Web, Not Broadcast, ‘Star Trek’s’ CBS Frontier
“Star Trek: Discovery,” the first new TV series in the franchise in 12 years. will debut on CBS on Sept. 24, with the rest of its 15-episode run streaming on the CBS All Access service. The series gets its closest look yet here, including the turbulent development and production period it weathered and the expectations ahead of it. The show’s ultimate worthiness, its creators say, will lie in “the historical ‘Star Trek’ values it carries forward and battle-tests in settings that a modern audience will recognize.”
This article was originally posted on nytimes.com
I’ll say it again, for the umpteenth time, broadcast is so 20th century.
This edition of Star Trek will have half the audience in an online-only distribution
Interesting how broadcast is required for the initial “tease”
Historical Star Trek values. It took “Enterprise” 3 seasons to remember what those values were. But putting the show behind a pay wall certainly isn’t one of them.
As a long time Star Trek fan I question CBS’s decision to make this an All Access program, except for the premiere “tease.” However, the subscription formula has certainly worked for many other programs, with Game of Thrones probably the most notable. Most of the recent Emmy awards went to programs developed for a subscription format. I am not currently an All Access subscriber, but expect I will become one to watch the new series, which obviously is what CBS is hoping for. How many people will do that? Good question and not one to which we likely will get an answer from CBS. We’ll know it’s enough if CBS commits to a second season. Remember also that I believe Netflix will have the rights to distribute the program to the rest of the world, outside the U.S., so it’s not just the U.S. market that’s involved (also an attribute of much other programming developed for subscription channels, which are often done as co-productions). It will be interesting to see to what extent the new Star Trek series may have content that is not “suitable” for traditional broadcast television (e.g., language, sexual content, etc.). Start Trek has never needed or relied on such content for its success, but the subscription format does provide more “creative freedom” in that respect than traditional broadcast.
If broadcast is over why use for the most important initial debut? Maybe there is still life in broadcast….. Just saying.
Obviously, this is an attempt to drive more consumers to become CBS All Access subscribers which, reportedly, is near the 4 million mark now. 8 million subscribers by 2020 is the goal. OTA for the first episode, which also means it will be on Pay-TV, is the tease for a mass audience. Les Moonves stated that CBS All Access is more lucrative for the network than Pay-TV and this may be true since more and more consumers are cutting the Pay-TV cord. But evidence indicates that cord-cutters are blending OTA with internet, so no one can say that broadcast TV is no longer viable. Just the opposite. The fact that CBS chose to air the debut episode of the Star Trek reboot on broadcast TV proves it is still a vital component for the mass distribution of entertainment.