A High Five!

My goodness, where does the time go?

In February 2009, The Sci Fi Channel announced a change in branding, and let the world know they would now be known as Syfy. This, as we know, was met with an overall sense of the network moving away from its core audience to become something a little less genre-specific, and was bemoaned quite loudly across the internet.

Of course, it hasn’t really played out that way, and now that Syfy has a new suit in charge, they may actually be moving back toward a focus on actual science fiction programming, which is always to be welcome. Now, if we can just get past that five-year cancellation trick…

But that was the start of an idea, to answer the calls of “Why can’t we just have a place for just science fiction?” And SciFi4Me was born with the idea of providing not only relevant news and information content, but at some point down the road, maybe taking up the mantle of “The Sci Fi Channel” and going network on you. That hasn’t happened yet, but it’s still a nice goal to have.

Five years. We’ve survived it. And that’s due to the hard work and dedication of everyone who’s been part of the team all this time. The list is long, but I appreciate everyone who’s put in time and effort to get us this far. It truly is a team effort, especially with all the projects we have in the works — some already active, some on hiatus, and some new stuff that’s not out there yet.

Like our new live internet radio show, Live From The Bunker, which will take off Monday, March 31st at 10:30pm Central US on BlogTalkRadio. For me personally, it’s a chance to return to my roots in radio. Back in 19-something-something when I was 18 years old, I got bit by the radio bug, and that’s led me to a career in media that’s lasted probably longer than it should have, given that I’m making it up as I go. But this new show will be a mix of talk, opinion, gossip, interviews, and music — yes, we’ll have several “house bands” on a weekly rotation, and it’s going to be a fun mix.

In recent weeks, we’ve brought back Week in Review, and soon we’ll see the return of The Grid, with a little tweak on the format. We’re going weekly with the latest video game news, hopefully dropping on our YouTube channel, SciFi4Me TV, every Thursday (give or take). This will be a quick hit on the latest headlines on games, consoles, upgrades, and gossip about the industry. You don’t want to miss it!

Last month, Starlog magazine went to Archive.org, and looking through those old issues (I still have plenty of the real thing…), I realized what we’re trying to do here — capture the spirit of both Starlog and The Sci Fi Channel — both favorites in the genre community for so many years. Starlog did it so well, bringing that mix of feature articles, interviews, behind-the-scenes looks, and humor. And I look at those issues and think to myself, “Self, we need to step up our game.”

So, we’re stepping up our game, and we need your help to do it. Over the next few months, we’ll be making more announcements, adding new sections to the web site, and working toward a release of SciFi4Me 3.0 sometime near Memorial Day. Because we want to bring you the latest and greatest content. We want you to have a place where you can get all the current news about science fiction and fantasy work — books, TV, movies, comics, video games, cosplay — and if you’re of a mind to share your talents, we’re always looking for more volunteers to help us stay on top of the news.

And if you’re part of a convention planning committee, we’d love to help out — moderating panels, covering the event with video and interviews, etc. — so just give us a shout! We’ll be posting a lot of video from Planet Comicon 2014 very soon… like the first interviews for correspondents Marie Lim and James Hunt, who got to ask questions on-camera for the first time at PCC.

First time for everything. My first time for just about everything was a long time ago. First interview. First review. First news article. First episode. It’s hard to believe we’ve been doing this for five years. And yet, sometimes I feel every day of it. But I look at what we’ve accomplished so far — with very limited resources, mind you — and I think of all the potential in what we have and where we could go with it.

And I think I might be up for another five.