Courtesy of my friend Bob Greenberger, I learned this morning that my former employer, The SCI FI Channel, is officially changing its name to SyFy. And its new slogan? “Imagine Greater.”

I’m glad that I quit when I did last May, because if I had been there when this was announced internally, I’d have said something that would have finally gotten me fired for certain.

The channel’s stated rationale is that because “SCI FI” was a common term, it couldn’t be the basis for their trademark without the word “Channel” attached. And that may well be true. But how hard is it to print “Channel” in small letters underneath the all-caps SCI FI?

The fan reaction to the announcement on SCI FI Wire has been almost uniformly negative. And I concur with a few of the posters’ remarks. In particular, this name change, which has been touted as a “widening” of the brand, actually feels like a repudiation of it. It’s as if the executives of the SCI FI Channel are finally admitting that they’re ashamed of being a science-fiction channel.

Of course, anyone who’s watched the channel during the last five years already knows that.