In 1989 in
Boca Raton, Florida, communications attorneys and cable television entrepreneurs, Mitchell Rubenstein and his business-partner wife Laurie Silvers, devised the concept for the
Sci-Fi Channel and signed up eight of the top ten cable television operators. They additionally licensed exclusive rights to the British television series
Doctor Who (which shifted over from
PBS),
Dark Shadows, and the cult series
The Prisoner. In 1992, Rubenstein and Silvers sold the channel to
USA Networks, then a
joint venture between
Paramount Pictures and
Universal Pictures. Rubenstein and Silvers became vice-chairs of USA Networks. The channel was seen as a natural fit with the classic films and television series that both studios had in their vaults, including Universal's
Dracula,
Frankenstein, and the
Rod Serling television series
Night Gallery, along with Paramount's
Star Trek television series.
Star Treks creator
Gene Roddenberry and author
Isaac Asimov were recruited by Rubenstein and Silvers to serve on the initial advisory board, but both Roddenberry and Asimov had died by the time the channel finally launched on September 24, 1992. 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. Asimov's widow
Janet and Roddenberry's widow
Majel Barrett were both in attendance. 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 in 1995. 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. 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). Vivendi's film and television production and cable television assets were then merged with
General Electric's
NBC to form
NBC Universal in 2004. In 2009, the channel's parent company,
NBCUniversal, purchased the brand name of the
SyFy Portal website (which rebranded itself as
Airlock Alpha), and the Sci Fi Channel changed its own name to Syfy (also changing its website to syfy.com). In 2010
Comcast purchased NBCUniversal; Comcast was one of the original cable TV operators to carry the channel. A
high-definition version of the channel launched on October 3, 2007, on
DirecTV. In 2013, Syfy was given the
James Randi Educational Foundation's
Pigasus Award for what was described as questionable
reality programming involving
paranormal subjects. Comcast then announced plans in November 2024 to place Syfy and other cable properties into a spinoff company. The move comes amid declines in linear television accelerated by
cord-cutting. On May 6, 2025, the spinoff company was named
Versant.
Branding history From 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. The network's second logo, which was used from 1999 to 2002, dropped the hyphen and the word "CHANNEL". The network's third and final "ringed planet" logo ran from 2002 to 2009, and was designed by
Lambie-Nairn. The logo made its debut on December 2, 2002, with the launch of the
Steven Spielberg miniseries
Taken. The network also launched a new image campaign with the tagline "If", which expresses the limitless possibilities of the imagination.
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. 's logo in 2008. On March 16, 2009, NBCUniversal announced that Sci Fi was rebranding as "Syfy". 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. 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. The name change was greeted with initial negativity, with people deliberately mispronouncing "Syfy" as or to make fun of the name change. 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 new name took effect on July 7, 2009. Syfy has since added reality shows and edged further from strictly science fiction, fantasy and horror programming. The rebranding efforts at NBC Universal's
Sci Fi Channels worldwide resulted in most rebranding as "Syfy" or "Syfy Universal"; however, over one-third of the channels did not take on "Syfy" as any part of their names: channels in Japan and the Philippines rebranded to or were replaced by
Universal Channel, while each of the channels in Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia would become Sci Fi Universal. In
Polish, "Syfy" does not suggest imagination or science fiction, but rather something gross, without value or even
syphilis. In Australia, NBCUniversal was a partner in
SF alongside
Foxtel,
CBS Studios International and
Sony Pictures Television; after the channel shut down in 2013, NBCUniversal launched
a local version of Syfy in 2014. On May 11, 2017, in honor of the network's upcoming 25th anniversary, Syfy unveiled a major rebranding that took effect on-air June 19. The new branding was intended to re-position the channel back towards targeting fans of the fantasy and sci-fi genres. Network head Chris McCumber explained that the network's goal was to "put fans at the center of everything we do", and explained a stacked, square-shaped form of the logo as being akin to a "badge". Syfy also planned to place a larger focus on its genre news division Syfy Wire, disclosing the possibility of extending the website to television as well. ==Programming==