Someone out on the Interweb seems to be holding a bit of a grudge against the Sci Fi Channel these days. I wonder why? Could it be the infusion of Extreme Championship Wrestling to the programming? The rumors that it's going to interrupt shows like Stargate Atlantis for six months? Or that they're cancelling Stargate SG-1? Hm... looks like there's a lot of ammo there.Anyway, this grudge-holder has sent a press release to the PRWeb site saying that the network is changing its name to SurgeTV. The release says the name change was being done to reflect the "changing demographic" from the station, with more wrestling, stars of shows like Eureka appearing in the ring, more late-night risque programming, and the English-language debut of Mexico's Lucha Libre wrestling events.
The part of the press release that made me suspicious was where it says that the network wants to move away from their "nerd" demographic. Seemed like an indelicate choice of words for a press release, which is what made it scream "BS" to me. That and the fact that I couldn't find any evidence of it on the NBC Universal Media Village site for the network. So someone looks like they've pulled a prank on Sci Fi and PRWeb. Of course, for all we know, it could be absolutely true. If The Nashville Network can morph into Spike TV, anything can happen.
(UPDATE: Looks like PRWeb has pulled the press release from its site, as the link I provided above is now dead. Further proof that it was BS.)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
8-24-2006 @ 10:46AM
bd said...
It's not true as the only wrestling they'll be running it under the WWE umbrella and the only WWE wrestling they'll be showing is ECW (except for this Monday when they'll be showing RAW).
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8-24-2006 @ 11:06AM
Akbar Fazil said...
yah, the "nerd" comment alone makes this ridiculous PR be totally fake.
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8-24-2006 @ 11:06AM
Everett W. said...
Agreed, it has to be a fake. By contract, NBC Universal outlets can't show non-WWE pro wrestling programs.
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8-24-2006 @ 11:49AM
brucekayaks said...
When do I get my battlestar back...nerd or not, it's the only thing I watch on that network and I m bored with 2 am repeats.
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8-24-2006 @ 12:01PM
David said...
Boo-erns
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8-24-2006 @ 12:46PM
Joseph Teller said...
Wrestling doesn't belong on the sci-fi channel. Sports should be on some sports channel so we can choose to ignore it.
The Sci-fi channel needs to get back to it's roots, get a library of decent movies in its genre rather than letting other networks run them (rather wasting money on making cheesy monster movies or bad slasher films).
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8-24-2006 @ 1:28PM
Chrispian said...
The Sci Fi channel has been on my bad side since they cancled Farscape. Now they are putting Ben and Claudia out of a job again, I'm not happy. The show had run it's course, I'll just miss seeing these actors.
That said, I didn't put out a press release. I wasn't even home. I was dead at the time. Couldn't have been me.
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8-24-2006 @ 2:30PM
Soto said...
I am happy it was a hoax. Not that I will be watching much Sci-Fi once SG-1 goes off the air, but I do feel that it is a channel with a lot of potential. They just need to get rid of the wrestling, and get some of the good old sci-fi shows back.
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8-24-2006 @ 3:19PM
GL Hamilton said...
I am surprised ECW is even being renewed. I guess ratings are the true master, not quality Sci-Fi programming.
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8-24-2006 @ 3:26PM
bd said...
>Sports should be on some sports channel so we can choose to ignore it.
Get over it ot motivate others to bring in the ratings ECW has been bringing in.
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8-24-2006 @ 3:27PM
Brian said...
Speaking as a member of the sci-fi channel "nerd" demographic I can totally relate to all points here. I do like the sci-fi channel in general and think they do a lot of good things, but the bad movies and wrestling are cheap to produce and ratings getters so they're not going anywhere. I sure hope these decisions don't end up killing sci-fi as G4 did to TechTV.
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8-24-2006 @ 3:40PM
jd said...
I hate wrestling. With a passion. That being said - it they made a sci-fi presentation out of this: some CGI with fights in zero G, sci-fi/fantasy weapons, etc...I might actually watch and enjoy it. As it is now....it drives me _away_ from Sci-Fi. The more often I flip by and see that crap on, the more likely I am to block that channel.
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8-24-2006 @ 5:10PM
heather said...
The wrestling thing is totally bizarre, and I'm happy this was BS. I'm going to seriously miss SG-1, but it does feel like it has run its course, and I'm glad to see it go before it goes downhill the way so many shows do. At least I have my Eureka, Atlantis, and Galactica, so all is well in TV-land.
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8-24-2006 @ 5:11PM
dexthageek said...
I couldnt believe it when I heard that Sci-fi was going to add ECW to its line-up, and then it happened, I cant stand wrestling, and now they go ahead and cancel yet another great show. First MST3K now SG-1. The only show left on Sci-fi for me to watch is SG-Atlantis and I have started watching Dead like me, but thats about it
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8-24-2006 @ 5:11PM
dexthageek said...
Oh yeah, I definately cant wait for the next season of Battlestar :)
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8-24-2006 @ 5:24PM
Mike said...
While the press release was bogus, had it been true they could have shown non-WWE wrestling as long as the WWE owns the rights to those libraries (i.e. WCW, AWA, OVW, Smokey Mountain, etc.).
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8-24-2006 @ 5:31PM
andy said...
Guess what? Wrestling is nerdy. ECW fits well with the Sci-Fi nerd demographic.
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8-24-2006 @ 6:22PM
Leatherneck said...
>Guess what? Wrestling is nerdy. ECW fits well with the Sci-Fi nerd demographic.
If by "nerdy" you mean "moronic" and by "Sci-Fi nerd demographic" you mean "slobber-drooling mouthbreather demographic", you're absolutely right.
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8-24-2006 @ 6:34PM
Gavin Greenwalt said...
If wrestling can pay the VFX bills for Battlestar Galactica, Stargate and Eureka I'm perfectly happy for them to play it all day long while I'm at work.
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8-24-2006 @ 7:38PM
Matthew said...
People are insanely realistic when they expect the channel to run Star Trek or Star Wars movies. The reason they run those cheap movies is because they don't have to pay anything to do it. If they were running all scifi classics they would go bankrupt. They don't have enough viewers to do that.
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