Friday, September 9, 2011
The Fine Art of Being Inconsequential as Taught By Bonnie Hammer, David Howe, and Mark Stern
http://www.amazon.com/Bonnie-Hammers-Sci-Fi-Channel-Backwater/dp/1441407286/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315543583&sr=1-1
It's a rare gift I suppose to reduce the once great Sci-Fi Channel of the 1990s to what it is today...A smoldering pile of inconsequentiality. From what I can gather...Bonnie Hammer,David Howe, and Mark Stern achieved this by adhering to the following...
1. Repeating ad infinitum their collective hatred of Science Fiction television programming.
2. Repeating ad infinitum their rotten plans for the Sci-Fi Channel before it became the SyFy Channel.
3. Going to work everyday suffering from the delusion that they were doing a good job.
4. Cancelling all of the great programs on the former Sci-Fi Channel.
5. Putting utter garbage on in its place.
6. Thinking that a cable channel (SyFy Channel) could lack a discernable, on-air identity.
7. Thinking that temporary...slipshod identities (It's a wrestling network today!!) are acceptable alternatives to a permanent on-air identity.
8. Thinking that there is something cute or hip in originally produced, badly made monster movies.
9. Putting a cooking show on what is still supposed to be (regardless of what Bonnie Hammer, David Howe, and Mark Stern say) a Science Fiction Network.
10. Having a decade long, (thoroughly inexplicable) corporate love affair with Ronald D. Moore.
11. Believing that the underwhelming performance of the SyFy Channel at the hands of Bonnie Hammer, David Howe, and Mark Stern would somehow lead to spectacular retail and marketing opportunities.
12. Implementing and aiming guerrilla style stealth marketing campaigns directly at the throats of the general public. Imagine that!! A cable channel and its stealth marketing minions ("Abraham & Harrison") arguing with the general public on Internet bulletin boards. Could this be why NBC-Universal's Sci-Fi Channel has never been successful? They drove away the general public due to say......guerrilla style stealth marketing throughout the decade of the 2000s?
13. Bonnie Hammer, David Howe, and Mark Stern individually giving interviews over the years which left no doubt in anyone's mind that the three of them were actually third rate marketing people and not legitimate television programmers. No one could figure out if the three of them were working for a cable network or a "Sears Roebuck Retail Outlet." One thing is absolutely certain. They want to fold up the SyFy Channel like a tent and sell it in "Sears."
14. Bonnie Hammer, David Hammer, and Mark Stern have thoroughly succeeded at one thing. They have made the SyFy Channel the one stop destination for their miniscule viewership always being in the mood to watch nothing in particular.
15. Bonnie Hammer, David Howe, and Mark Stern have thoroughly succeeded in making their television programming less entertaining than infomercials.
Remember the old game show from the 1970s called "$20,000 Pyramid?" It was hosted by Dick Clark. Let's play a round of "$20,000 Pyramid" right here...We're trying to name a specific cable network!!
Contestant #1: ...."Marcel's Quantum Kitchen"....."WWF Wrestling"....."Saturday Night Monster Movies" (trashy ones)...You don't want to watch anything in particular!!"
Contestant #2: "Beats the shit out of me!!"
If you want your television programming inconsequential, watch the SyFy Channel. If you want to watch a cable network you can't define, watch the SyFy Channel. If you want to watch television programming you won't remember having watched a day later, watch the SyFy Channel. If you want to watch television programming that routinely insults the intelligence of every demographic group known to man, and thus all of these demographic groups stay away from the SyFy Channel....watch the SyFy Channel. Finally, if you want to watch a cable channel on daily....daydream cruise control....watch the SyFy Channel.
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