Would a world where "Sci Fi" did not rebrand into "Syfy" be a better alternate world?

[AstroCadet69]

Back in 2011-2014 there was not one show on TV that had space travel in it that was not a Star Wars cartoon. I enjoyed "Clone Wars" and even "Rebels" btw.

Now there are at least a dozen and we are getting more.

https://www.tor.com/2021/09/27/babylon-5-the-cw-j-michael-straczynski/

https://www.tor.com/2019/09/17/mr-robot-creator-sam-esmail-is-rebooting-battlestar-galactica/

In addition to that there is an explosion of astronaut themed stuff.

Better late than never.

SpaceX probably revived interest in space to a great degree.

In an alternate timeline where "Sci Fi" did not become "Syfy" and instead became a streaming service that gave us a 2010s full of HBO or Netflix level quality adaptions of "Foundation", "The Hyperion Cantos", "The Expanse", which would have never been cancelled in this timeline, "Planetes", and even "Mass Effect" and "Eve Online" as well at least one astronaut soap opera for those not interested in aliens.

Would this timeline have been a better world?

Or would "Game of Thrones" becoming a massive pop culture phenomenon prevent sci fi from becoming mainstream like GOT did for fantasy?

It would probably be in a world where the space race continued.

 

[Hawki]

I don't know.

I'm vaguely aware that the Sci-Fi Channel became the SyFy Channel, and in doing so, shifted its focus away from sci-fi to stuff like wrestling, with the odd bit of sci-fi thrown in. However, I don't buy the idea that if Sci-fi would have remained the Sci-fi Channel, things would be better. If anything, the no. of shows in your post defeats the proposition. Streaming allows for specialized content (as in, people can easily find what they want to find, sci-fi or otherwise), so if the shift wasn't made, the rise of streaming would still occur, and we'd still get a lot of shows made possible by that.

 

[Worgen]

I mean, would anything be different aside from the the world being slightly less stupid?