Which also means that CBS doesn't have to make a TV series at all.
Again, kind of the point.
Making a show on the wane is simply too counter-productive, too risky, too likely to not be cost effective. You don't do it. Period.
The thing about Star Trek is that it is no longer one single franchise. It's two--the film and TV aspects are now run separately by separate owners. While both can benefit from each other, ultimately, CBS is not beholden to the performance of the Paramount-produced films (they get paid regardless if the movies sink or swim). CBS' primary concern are the TV shows, and there's no real mandate or time table in place for anything on that front. They can easily launch a new Trek series to revitalize Trek--as a TV property--
regardless of what the movies do.
One might, however, make as series while a property is highly popular in another medium. Don'tcha think?
No, not necessarily always. It depends totally on the mindset of whoever is producing the series. In the case of CBS, the success of Star Trek XI (or any future Trek film) can be considered almost irrelevant to
their future plans with Trek. They may take a position of not doing
anything with Trek on the TV front at all, even if the next Trek movies break all sorts of box office records.
With regards to CBS fearing over saturation: The jury's still out on the over-saturation issue, as many folks don't believe that there was ever too much Trek on television, but that too much of the Trek that was available was simply of substandard quality, sheperded by guys who were burned out.
Regardless of one's personal views of the indivudal quality of the Trek shows, the bottom line is that CBS is still currently sitting on five Trek shows as we speak. Every single one of them is still available for syndication--either by individual stations or nationwide cable networks. With TNG reruns now in fairly high rotation these days, the last thing CBS may be interested in right now is yet another Trek series.
Also, keep in mind that CBS pretty much thrives on over-saturation, what with 3 CSI series, 2 NCIS series, and a 2nd Criminal Minds series on the way. Running a Trek TV series while its sister company ran a film series would barely register as too much of a single brand name.
The real difference there, of course, is that
those shows bring in much higher ratings than Trek shows do. If Trek brought in the kind of numbers those shows did (and especially with the same kind of budget), then CBS head honcho Les Moonves would likely have a different opinion about the necessity for another Trek series.
