Cable Turns To Oatmeal

cover in olive oil and sea salt, preheat oven to 375 degrees…

What’s in a name?

Kentucky Fried Chicken spent a fortune to become KFC, mostly so they could get rid of 2/3rds of their name that had become a market drag: Fried and Kentucky.  The fried part because, hey, it’s not healthy. Don’t get me wrong, I love (OK Lisa, I used to love)  KFC hot wings. But they are really unhealthy as we all know. Still. You don’t want to call the company Fat Slob Chicken, do you? So you bury the bad stuff.  As for Kentucky… um, does not test well in NY or LA or Tennessee apparently.

In any event, I was a bit surprised to see that the Sci Fi Channel had rebranded itself to SyFy, which means even less than KFC, but it does shed a certain nerd element.

Now, it seems, SyFy President David Howe is intent on not just shedding the nerd image, he’s intent on shedding the nerds.

Announcing their new line-up at the upfronts, SyFy seems to be dropping all of their science fiction programming and replacing it with… ready?… WWE’s Smack Down.

OK. The ‘fiction’ part I get in SmackDown.  What I don’t get is the science. Nor the nerd appeal (but maybe I am missing something).  What happened to Stargate or Battlestar Galactica or my personal favorite, Mega Piranha (do you remember that one? Where else could you get quality entertainment like that?)

Now, Sci Fi , sorry, SyFy’s move to what I think we can call Oatmeal Programming is not alone.  (NB: SyFy is also launching a cooking show – Marcels’ Quantum Kitchen). No kidding.  In any event, SyFy is not alone in its rush to mediocrity.  BBC America, where I religiously watch the only decent TV news show in the US every night (and an hour!), has started running old re-runs of Star Trek, Next Generation EVERY NIGHT! after the news.

BBC America used to be a place where I could see great BBC programming, like Gordon Ramsay or Dragon’s Den or Last Restaurant Standing with Raymond Blanc.  That’s why it was called BBC America. For the “BBC” part.  What in the world does Star Trek reruns have to do with The BBC? Why would I want to tune in?  Why would a Sci Fi nerd want to tune in to SyFy for cooking shows and wrestling?

When people get nervous they head for home.

In the 70s they used to say ‘no one ever got fired for buying IBM’.

Time to start firing some network executives, IMHO.

Michael Rosenblum

For more than 30 years, Michael Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital video journalism revolution. During this time, he has lead a drive for video literacy, and the complete rethinking of how television is made and controlled. His work has included: The complete transitioning of The BBC's national network (UK) to a VJ-driven model, starting in 2002. The complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State's Government's broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the VJ paradigm (1998-present). The construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company, and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US. Rosenblum was both the founder and President of NYT TV, (all based on this paradigm (1996-1998). The President and Founder of Video News International, a global VJ-driven newsgathering company, with more than 100 journalists around the world. (1993-1996). Other clients include Spectrum News, Verizon and CBS News.

9 Comments
  • fosca May 04, 2010

    don´t rush.

    http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf

    don´t produce over twelve minutes.

  • Michael Rosenblum May 03, 2010

    I am working on it right now. I had never heard of this until you sent the link. Please stand by.

  • fosca May 03, 2010

    i would appreciate a lot if, with your expertise and the resources you must have at hand, you could explain the worth of the link i sent.

    what i did not understand was your question “Who reads those things?”.

    younger i worked at international hotels. in london we had payed induction days by a hotel chain and were taught about the terrible risk discontent guests would pose to sales in the long run. word would spread.
    being connected to the digital universe i am guest at many publications. i shared this peticular information because i would enjoy a professional opinion on the matter.

    i doubt i interpreted your question properly but fidgety look forward to your follow up.

  • Nino May 03, 2010

    I don’t watch the SyFy channel, probably because just recently on my system it was a paid channel, I’m not crazy about science fiction anyway, but I do watch the old “Forbidden Planet” always when on.

    I don’t watch wrestling either, but it so happens that WWE has an entire department dedicated to the production of “biographies of legends of wrestling”, and many of these legends are retired here in Florida. My yearly invoicing to WWE has been a consistent 5 figures for many years. These DVDs must be very profitable because they have some of the highest production quality and budgets, crews of 15 people and tons of gears are very common; they also employee some of the best and most talented producers in the industry.

    I know that WWE was looking to start a full time channel, I don’t know if this is what the final decision is. The wrestling inside-the-closet-sub-culture-viewers of WWE TV events is measured in millions and it has been making more money that most other similar events. I’m sure they have a much greater number than SyFy viewers.

    So for the sake of good living sometime we have to park our cultural brain cells and follow the money trail. When you get to meet some of this retired wrestlers and listen to their stories is pure entertainment. Believe it or not some of these wrestlers are very well educated, many have college degrees and some were wrestling while teaching history or math at high schools and colleges, especially in the days when wrestling wasn’t as profitable for them as it is today.

    It’s showbiz

    • Michael Rosenblum May 03, 2010

      Forbidden Planet is my all-time favorite Sci Fi movie. Walter Pidgeon, The Krell Civilization. Just great stuff.

  • fosca May 03, 2010

    HELLO HELLO HELLO,
    is there anybody out there…who´d care commenting on this:

    http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA

    i´d be very glad if so.

    • Michael Rosenblum May 03, 2010

      Wow! That was frightening, or rather is. Who reads those things? Very very disturbing. Will follow up.

  • fosca May 02, 2010

    in my opinion it is now your time michael. get the best of your students of whichever vj-training, put some bucks on them and send them of to florida. you can be number one news channel in a day. relevant topics can be found without problem on the way to the southern east parts of the US. get some honest soundbites from people who lose everthing, some dishonest interviews with those haliburton, bp-wan.ers, combine with the arrival of the oilslick in the everglades and all the world-heritage sites that exist but have never been awarded for reasons of greed. how about if you took hurrican seasons into consideration. be there and admire the outbrake of public unrest. here are some links to start you of with…

    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63907A20100410
    http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/deepwater_horizon_secret_memo.html
    http://dailyme.com/story/2010050100003890/halliburton-spotlight-gulf-spill-probe.html

    i guess my suggestion is even on topic if the word “cable” of your headline is replaced by “pipe”.
    delete if you reckon this inappropriate. it is “rosenblums academy news channel” the world gets hard news and the cynics in your government and businessworld real quality entertainment from.

    the mad one from germoney who likes shrimp and alligators who laughs about cheap tricks like this

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gybfqyTkEm-iRMwMFB-F11LW84oQD9FEFEVO0