gets them a small however devoted viewership. So if a few changes are made and so some programming changes are made that don’t really fit but that’s ok because we can dress it up with a press release that says how it really all makes sense. And oh wait look at that higher ratings, more money, let’s add a few more splashes of color and action now, alright now that we’ve gone this far it’s just another step to go a littler farther and voila! Next thing you know you have a nice new shiny channel that bears little resemblance to it’s origins. But it’s ok, I mean just keep track of the spin and the hype behind it all, they’ll assure you that they’re making butterfly’s out of caterpillars! *L* Anyway looks like I managed to get my semi-annual rant in! *L*
substandardTim
I disagree with your comment about Foxnews being the most popular because they have so much flair and drama. No the real reason is that they are the only conservative news channel. Someone at the FOX corporation is brilliant. If you look at everything else that fox represents, it’s just as liberal if not more liberal than the other networks but they were able to recognize that no news channel represented conservative america. And so what happens when all the conservatives watch one news channel and all the liberals have a dozen other ones to choose from? FOX instantly becomes the most popular. Brilliant.
Jeffrey A. Carver
You may be at least partly right, Tim, but I think there’s no doubt that flashy and sensationalistic news coverage draws viewers. In Boston, Ch. 7 (local) news underwent a change that made it distinctively flashy and sensationalistic (crime sells!), just like their sibling station in Miami. I don’t know that they’re any more conservative than the other stations, but they started to draw audience from them and pretty soon all the other news stations in town started emulating them, just battling for ratings.
tsmacro
Tim I stand by opinion that Fox News tends to have more flair and drama and that has helped it garner higher ratings. But I would be remiss if I didn’t agree with you in the sense that it was also a very good marketing strategy to become known as the “conservative news station”. Being able to position yourself as being able to stand out in some unique way over your competition definitely can give you a competitive advantage.
steve_o
I can’t believe some of the old horror shows that they consider scifi, but wrestling??
sci-fi canal
Anonymous
Humm the wrestling show seems to be doing quite well, and they use it to lead in to their newer developmental series and debut shows. so much for mindless wrestling.
Its just good marketing is all its not going to corrupt Sci Fi!! relax