Alas we are a small niche market of a genre that Bonnie has dummied down. I got this from who else the 'Scapers', Bonnie has thrown a bucket of gasoline on 'em. BSG too
CBS MEDIA REPORT
Sci-Fi explores new worlds Channel's attempt to widen its audience pays off
By David B. Wilkerson, CBS.MarketWatch.com
https://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/stor...&siteid=google
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- The depiction of stereotypical science fiction fans -- as seen in "Saturday Night Live" skits -- hopelessly myopic, technology obsessed, mostly male, familiar with every episode of "Star Trek" -- is funny because it exaggerates a level of devotion that's really out there.
However, while this kind of narrowly focused passion might seem ideal for a cable network like Sci-Fi Channel, it isn't enough in today's 300-channel marketplace, says Sci-Fi President Bonnie Hammer.
The 11-year-old Sci-Fi Channel, sold last year to Vivendi Universal by Barry Diller's USA Interactive (USAI: news, chart, profile), has worked hard for some time to expand its audience, adding an increasing number of original series, miniseries and movies to its familiar lineup of "Star Trek," "Dark Shadows" and "The Twilight Zone" reruns.
In the past several months, miniseries like Steven Spielberg's "Taken" have significantly boosted the network's profile among people who don't fit the traditional definition of sci-fi fan, thereby raising its profile among advertisers.
But the ratings growth has come at the cost of some goodwill. Take a trip to some of the Internet's well-traveled message boards, like the Usenet's alt.tv.scifi.channel, and it won't be long before you encounter a thread about the network's latest betrayal of its fan base. See related story, "Where do diehard genre fans go?"
Sci-Fi has conducted extensive research in recent years to figure out what the "modern" lover of the genre might be, Hammer said.
'Sci-philes,' 'escapists' and 'young Marvels'
"It's a very different audience from the audience that grew up on sci-fi," Hammer said. "The old sci-fi [fans] lived sci-fi literature. They loved technology; they loved to ruminate about the future. Today's generation really doesn't care about that. New technology is another day in the office."
Bill Carroll, director of programming at Katz Television Group, says Sci-Fi is doing the only thing that makes sense. "I think in the current environment, with all of the competition that's out there, you really have to find ways to advance and maintain the core audience, but you also have to find ways to attract other people who might not either know you exist, or who are not normal viewers of what you do," he said.
Hammer says Sci-Fi Channel's research has identified three distinct subgroups that make up the genre's latter-day fan base.
One is the die-hard, traditional viewer who might love the original "Star Trek" and its spinoffs, "Space: 1999," "Logan's Run," etc. Hammer calls this group "sci-philes."
Another set of viewers, which Hammer calls "escapists," is predominantly female. These are fans "who love good soap operas, who love great character development, great storytelling, but with a twist," she said. The escapists are helping to boost the box office proceeds of "The Matrix Reloaded" right now, and also enjoyed "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" film series.
The third group is a young male audience that likes stories about superheroes. Hammer refers to them as the "young Marvels." "Spider-Man" and the two "X-Men" movies have large appeal for this crowd.
'Taken' vindicates direction
In December 2000, Sci-Fi Channel premiered "Frank Herbert's Dune," a 6-hour miniseries based on the 1965 novel about the political machinations of several factions vying for control of a sand-filled planet. "Dune," airing over three nights, garnered an average rating of 4.4 in cable households, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was a record for the channel at the time, and was among the top 10 original miniseries on all of cable in the previous five years.
Bolstered by "Dune's" success, Hammer led the Sci-Fi Channel toward more longform programming development, and that culminated this past December with the ambitious 10-night, 20-hour miniseries "Taken," produced by Steven Spielberg.
"Taken" could boast of no major stars in its cast. Heather Donahue, best known for her role in "The Blair Witch Project," and Matt Frewer, who is still primarily recognized as the computerized, shades-wearing "Max Headroom" in that '80s TV series, were perhaps the most familiar faces.
Because it was going out so far on a limb with "Taken," Sci-Fi felt it had to "maximize that moment," Hammer said.
"We ... knew that we wanted to change our branding, our look, our logo, our on-air IDs, our off-channel voice, [and] we did that inside of 'Taken.' So we got a fair amount of noise, not only on 'Taken,' but on our new marketing," she said. The new look was aimed squarely at the new audiences the channel's research had identified.
If viewers tired of the miniseries, it never showed. "Taken" got an average 4.1 rating, equivalent to 3.26 million viewers each night, making Sci-Fi the top cable network during its two-week run.
"Taken" pulled in a lot of young female escapists, Hammer said, who have since propelled the channel to unprecedented growth.
In the first quarter of this year, Sci-Fi's total viewers rose 36 percent compared to the same quarter in 2002. Part of the advance was fueled by two more miniseries: "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune," featuring Susan Sarandon, and "Riverworld." It was the network's fourth straight quarter of growth in primetime.
In the past year, Sci-Fi has picked up several major new advertisers, including names like AT&T, BMW, Gateway, Verizon, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic and Cingular.
This year, during meetings with potential advertisers for the 2003-04 season, Hammer has noticed a different reaction than in years past. "They are so interested in Sci-Fi now, where a year or two years ago, it was, 'Oh well -- there's Sci-Fi. Where's USA [Network]?' Now all of a sudden, Sci-Fi's the story. We're the plum."
"I think we have grown the channel to a point that people are aware of what we do, and what we do is quality, that we're not just the old rerun channel, that we're not put together by Band-aids, that in fact we have a strategy behind what we do," Hammer said.
Alienation?
While a number of shows have come and gone from the schedule during Sci-Fi's transition, no cancellation sparked more of an outcry than that of its longest-running original series, "Farscape."
The Henson Company, best known for the Muppets, produced "Farscape," which premiered in 1999. Ben Browder starred as an astronaut who, in the pilot episode, finds himself in the middle of a battle between escaped alien prisoners and the law enforcers who are trying to capture them. The astronaut's sometimes uneasy alliances with the fugitives and the various maneuverings of the pursuers play themselves out in highly complex, serialized plots. The show's high production values, thoughtful scripts and memorable characters earned it an ardent, passionate following.
But last fall, during the show's fourth season, Sci-Fi decided that the show's ratings -- consistently at the 1.1 or 1.2 level -- weren't high enough to justify the cost of bringing it back for a fifth season.
Fans of the show were livid, and they deluged Hammer and Sci-Fi with letters, e-mails and other messages asking for a renewal.
A highly sophisticated Web site chronicles the progress of the "Save Farscape" campaign.
Ultimately, the show strayed too far from the kind of accessible fare that could appeal to the escapists or the young Marvels, Hammer explained.
"Our entire team loved, loved, loved the series. It helped launch us into the original fiction world," she said. "But it became too 'in.' Even the fans started turning away because it became too hard to understand. It was brilliantly written, for the most part, it was amazingly well produced, but it became such an in-joke, if you will, that people couldn't follow it any more."
Balance found
When Sci-Fi has been able to achieve an ideal balance, it has been with shows like "Stargate SG-1." "Stargate," based on the 1994 film starring Kurt Russell, James Spader and Jaye Davidson, premiered on the Showtime premium cable network in 1997. In 2001 Sci-Fi picked it up for its sixth season, producing 22 new episodes that premiered in June of last year.
The network is hoping for another hit with an update of "Battlestar Galactica," a rethinking of the 1978-80 ABC series that starred Lorne Greene, Anne Lockhart and Dirk Benedict. Sci-Fi's version stars James Edward Olmos in the Greene role of Commander Adama, and is slated to air in December. "When we tested the segmentation study, every single group ... all said that they were interested in it," Hammer said. "They'd love to see it reinvented, reimagined.
"I think we are going to knock this one out of the ballpark."
'We are curious about what's going to happen'
Sci-Fi staffers aren't exactly oblivious to what's going on. "I can tell you we are curious about what's going to happen," Hammer said. But she readily puts the most positive interpretation on the situation.
"In some ways, I look forward to it, because it's just going to keep everybody thinking and wondering and challenged, to the point where it's a new group that we have to prove ourselves to."
Bonnie wants to know are you a 'Sci-philes,' 'escapists' or 'young Marvels'
