What channel should a new Trek TV series be on?

Well, let's remember Hodgkin's law of parallel planetary development. Star Trek had it's share of earth based episodes filmed on the studio back lot.

 

Somehow I don't think that stuff would come off as well today. The parallel Earths are probably one of the major things people think of when they think of Trek being "cheesy."

I'd like to see 'em get their butts out to the desert more often to film. We need at least one return to Vasquez Rocks. DS9 made some good use of Joshua Tree National Park. If they have the money to get out to Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, there are even better/less overexposed "alien" backdrops waiting.

 

CBC. YEAH!!!

 

A CBS owned channel would be the most likely outlet. Why? No one else to share the revenue with. Direct syndication, ala the TNG model would be 2nd most likely outcome. A 3rd party cable channel is least likely, and a premium channel (as previously posted) is not a good fit for Star Trek and will not happen.

A new series is a few years off from now. Development takes years for a high concept, big budget show. Plus, it will still be viewed as a risk given that the last series (right or wrong) was canceled. Risk won't be tolerated until advertising revenue picks back up after the current recession. At the earliest, a TV show will first air between Reboot Movie 2 & 3 (ST12 & 13). Probably after 3, definitely if there's legal issues outlined along the lines of what I describe below..

You're not naive, but ST has more convoluted licensing than most properties. CBS owns the TV & media rights to ST, so TV series (past and future), books, toys/collectables, and video games. Paramount owns film rights and distribution rights, or past/new movies and DVD sales.

What's interesting, is that CBS may not automatically have the rights to base a new TV series off of Paramount's movie. They might have to pay Paramount to do so. Trek isn't unified under one entity like it was in the Paramount->Viacom days. It's split, and when things split, lawyers get involved and it all gets complicated. We aren't privy to the contracts, and there's a chance things could get dirty. It may be legally easier (and one less royalty to pay) for a show to be "Prime Universe" based. All these things have huge impacts on the subject and viability of a TV show.

 

There are some positive aspects for Star Trek if they eventually went to show time, some examples are, no commercials, decent budget with more money available through the anticipated profit gained from episodes available "On Demand" (cable only sadly) with new ones available a week before broadcast airing on the network this would probable increase the available budget for any new Trek show, and they will definitely have more freedom with the scripts.

Some thought I had for Trek is that on Showtime it can tell better stories because Trek needs to be less two-dimensional in its depiction of characters, it needs interpersonal conflicts of some kind to be more realistic reflecting human nature like in Star Trek XI, it also needs that same classic Trek humor we saw in XI; when Trek takes itself too seriously it gets insulting to watch when its messages become too obvious and doesn't allow the viewer to do his or her own thinking about the show (besides aren't Trekkies smarter than the average viewer). Also they would have the freedom to take the characters and let them change and/or grow making them much more three-dimensional and fascinating to watch, that make for stories that are more enjoyable and memorable.

 

BrownShatner also mentioned

GhostFaceSaint it's where you bring up the actual storytelling that I'm losing you

Trek TV has always explored the characters with extensive character development over the seasons with recently ENT going that way a lot for the first 2 seasons.
Star Trek XI just cannot be compared in the storytelling way to Trek on TV. Star Trek XI is an action movie! A series 6 Trek is a different animal.
My starting this thread brings up a number of things such as who the actual audiences are of these 5 TV channels. Us Trek fans obviously think the audience of Spike is not the Trek audience.

Temis the Friendly Ghost hits the nail on the head with the Star Trek franchise

For the poll I chose CW network.
Leslie Moonves President & CEO CBS Entertainment may control CBS , Showtime, & CW but would probably program it on the CW as it's less of a 'risk' on his beloved CBS network tv and CW has generally lower ratings anyway.

If you care to write a letter to him. Here is the business info:
Mr. Leslie Moonves
President & CEO
CBS Entertainment
51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
Phone: (212) 975-2824
Fax: (212) 975-6766
Email: audsvcs@cbs.com
according to a 2006 blogpost.

 

Not all Trek over the years has been equal, my friends who don't like Trek have pointed to "Enterprise" as an example of why they don't like Trek, and I think the criticism is fair and legit. Read some of the posts for bad "Enterprise" episodes reviews at The Agonizer and you'll see where even alot of Trekkers/Trekkies are coming from in their dislike for "Enterprise". Voyager also had some problems. Not all Trek has been character based their are a lot of preachy episodes, and tech based episodes, and the tech based ones were worse than the preaching, Technology makes for good short stories but boring Trek.

 

They'd have no motive to do anything unless they were capitalizing on Paramount's success, which means if they have to pay, it's a necessary expense.

Look at it the other way. Why would CBS give a flip about making a Star Trek series? They are the most successful network by keeping very disciplined about serving their geriatric audience with very standard cop/doctor/lawyer shows. Their attempts to branch out, such as Moonlight and Jericho, have been failures.

Star Trek is not going to be very attractive to them, and if it weren't for Trek XI's stunning success, it would be totally unattractive to them. My hope is that somewhere in the bowels of CBS, somebody is getting bored at the very thought of developing yet another friggen CSI spinoff and is willing to take a risk on Star Trek. That's the only way I see a TV series happening at all.

The Prime Universe may make the lawyers happy but the bean counters will veto it. What's the point of doing anything if you aren't capitalizing on the success of Trek XI? How are you going to successfully argue that such a series would be any more successful than ENT was? Why should CBS waste time on a series of the sort that flopped on piddly little UPN when they could spend their time on yet another friggen CSI spinoff that's guaranteed 20 million viewers?

Neither Showtime nor HBO would touch Star Trek. Their brand strategy is to justify charging viewers for subscriptions by offering stuff you couldn't get on free TV. Since Star Trek has already been on free TV, you can't make that argument successfully - people associate it with NBC et al, so why pay for it? HBO is developing sci fi shows, but they are more in line with their anti-mainstream-TV strategy.

 

The CW



S.

 

i just watched "For the Record" on Bloomberg TV and it was a 30 minute interview with Leslie Moonves the CEO of CBS Network.
The host asked him in the last 5 minutes about other shows and mentioned "Star Trek" series and cancelling it and Moonves said "That was six years ago".
The host said it was a big decision to cancel it and Moonves said without missing a beat,
"It wasn't that big a decision when you saw the ratings."

That CEO is a total businessman and only cares about the ratings that bring in advertising revenue.
CBS is not the home for Star Trek with him as CEO as others have said many times.

 

GhostFaceSaint wrote

I decided to continue this here as I felt it was a better place.

GhostFaceSaint Was this a CBS Television Studios producer? A Paramount pictures producer? what producer? Source? URL link?

 

If there were any other significant sources of revenue for a network, he'd probably care about those, too. But as of now, the new revenue streams like ad-supported or paid downloads, are too trivial a part of the mix for him to take notice of. He's just doing his job, and any other network head would say the same thing he did.

It is true, however, that CBS is in such a safe and secure place that experimenting with Star Trek is less attractive than it might be, say, for NBC. But NBC being in dire straights might make it less likely to experiment either - can't take the risk.

It shouldn't air on CBS. That doesn't mean it can't be a good business proposition for CBS to make, and license to air elsewhere, where it's a better fit. But it doesn't sound like Moonvies is interested in either.

 

I don't remember his name, he is a former Trek producer who did two interviews that were posted on the internet and has said he would like to do a new Trek show if it continues to be succefull in the box office. I will try and track down those interviews this afternoon (Mountain Time US), and post them here for you to read and discuss.
Later

 

Ok I found one of the interview's already, his name by the way is Bryan Fuller, (you remember him right?) and here is the short interview: TV Squad: Is there Hope For A New Star Trek TV Show.

That was the easy one to find I will try and track down his other but I am not sure where it is. Wish me luck!

 

Hey I found the other interview (alright!), here it is:

The full interview can be read here

 

Thanks GhostFaceSaint I remember hearing about former Star Trek: VOY producer Bryan Fuller mentioning this earlier this year.
He's just a creative though and not a greenlighter-type.
Well thanks for the relevant thought and mentioning him.
TrekBBS will be full of threads on Future of Trek with ideas of what fans want for the next 2 years until we hear what is really in the works and who is on board.

 

Or CBS could launch new scifi-type channel of their own? It would be great idea if they did that.

 

From what they own not including College Sports Network:
* CBS
* The CW Television Network
* Showtime Networks
o Showtime
o The Movie Channel
o FLIX
o SET Pay-Per-View (sporting and entertainment events)
Maybe CBS will take over another channel [buy] and re-brand it. The TV channel market is so saturated now that I can't see them starting a new channel under CBS ownership for the Sci-fi target market.

Viacom & Paramount co-own a brand new premium TV network Epix which I started a thread about already in Future of Trek which debuts on October 30.
Epix is a joint venture among Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate

 

CBS is missing the general interest basic cable channel. Think USA, TNT, or FX. If CBS were ever to decide to launch an equivalent channel Star Trek may be a good fit. I could even see Star Trek being a launch program like VOY was with UPN. This assumes Star Trek could be done on a basic cable budget and CBS has any interest in even trying.

 

Well if the movies that come out in the next few years are collectively successful it would demonstrate that there is a market for a future 'Trek TV show on a new network, but only time will tell.