On Monday I took part in an hour long conference call with Dave Howe the President of SyFy. He’s quite a talker and had a lot of good things to say, I drilled him about SyFy’s recent penchant for “reimagining” everything under the sun and I followed with him regarding his dream of getting SyFy into the Video Game Business – something he mentioned when I had lunch with him during a DigitalPress event. I’ll post a full transcript of the call in the next few days. In the meantime here are some highlights and scoops:
- Syfy is actively working with Video Game Developers Trial Worldwide Trion World Network, Inc to co-launch a scripted MMO Game. The game will have it’s own television series as well, the working title is One Earth. Trial launched showcased a demo of their first game Heroes of Telara at E3 last year. He went on to say that SyFy brings a huge viewership and expertise in scripted programming to the Video Game Industry.
- Dave thinks SyFy’s strong year is based in part on the Brand change and of course their strong content which included the huge success they had with Warehouse 13.
- He reiterated the idea that Sci-Fi had a negative connotation and pigeonholed the network, the new brand is more open ended and gives them the room to be able to create a wider range of content that will appeal to everyone. There are regrets to the rebranding decision and this wasn’t entered into lightly, they talked about it for over two years before they decided to pull the trigger, they had reached a point where it had to be done.
- Dave talked a bit about their upcoming Comedy, Outer Space Astronauts, he’s pretty high on experimenting with different types of genres now that they have such a large audience. They tried Tripping the Rift a few years ago but didn’t have a large enough viewership to sustain it. They are very excited about working with SyFy on Haven with Stephen King and thinks it’s a really cool, relevant concept.
- SyFy is going to make Caprica available to stream. The two-hour pilot is now available to watch. When the show airs in January they will re-air the Pilot with reshot footage, upgraded effects, etc. He acknowledges that releasing the DVD 9 months ago may have a negative impact on the premiere numbers. They are going to devote a big piece of their budget to drive people to watch the 2nd episode of Caprica. There’s going to be an amazing series tease in that episode.
- It’s very difficult to air Dr. Who and Torchwood because they are competing with BBC America which is the proper home for it. The show has done well for them, but don’t think they’ll hang on to it.
- I pressed him about SyFy’s recent penchant towards “re-imagining” everything. He said every network re-imagines things, but we do it for a reason, there’s a whole new generation of viewers who haven’t seen or read the original source. Unless it’s a fresh take we won’t bother. If you look at 90 or 95% of our content is original material.
- Upcoming Sat movies include Sharktopus, Alien Gateway, Hercules and Hydra
- The concept of The Lost Room was very difficult to translate into the series and that Warehouse 13 is basically the same concept only more workable.
- Next year there will be a very special episode of Ghost Hunters and several stunt casting for Eureka, Warehouse 13, etc.