The decline of Syffy seems especially significant to a bunch of space cadets who love science fiction, but when I think about it, a lot of the cable networks started a couple of decades ago are running out of steam. MTV comes to mind, its raison d’etre of “music television” destroyed by Internet videos. MSNBC was originally intended to be a straight news network, but nowadays it’s been relegated to specialize in politics within the NBC News networks. I’m sure we can all think of examples.

But maybe the MTV example points to salvation–has the scifi action shifted away from TV networks? As I browse Amazon, both books and videos, I’m starting to see more and more independent self-published science fiction, a lot of it through Amazon’s CreateSpace subsidiary. Some of the videos are short trial balloons that seem to be competing for full sponsorship by Amazon or whoever else likes what they see. And it looks like some of the books originally self-published by their authors have been picked up by major publishers.

And look at how Battlestar Galactica Blood & Chrome was released, in 10-minute segments posted on YouTube, in advance of airing on Syffy in February, and a simultaneous disc release. I wonder if this isn’t a bet between Syffy’s “programmers” (may they rot in hell) and the BSG producers? Are the producers of BSG trying to prove that their show will be way more popular than Syffy thinks, based on viewing stats from YouTube? The first episode has been viewed 2,568,453 times as of now, subsequent episodes were viewed around 800,000 times. A network show needs a couple of million viewers to pay for itself, and allowing for the different outlets, I’d bet on BSG. (Like I’m really going out on a limb to bet against Syffy these days.)

It’s too early to say if I’m right. But I think I’ll try to be more diligent about posting the new things I find here, and maybe a trend will emerge.