A hoax rather than a WTF?

[fenchurch]

SCI FI Channel to Change Name to SurgeTV

ETA: Some people on Whedonesque are saying this may be a hoax... And I just barely hit the link again for the original press release, which is no longer pointing to an article, just to the hosting website. Hmmm.

EATA: More info on the hoax (thanks for the link telaryn!)


Some of the pertinent bits, as posted on whedonesque:
"Effective November 1, 2006, the SCI FI Channel will change their name to SurgeTV, to reflect the changing demographic thrust of the successful long-running cable channel. In addition, deals are currently working out to bring back ECW for a three-times a week run in prime time, as well as reruns (Pre-WWE) of professional wrestling events"

Wrestling?!?!? WRESTLING?!?!!? As if there isn't enough of that over on seven or eight other channels. Sheesh.

Oh, but it gets better...

"While much of the original programming the SCI FI Channel has produced will remain on air through the next year, SurgeTV expects sweeping changes to the network, shifting away from the so-called "nerd" demographic."

Yeah, well, screw you, too. And the marketing advisors you rode in on.

Comments

[krrayn.livejournal.com]

...

WTF.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

It reads like a bad April Fool's joke from someone who lost track of their calendar... or like something you'd expect to read on The Onion.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Are you fucking kidding me? Talk about biting the hand that's fed you! So, we 'nerds' aren't good enough for them? They're actually going for the neanderthal demographic now? I guess that pretty much means SGA will definitely get the boot after S4 unless MGM makes a deal with another network.

And when that happens, SurgeTV can fuck off. This nerd will bugger off with them.

[elsaf]

SciFi Channel, you are dead to me.

[krrayn.livejournal.com]

no kidding. What the heck is going to happen to their three flagship friday night shows???

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I don't gather that they ever had much respect for us geeks. And I am a geek, not a nerd. I suck at math. Even the name SciFi is based on preconceptions.

I hope for my American friends that they'll still carry Doctor Who. It's on the national network here (CBC).

I'm glad we have Space here.

[mlgm.livejournal.com]

I'll second the April's Fool joke, what are they thinking? Doesn't Spike TV already have the redneck market? I wonder if BSG and such will suddenly show up on USA Network, which is also owned by Universal.

Hold on...

[telaryn.livejournal.com]

May Be A Hoax! (http://www.tvsquad.com/2006/08/24/someone-has-it-in-for-the-sci-fi-channel)

The folk on whedonesque are searching for independent confirmation, and so far can't find it.

[acristleo.livejournal.com]

You've got to be kidding me?!? Well, that makes my decision to get rid of cable all the easier.

Jerks.

Re: Hold on...

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just saw that... and when I tried going back out to the page with the original article, it's no longer there (it just links to the main page of the site that posted it). Very suspicious.

A good hoax, if it was one, since so many of us bought it hook, line and sinker (because like all good lies, it has a ring of truth to it).

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's now looking like a hoax of some sort, though it was a pretty good one, if it was -- the site it was on looked professional, the article was well-written and sounded like the sort of thing marketing departments would come up with.

[bubonicplague.livejournal.com]

They lost my respect when they cancelled MST3K. That is why I don't subscribe to them. (Well, that and the fact that it's not one of the channels that is available with the cable-pirating I have been doing for over a decade.)

Still, I'm voting joke story on this one.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

I've updated my original entry a bit, because it's starting to look like it *is* a hoax. It was a pretty convincing one, though... the site looked professional, the article was well-written and it seemed like exactly the sort of thing that a marketing department would come up with. However, when I just went to take another look at it, the page is gone and redirects to the main page of the hosting site.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Well, it's looking more and more like a hoax, though a pretty darned good one. I've updated my original entry, because the link no longer goes to the article... but instead is now linking to the main page of the hosting site.

[mlgm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, someone else told me the thinking is disgruntled SG-1 fans; but after ten years? I'm thinking there is no reason to be bitter.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I know it's easier to have this attitude when you're not a fan of the show, but they did get a nice long run, and they've still got a spinoff going strong. They did do a good job on the hoax press release though, it read very much like something you'd expect out of a marketing department.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Heh. Looks like I'll need to double up my blood-pressure medicine after that. But, really, it so wouldn't surprise me because, after all, wrestling?! Why the bleedin' hell a network that's all about science fiction and fantasy puts wrestling in their schedule is beyond me, regardless of how much pro-wrestling is pure fantasy.

At least that stupid reality show Who Wants to be a Superhero features Stan Lee who is a god among comic book nerds.

But, yeah, it really wouldn't surprise me if they start phasing out sci-fi/fantasy and put on more of the same crap you can find in forty-hundred-eleventy other networks. We nerds just don't get no respect. :(

[rosiewook.livejournal.com]

As much as they've been annoying me, lately, SciFi posts all of their big announcements on SciFi Wire and it's not there.

I think you have all been got!

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Also, it looks like Simon at whedonesque took down the post.

[elsaf]

Heh... OK, I'll upgrade them from "Dead To Me" to the "On Notice" board. ;-) Adding the wrestling to their schedule was bad enough.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I didn't see your post until this had been revealed as a hoax, because WTF? Now all I have to worry about is the rumor that they're going to match "Nick" (Patch/Steve) with Billie on DoOl, which I'm sure is either bullshit or the kind of trouble the writers always make for super-couples, but still... A plague on both their houses. Or something.

[typographer.livejournal.com]

The site it was on was professional.

It's just a site that fell for the hoax.

[slm76.livejournal.com]

Count me as one of the annoyed when TNN became Spike. And, with the recent decision to air wrestling on that channel, nothing would have surprised me. NBC is doing some crazy things, from what I hear. The BSG fans are already annoyed that their show's new season was moved back to the fall.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Well, the only good thing about BSG going on in the fall is that then it'll be 'first star to the left and straight on till morning' with no long break in the middle of the season. Of course then there'll be a long break between seasons again provided they pick up BSG and not replace it with The Magic of Stitch-Witchery Sewing Hour or some other non-genre crap show.

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Nerd demographic? Hmph. What a way to piss people off. I really hope it is a hoax.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

Pretty good hoax. All the more believable since SpikeTV and CW emerged.

I'm still happy I have Space and not SciFi.

[corranterrik.livejournal.com]

But if you think about it, isn't wrestling kind of like a fantasy? After all, how much further from reality can you get? And as for the science portion (we know it's already fiction), I suppose one could always sit there and try to apply physics (He jumped into the ring and slammed that guy. Let's calculate the angle and figure out the odds of that exact move ever happening again).

Yeah, I don't get wrestling on that channel, either.

[(Anonymous)]

I worked on an ECW game for Acclaim about six years back. It pretty much sucked. I had to learn way more about Pro Wrestling than I ever, ever wanted to know. "Research" involved watching guys hit each other with folding chairs and throw each other into barbed wire.

I was pretty aghast to see SciFi moving to showing Wrestling. I don't get it. But I did get suckered into watching (and enjoying) Who Wants To be A Superhero, so maybe my tastes aren't as highbrow as I like to pretend

The Rampant Coyote (http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/)

[psubrat.livejournal.com]

You know, there was such a huge outcry from the "nerds" when SciFi put Passions on in the morning...so much so that the show was finally pulled from the lineup -- right after I got into it. Grrrr. Anyway, these self-proclaimed SciFi-Geeks complained that the soap wasn't science fiction or fantasy. Fine. However, it's freakin' more science fiction and fantasy than the damn wrestling show they've put on on Tuesday nights. How does wrestling fit into SciFi? ::grumbles some more::

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I was really getting into first season Passions, myself. It's a show about a wicked witch, for heaven's sake - that's fantasy (there's a mermaid hanging out there now), and because it's fantasy the only soap I've ever gotten myself interested in. Phoo on wrestling.

[rahirah]

Man, what I miss by not being able to surf the net at work anymore..

[spikesleman.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad this seems to be a hoax. The SciFi Channel is presently on my personal On Notice board, and if they do much more cancelling of programmes I love, might just be Dead to Me soon. (Yes, like elsaf, I'm a Stephen Colbert watcher, too.)