Dave Howe wanted to make a name of Syfy and he’s on the right path. When he took over in early ’08, he was looking to expand the demographics of the network, retain the Battlestar Galactica demographics and expand on their Ghost Hunters franchise.
Howe’s approach seems to be working for the network, and with that, you must keep something in mind: The bottom line of the network is to grow. That keeps sponsors who pay their bills, happy. Anything less and the business sinks. Sinks hard.
With that, they rebranded the network to Syfy. Now they can trademark their name as opposed to the old name. Now people will see the network than something more. (Surveys showed that the network was seen as a Star Trek / Star Wars type network. The net heads wanted more than that so they could draw in new viewers.)
After rebranding / renaming the net, they did very well for themselves.
Warehouse 13 was their most successful series in their network history. The 2nd half of Eureka’s 2nd season broke the 3 million viewer mark. A first for them. Ghost Hunters 5th season had it’s best season in specific demographics.
Stargate Universe had an average of 2.64 million viewers. Per Syfy, that’s 26% more viewers than the 5th season of Stargate Atlantis. In fact this season of SGU (Live+7) has been the most watched Stargate since 2005.
Sanctuary is averaging 2.16 million total viewers while Scare Tactics viewership was up 34%.
What this says is that Howe’s efforts are paying off. It also says that some of our favorite shows are also being helped out by the change. I said some. Sanctuary is just piddling along, status quo while other shows are growing. Stargate Universe has replaced Battlestar Galactica. In fact it’s taken the mantle and run with it as the network’s much favored show… along with Warehouse 13.
Overall, Syfy has moved from being the 9th ranked cable entertainment network to 6th. They’ve had a 12% increase in viewers and their best year in the 17 years of their existence.
So yes, it’s doing better. Yes, some shows are taking the hit, to the chagrin of the fans of some of them. But other shows will reap from the expanded fan base of the network. True, most of us hate wrestling – not sure what to say about that… but there it is.
Hopefully, in the long run, most of us survive the growth of the Syfy Channel.
source: NBC / Syfy Press Release
