I believe if would be useful to be able to enter in any previous names that a Network (or Web Channel) has been known by.
In the future this could be used as part of searching Networks / Web Channels (if that is ever implemented) and could also be properly exposed to the API if desired.
Currently all I've done when changing a Network's name (to the most recent version) is adding the previous name to the description.
Maybe AKA field for the networks could be added?
We've talked about this a while ago.
I'd also like to keep track of network changes such as the network name, but we haven't gotten to it yet.
It will come eventually as it's indeed useful information when doing research or tracking down something related to the network.
Any network name has its history and own data with date of start, date of end, probably change of owners or adding others and so many more. Every network name has its own productions and no other network name should have them instead. For example, any production that was on SciFi should not exist on SyFy and vice versa. You should add all those different channel names on networks and try putting productions in the proper ones. Or else you could have even 10 different "a.k.a."s on networks with different owners, different logos, different philosophy on productions and distribution on one network that seems like ugly bundling. We should try all the time to properly record television history. That's my suggestion. :)
I agree with Mandrake. Maybe this could use the linking feature that's pending for programs as well to show previous associations?
You could have something like they do on Wiki with a "preceded by" link to the old network name and/or a "followed by" link to a new name ...
