First up during the Syfy Press Tour was a sit-down panel with President of Syfy, Dave Howe, and EVP of Original Content at Syfy, Bill McGoldrick. Joining them was fellow journalist and editor at Blastr, Aaron Sagers, who gave the introduction.

First news of note was about Sharknado. Unfortunately due to conflict, Ian Zierling couldn’t be at the press tour, so there was no panel. However, Howe had some exclusive news for the journalists. “Next year, Sharknado 3 will be storming the east coast. It will make landfall and attack America's favorite institution, Washington DC, and finally, Washington is getting what's coming to it. And then it will swallow the entire eastern seaboard, head down the coast, and end up, miraculously, in Orlando, Florida, where it will take out some of Orlando. And we're calling it "Sharknado Takes on the Feast Coast."

Howe also talked about how Syfy has changed this year with its science fiction programming, and its plans for 2015. “I think this has been a fantastic year for us...and I think this year and next year, especially with Bill at the helm, is absolutely going to be Syfy at its finest because we're going back to those big, bold ambitious, scripted series that we've owned in the past.

“So the Battlestar Galacticas, the miniseries events, you know, the plethora of announcements that you've all been excited about, as we have, over the last six to twelve months, thanks to Bill and his team, has been incredible.

“We've absolutely gone on record as saying we want to be the experts in this genre. It's a very competitive genre out there. Everyone and his dog is developing and launching sci-fi fantasy shows. We have to be seen to be the best in terms of understanding the genre and our audience, and I think we're doing that.

“Bill has been with us a year. I think Bill is absolutely the best hire that we could possibly have made to get us there. Bill has a fantastic track record, not just on USA, but on SPIKE as well -- and this is why we will win and why we will succeed. He is the ultimate fan-boy as you get to know him. He is the ultimate fan-boy, but he has fantastic taste and sets the bar very high and he also has great relationships.

“So some of the announcements that you've read over the last six months and you will continue to read, is because Bill absolutely has great relationships with Hollywood, will attract some of the biggest and the best names out there, and I think that will be key to our success.

“So I'm more excited this year than I ever have been about the potential for where we're going.”

McGoldrick then talked about some of their goals for the coming year at Syfy. “We are trying to win back the genre, in a way. You know, there's a lot of shows that -- I'm going to be honest with you -- that we envy around the dial, and we want to bring that level of writing, that level of modern television to the genre form, as so many books and movies have.

“And so my goal over the next couple of years is to have not just one, but many scripted and unscripted shows that really speak to this audience and speak to, you know, the audience that you guys cover on a day-to-day basis, and I think we're on our way.”

The two also had messages to the fans, starting with McGoldrick. “There's so much to say to the fans. I mean, having been here almost a year, it's not quite the one-year anniversary, I've been really astounded by the level of passion, the level of commitment, the level of specific care that our fans have for each individual show.

“Even within each individual show, there's subsets of passion and arguments on your [feeds]. You know, I follow a lot of your feeds and a lot of the comments sections on your feeds, and I love trolling through that stuff.

“And you know, I would tell them, I think that there have been some misconceptions about this channel in the past, that we somehow don't care as much as they do, that we cancel shows too early.

“And a year in, I've got to say, it's been really great for me to see that's just not true and really never has been true.

“It's a passionate group of 170 or so people, and in every department, these people love this genre and love the shows, from finance to HR to anywhere there's a commitment at this channel, that I don't think people fully appreciate it. I think you're going to see shows that reflect that commitment.

“We have a lot of corporate support now, a lot of corporate financing for this channel, for this genre. So really, the handcuffs are off.

“Dave and I and our team, we're going to be putting a lot of stuff out there and a lot of stuff that we care about, and I think the fans of this stuff are going to care about.”

Howe added, “We have a new owner in Comcast which I think has very deep pockets. They care about investing in great content. Ultimately, that's what we are tasked with, providing great content. And I think, from the fan perspective, we absolutely want to be the home of the smart, provocative sci-fi entertainment. That's who we are, that's who we've always been, and you will see from us, going forward, a massive commitment to that in terms of our programming.

“And to Bill's point, you know, it started last year with Defiance, and then Helix, and then Dominion. Ascension is coming. We've got 12 Monkeys, Killjoys, and then next year, two of our biggest and most ambitious projects, The Expanse, which gets us back into, you know, big, epic space opera, and then the ultimate mini-series event which is Childhood's End which is the Arthur C. Clarke concept.

“So you can see, just in those titles alone, how passionate we are to really owning the genre space in a way that we have never been able to in the past, and we will continue to do that.

“It's great content, and that's what our audience ultimately is going to seek from us, expect from us. And we don't cancel shows. We picked up Dominion for season two. We picked up Defiance for season three. We picked up Helix for season two. We're committed to these shows.

“And I think what we have that is so perfect for this room and our audience is if you create great content that has that deep, immersive mythology that is serialized, that takes you deeper, that has multi-screen ways for you to interact with that content, then you are creating long-term storytelling that is so perfect for our audience and so perfect for the time that we live in, that wasn't in the past.

“When we had Battlestar Galactica, it was difficult for people to commit to a serialized show. Now they absolutely want what we can provide the best, which is deep storytelling, great mythology, great back stories, big, epic, bold characters, and it's exciting.”

They also talked about networks seeming to lead towards more scripted shows lately. According to Howe, the real key to it is just to have good programming. “They have to be good. I mean, I think there's a lot of shows on TV that we refer to as sci-fi light or are in denial that they are even sci-fi/fantasy shows.

“And I think, you know, we do understand this audience and the genre, and I think Bill in particular does. And I think that's what we want to do is to create smart sci-fi that is different to what everybody else is doing. It's not that sort of "me-too" stuff that inevitably you see on TV here.

“So I think in the next couple of years there will be that explosion of genre stuff. I think a lot of network shows will fail, and I think people will, you know, move on to the next big thing, and then we'll still be in that space and others will have exited it.

“But I think there's a whole new audience, a whole new generation growing up with sci-fi/fantasy in a way that, you know, we've never seen before; I mean, the big book franchises and the Twilights and Hunger Games, the Divergents, et cetera. You know, this audience, this generation wants storytelling which is different, that explores alternative reality, that takes them to places that they can't go in their ordinary, mundane lives. And I think that's what's driving it in movies and video games and TV, and I think that's going to continue.”

The executives also talked about some of the insights they’ve gathered from collecting viewer data.

McGoldrick said, “One encouraging thing for me is...the commitment this past summer to Defiance and Dominion, the consistency on the L3 and L7 basis was a very encouraging sign as we get into the more serialized shows. The level of commitment our fans have on this channel right now was one that popped out at me as being the new guy here.”

Howe added, “I think one of the new things that we've seen, and I think we're responding to it is -- and this is very clear and very direct and very specific -- people want high quality shows. They're not interested in low production values anymore, "me-too" shows. They want smart writing, smart acting, smart directing, the biggest possible aspiration from a production value perspective.

“And I think if you look at the shows that really are the biggest shows on TV, they all have that, whether it's Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead or True Blood. These are big, expensive -- unfortunately -- shows, and that's I think what audiences are responding to, and that is the demand that we're also going to respond to as we move forward.”

They also talked about how binge watching is affecting things. According to McGoldrick, “I think it's a positive. You know, it gets tricky as to monetization and all that sort of stuff, all that boring stuff, but just if you're a creative guy, you definitely want your fans to be that committed to the show and to want to sit there all weekend and have that level of engagement. So that's in that positive.

“As Dave said, this channel was ahead of its time with Battlestar Galactica. I think if Battlestar Galactica launched today, it would have done that Breaking Bad kind of shot in the ratings. So, to me it's more opportunity for the audience to grab on to it and then for it to ultimately build. And we have ways of -- you know, through longer data...to look at the level of engagement and commitment, socially and otherwise, that gives you better feedback to how much the people like the shows and what they like about it. So, I think that's good.”

Howe added, “We're actually going to lean into it, and we have already. We're going to fuel binge watching as early as we possibly can.

“When we launched Helix this year, we double pumped two episodes and then we simultaneously gave away the third episode as pre-linear premiere that you could either stream or download on VOD or however you want to watch it. You're going to see more of that, not just from us, but from other networks because I think with serialized shows, you need to hook people.

“And those shows, it takes several episodes for you to really get the hang of the characters and stories. So there's much more of that to come, because we want our audience to be engaged and loyal and obsessed with great characters and great stories.”

There have been a lot of announcements recently about new shows coming to the network. According to Howe, that will continue. “There were some shows already in development and a bunch of things which Bill brought in. I think that was like the kind of catalyst in terms of really starting that snowball of announcements.

“But I think there was a commitment to us and from our owners to really get behind this space in a whole new, big way, and you know, that was a mandate we responded to very quickly. And I think you are going to continue to see those announcements moving forward, and that's exciting, I hope, to you and to us.”

Be sure to check out the photo gallery for this panel.