NOW THAT the Sci Fi Channel has succumbed to cable mission creep and redubbed itself Syfy, I'm thinking there must be some formula behind this sort of rebranding.

Otherwise, it's hard to see how the easily grasped Court TV morphed into the forgettable truTV and The Learning Channel and the Game Show Network reverted to their acronyms, shaking off their basic-cable pasts the way KFC tried to shake off the image of deep-fried chicken.

I mean, shouldn't there be an app for that?

You could plug in the no-longer-relevant name of your network and emerge with something confusingly spelled that no longer binds you to any particular programming strategy.

But which, of course, may "skew younger."

While we're waiting for that one-button solution to show up in the Apple store, here are a few ideas for cable channels who may be ready to make that final leap into incoherence:

Ay-Eeek. Who even remembers that A&E, home of "Dog the Bounty Hunter," stands for "arts and entertainment"?

Ay-Eeek - go ahead, say it out loud - pays tribute to both the channel's obsession with needle artists ("Tattoo Highway," "Inked") and needle users ("Intervention," "The Cleaner").

It might also be one of the sounds most often heard from dissatisfied customers of the channel's Philadelphia-based "Parking Wars."

NBCbing. Microsoft, which scored the first two letters in MSNBC, hasn't done as much as it might have with that kind of real estate, and in fact largely walked away from all but the Web site years ago, retaining only a minority interest in the TV channel.

But with a new search engine to promote, it might want to think about linking Bing - hey, it rhymes with bling! - with the cable news outlet where those searching for, say, news of the Iranian crisis over a weekend last month encountered instead hour after hour of its usual taped documentaries, including one on "Sex Slaves in America."

HisTri. Sure, it sounds a bit like a new allergy drug, but for the History Channel, which seems to have traded an obsession with Nazis for a fascination with "Ice Road Truckers" and "UFO Hunters," a little vagueness is probably a good thing.

Plus, if "Life After People," which already boasts its own "Apocalypse and Doomsday DVD Collection," ever gets big enough to require a spinoff channel, PstHisTri is still available.

And may even cure post-nasal drip.

EmmTeev(e). MTV's still a solid brand, but given what a back seat music's taken to "reality" over the years - assuming that's what's happening on "The Hills" and "Paris Hilton's My New BFF" - why not see just how far the network's fans can be pushed?

KuGrrr. TV Land, which worked its way onto the nation's cable lineups with a mix of old and older television, now wants to snag more viewers who don't remember seeing those shows the first time.

So let's give fair warning to those "Andy Griffith Show" fans that "She's Got the Look" - and they don't - by renaming the channel in honor of "The Cougar."

MkItWrk. Like A&E, Bravo's wandered away from whatever its original mission was to find love, happiness and ratings with so-called real people.

And even if Tim Gunn and "Project Runway" have been spirited away by Lifetime, there's no reason Gunn's motto - with most of its vowels removed - can't live on in the place where it was first made famous. *

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