The new name took effect on July 7, 2009. The parody news anchor Stephen Colbert made fun of the name change on The Colbert Report by giving the channel a "Tip of the Hat" for "spelling the name the way it's pronounced" and noting that "the tide is turning in my long fought battle against the insidious 'soft C '". The name change was greeted with initial negativity, with people deliberately mispronouncing "Syfy" as / ˈ s ɪ f i/ SIF-ee or / ˈ s iː f i/ SEE-fee to make fun of the name change. The only significant previous use of the term "Syfy" in relation to science fiction was by the website SyFy Portal, which became Airlock Alpha after selling the brand to an unnamed company in February 2009. Network officials also noted that, unlike the generic term "sci fi", which represents the entire genre, the term "Syfy" as a sensational spelling can be protected by trademark and therefore would be easier to market on other goods or services without fear of confusion with other companies' products. On March 16, 2009, NBCUniversal announced that Sci Fi was rebranding as "Syfy". Identification bumps depicted surreal situations such as a baby breathing fire, as well as a woman in a stately sitting room kissing a bug-eyed, big-eared animal. The network also launched a new image campaign with the tagline "If", which expresses the limitless possibilities of the imagination. The logo made its debut on December 2, 2002, with the launch of the Steven Spielberg miniseries Taken. The network's third and final "ringed planet" logo ran from 2002 to 2009, and was designed by Lambie-Nairn. The network's second logo, which was used from 1999 to 2002, dropped the hyphen and the word "CHANNEL" from the name. Branding history įrom 1992 to 1999, the network's first logo consisted of a planet with a ring, made to look like Saturn, with "SCI-FI CHANNEL" written on it. In 2013, Syfy was given the James Randi Educational Foundation's Pigasus Award for what was described as questionable reality programming involving paranormal subjects. Ī high definition version of the channel launched on October 3, 2007, on DirecTV. In 2010, Comcast purchased Syfy's parent company NBCUniversal. Vivendi's film and television production and cable television assets were then merged with General Electric's NBC to form NBC Universal in 2004. Three years later, Diller would sell Studios USA back to Universal, by then a subsidiary of Vivendi SA (at the time known as Vivendi Universal).
In 1997, Viacom sold its stake in USA Networks to Universal, who spun off all its television assets to Barry Diller the next year into the new company Studios USA. In 1994, Paramount was sold to Viacom, followed by Seagram's purchase of a controlling stake in MCA (of which Universal was a subsidiary) from the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company the next year.
The first program shown on the network was the film Star Wars. Asimov's widow Janet and Roddenberry's widow Majel Barrett were both in attendance. Rubenstein recalled: "The first thing that was on the screen was 'Dedicated to the memories of Isaac Asimov and Gene Roddenberry'." Leonard Nimoy was master of ceremonies at the channel's launch party, held at the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan. Star Trek 's creator Gene Roddenberry and author Isaac Asimov were among those on the initial advisory board, but both had died by the time the channel finally launched on September 24, 1992.
The channel was seen as a natural fit with classic films and television series that both studios had in their vaults, including Universal's Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Rod Serling TV series Night Gallery, along with Paramount's Star Trek television series. In March 1992, the concept was picked up by USA Networks, then a joint venture between Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios. They planned to have it begin broadcasting in December 1990, but they lacked the resources to launch it. A bored and neglected housewife joins a local escort service and soon sinks deeper into trouble when she finds that she's not permitted to quit when the work gets tough.In 1989, in Boca Raton, Florida, communications attorney Mitchell Rubenstein and his wife Laurie Silvers devised the concept for the Sci-Fi Channel.