STNG directly launched the franchise. TOS indirectly.
Trek Returning to TV in 2017!
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STNG directly launched the franchise. TOS indirectly.
They did know who was watching the show. The distinction is that didn't carry as much weight as sheer numbers in those days.
Demographics did indeed exist back in the 1960s. Neilsen ratings started in radio in the 1920s and expanded into television in the 1950s. And that includes demographics.
The moment when more than one onscreen production came into existence the franchise was born. Not indirectly, but directlly. When TAS aired it built on TOS before it. Along with that more books and tie-in items were produced in adition to what had come before. And when the films began particularly after they chose to follow up TMP the franchise was definitely cemented.
TNG, like TAS and the films, built on what already existed. No question TNG helped grow the franchise, but it already existed nonetheless.
Yeah, I think once you've generated a TV series, a Saturday morning cartoon, a successful movie series, fan clubs, conventions, comic books, novels, and mega amounts of merchandise, a franchise can be said to have been launched. 
With all due respect to TNG, STAR TREK was a thing long before "Encounter at Farpoint" aired. There were books being published on "the STAR TREK phenomenon" as far back as the mid-seventies at least, and I think I attended my first TREK convention around 1975. Heck, I remember attending a lecture on STAR TREK fan fiction at a feminist bookstore back in the summer of '84 . . . .
In other words, none of this started with TNG.
With all due respect to TNG, STAR TREK was a thing long before "Encounter at Farpoint" aired. There were books being published on "the STAR TREK phenomenon" as far back as the mid-seventies at least, and I think I attended my first TREK convention around 1975. Heck, I remember attending a lecture on STAR TREK fan fiction at a feminist bookstore back in the summer of '84 . . . .
In other words, none of this started with TNG.
Did you know the Grey Area coffee shop in Amsterdam uses the TOS font for their signage?
http://www.greyarea.nl/
According to what I've seen, any demographic data was rudimentary, and didn't supply much useful data till the 1970s. They didn't use that information for Star Trek, that much we know.
The STNG spinoffs were spinned off from that show, not TOS. Certainly TOS started Star Trek, and continued to the movies, but STNG was more directly influential to the "prime universe" in 3 other shows.
Ironically the most TOS-like star Trek since TOS is the JJ movies. You could say these most successful of trek movies are directly based off of TOS.
RAMA
Largely, I feel this way too.
I certainly won't be opposed if the show takes place in the prime timeline, but I would like to see more of the new timeline.
The bottom line of either time line is: Give us good stories, and give everyone a reason to love Trek again.
(passes the peace pipe around.... Terek Nor?
Takes a hit
Cool pic!
"Bonk. Bonk on the Head."
"You have to learn why things work on a starship."
Your argument doesn't hold any water.
Look at the opening credits of each successive series. They all say "based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry." They don't say "based on Star Trek - The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry."
The Star Trek franchise existed solidly before TNG came along. TNG may be your favourite series, but that doesn't make it the father of all that came to exist.
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I don't get this obsession in that podcast and in others I've heard with a return to the Prime Universe. ("It's got to be Prime," to quote Dr. Trek.)
It's deader than a redshirt, Jim. Trekkies need to live long and prosper with that fact. A new show set in a universe with that much baggage — i.e. canon — is a suicide decision.
Sure to make the CBS All Access to work, CBS needs to attract the fanbase, but they don't have to pander to it. They likely want to draw in the general audience that loved the last two movies. Logically, the produces will look to replicate the success of the last two movies in a episodic series.
For STAR TREK to survive into the future, it needs to build a new fanbase, not continually feed an aging one.
What gets me is that we always hear how STAR TREK is about moving forward, but when someone comes along with a new take (TNG, '09, ItD) everyone panics at the disco and wants a return to the old stuff.
Why make it Star Trek then? The logical extension of your logic is that any set rule or concept is baggage. Therefore anything that makes it star trek is something that can be changed. I just don't understand how canon, or story, can be considered baggage. Having to work within the rules requires greater creativity and often is a good way of producing good writing, since it requires more that a cursory idea.
Except that Next Generation showed that you did not have to do Shatner, Nimoy, and some lesser folks speaking on behalf of humanity's compassion before glowing spotlights for people to like Star Trek. They could extract some fundamentals and do other stuff. The setting could be the star.
Or to consider: they did not go in to Voyager thinking, ``hey, Star Trek was a great show in the 60s. Let's do another!'' They were thinking, ``hey, we made a bundle of money on Next Generation as recently as April! Let's do another!''
And each new version showed you didn't need the characters immediately preceding it.
It doesn't change the FACT the Trek franchise existed before TNG. All else followed on what was established before.
And if TNG was so incredible and so recognized then why wasn't it the one rebooted?
Keeping up with explosions and bangs to count, at the beginning of the STID, on earth, there is a terrorist explosion. Then another separate one, maybe 15 minutes later. Back to back.
And at the ending of the movie, the starship Vengeance crashes into San Francisco. So earth gets a pounding in this movie alone.
So, if they up the stakes as far danger and explosions in the next movie, would it "feel" more boring next time?
Plus Nu Trek real fond of having characters plunging thousands of feet to the ground or sea or something before being saved. I count at least 3 times in both movies.
But still, on the other hand, Trek Nemesis had the long conversation between Picard and Shinzon about 'gazing at the stars' 'and 'all I have are my feelings' thing which must have been to the fans, really boring.
So you've got these two extremes going.
Allcaps is not proof, it's shouting. Arguments are not made more legitimate the louder they get.
TOS was a singular production. TAS was a tie in of that production that barely anyone payed any attention to, even the studio itself given it took ST09 to legitimise any of it (35 years later, I'm not even 35 yet).
TNG was the beginning of Paramount turning Star Trek into a larger franchise that included *anything* other than a cash-in TOS derivative continuing to make money off one production in particular.
It can be argued there are only three main expressions of classic Trek with that though, TOS et al, TNG era and Enterprise era.
Even so, 1987 and the introduction of anything that did not heavily rely on the 1966-74 adventures to even exist, was the first step in making a larger franchise.
Until then, it was a fanbase of rather...strange individuals dragging out the success of a 60's series.
I don't think TNG would have gottten the greenlight without the success of TOS as films and a fandom. The franchise starts with TOS. At best TNG started a long run of Trek on TV, yet failed on the big screen. And the franchise is more than TV shows. It's possible that the new TV series will be based on TNG , which was the medium that it thrived in.
Exactly, the fandom practically dragged it out of the studio, not the best incentive and for the first two years, a pretty good indication of why.
Until someone gave Roddenberry the boot for the most part and started writing something more unique.
It's a point of emphasis. Wishing TNG to be the "father of all that follows" doesn't make it a fact.
The franchise already existed. TNG built on and grew it, but did not create it.
STAR TREK isn't about the canon. Canon isn't story. It never has been.
What makes STAR TREK, STAR TREK is an action-adventure story with compelling characters with the occasional exploration of social conscious themes. That's STAR TREK, not the 50 years of canon.
And that core is the constraint that requires creativity. Not the tech specs or some minutia.
STAR TREK needs to return to that core. Not canon. Or the Prime Universe.
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