Paramount and CBS teaming for TV production

[Temis the Vorta]

Paramount to co-produce Beverly Hills Cop for CBS now that Paramount is getting back into TV production.

This shows Paramount is thinking about exploiting their film franchises on TV, and if they had organizational difficulties with CBS, as has been long rumored, that's all in the past. The Viacom & Paramount honchos keep mentioning Star Trek as being a valuable property, in the memo at that link and here.

Anyway I thought it was interesting enough to merit a thread for posting news that might relate to the development of a new series. Let's see where it goes.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It's not quite like that. CBS and Viacom still haven't quite kissed and made up yet.

They're talking about Paramount partnering up with Sony for the Beverly Hills Cop TV pilot that may air on CBS. In this case, CBS will be dealing more with Sony than Paramount.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Well in projecting for Trek's next TV series if they see how the pilot process goes then they start talking in Autumn 2013 when either Beverly Hills Cop tv show is (greelit to series) airing or planning for other pilots for 2014 pilot season and longer 2015 pilot development - and how their experience goes they discuss putting Trek TV into development for a pilot script. Since paramount still had a 3rd Trek film to write and produce I can see them wanting a script treatment to see how it would look following the 3rd Trek film when they get that feature film script 1st draft. Since the Trek franchise is so much $ i can see then wanting to start development on a first treatment of TV or a few treatments to start moving in a direction when that 3rd Trek film is in pre-production.
Keep in mind if they stay on-schedule with the TNG releases on Blu-ray they will be done by Q2 2015. That would give them a chance to put a pilot promo on that 7th TNG season blu-ray release to reel in the Trekkies for Autumn 2015 or 2016. Could the TV landscape change so much by then that they would put a season of Trek into production without it airing until the end of shooting 13 episodes?
And if Trek wont be on CBS network anyway why does it have to air on linear TV starting in the Autumn? It could start on TV 7 months after The 3rd nuTrek film in February 2015 or 2016. They should want the Q4 sales as big as possible for Blu-ray release or that 3rd Trek film and no confusion with a new Trek series on TV starting 2 months after the cinema release.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Or CBS could very well tell Sony to f-off and take Paramount with them if they reject the BHC pilot.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, this is actually something.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Only if you're a fan of Beverly Hills Cop. For Star Trek fans, not really.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Only if you're a fan of Beverly Hills Cop. For Star Trek fans, not really.

Mmmm...I couldn't help notice the way Star Trek was included in both statements, despite not actually having anything to do with the topic at hand. Corporations never do stuff like that by accident.

Who knows if BHC will even go to series. I'm not interested in that series, I'm more interested in what it means for the Kremlinology of figuring out what these guys might be up to. It's not like we have anything else of substance to talk about.

Maybe there will be more clues when Abrams' movie comes out and becomes another big hit. That seems like the next link in the chain. Doing a series based on an old, inactive Paramount franchise seems a lot less appealing than a series based on one that is putting butts in movie theater seats right now. (Working against Star Trek, as always, is the budget and lack of an obvious place for it to live.)

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Only if you're a fan of Beverly Hills Cop. For Star Trek fans, not really.

Temis the Vorta points out the relevance to the Trek franchise as regards to a Trek TV series.
Think long term CE Evans not just 7 months from now. My post above details the development and strategizing for CBS and Paramount with the 3rd nuTrek film for long term marketing purposes. The next Trek TV series is not just a decision made in a month and jump into preproduction of a series and casting. The franchise is too big for that.
This thread highlights a news item and shows its relevance to a Trek TV series early planning for development along with strategizing for any tie in with the feature film coattails $$ marketing budget.
For CBS to have a pilot ready for the release of the 3rd nuTrek film's blu-ray release or at least a teaser trailer before completion of the pilot for that blu-ray is huge for marketing.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Only if you're a fan of Beverly Hills Cop. For Star Trek fans, not really.

Temis the Vorta points out the relevance to the Trek franchise as regards to a Trek TV series.

The thing is, there is no relevance to that. The only reason why Trek was mentioned at all in the article was because it's a tentpole release this summer for Paramount.

Otherwise, the article is more about a pilot episode that Sony is producing for possible air on CBS, with Paramount as a tagalong.

It's wishful thinking, but this does not equate to a new Trek series any time in the forseeable future.

 

[RAMA]

Only if you're a fan of Beverly Hills Cop. For Star Trek fans, not really.

Mmmm...I couldn't help notice the way Star Trek was included in both statements, despite not actually having anything to do with the topic at hand. Corporations never do stuff like that by accident.

Who knows if BHC will even go to series. I'm not interested in that series, I'm more interested in what it means for the Kremlinology of figuring out what these guys might be up to. It's not like we have anything else of substance to talk about.

Maybe there will be more clues when Abrams' movie comes out and becomes another big hit. That seems like the next link in the chain. Doing a series based on an old, inactive Paramount franchise seems a lot less appealing than a series based on one that is putting butts in movie theater seats right now. (Working against Star Trek, as always, is the budget and lack of an obvious place for it to live.)

Star Trek's budget on TV is likely to be less than a network show with "big names" and the budget they do have can go into the look, at least until the cast becomes popular.


In a world where wrestling is on Syfy(and syfy is called syfy!!), STNG is on BBC Amercia, and pseudoscience appears on nominally "scientific" channels such as Ancient Aliens, Ghost Hunters, etc, you talk about an OBVIOUS place for it to be???? Time to start thinking out of the box.

RAMA

 

[C.E. Evans]

Only if you're a fan of Beverly Hills Cop. For Star Trek fans, not really.

Mmmm...I couldn't help notice the way Star Trek was included in both statements, despite not actually having anything to do with the topic at hand. Corporations never do stuff like that by accident.

Who knows if BHC will even go to series. I'm not interested in that series, I'm more interested in what it means for the Kremlinology of figuring out what these guys might be up to. It's not like we have anything else of substance to talk about.

Maybe there will be more clues when Abrams' movie comes out and becomes another big hit. That seems like the next link in the chain. Doing a series based on an old, inactive Paramount franchise seems a lot less appealing than a series based on one that is putting butts in movie theater seats right now. (Working against Star Trek, as always, is the budget and lack of an obvious place for it to live.)

Star Trek's budget on TV is likely to be less than a network show with "big names" and the budget they do have can go into the look, at least until the cast becomes popular.

I doubt that. ENT's budget was generally on par with network shows with big names commanding high salaries, but it was pulling in fewer viewers.

In a world where wrestling is on Syfy(and syfy is called syfy!!), STNG is on BBC Amercia, and pseudoscience appears on nominally "scientific" channels such as Ancient Aliens, Ghost Hunters, etc, you talk about an OBVIOUS place for it to be???? Time to start thinking out of the box.

RAMA

That's just a case of cable networks evolving from their original small origins to something that can compete with the broadcast networks. They're all trying to get as many viewers as they can.

But to be fair, BBC America is based in New York and is really just an American network that carries BBC programming that tends to do well among most Americans.

 

[RAMA]

Mmmm...I couldn't help notice the way Star Trek was included in both statements, despite not actually having anything to do with the topic at hand. Corporations never do stuff like that by accident.

Who knows if BHC will even go to series. I'm not interested in that series, I'm more interested in what it means for the Kremlinology of figuring out what these guys might be up to. It's not like we have anything else of substance to talk about.

Maybe there will be more clues when Abrams' movie comes out and becomes another big hit. That seems like the next link in the chain. Doing a series based on an old, inactive Paramount franchise seems a lot less appealing than a series based on one that is putting butts in movie theater seats right now. (Working against Star Trek, as always, is the budget and lack of an obvious place for it to live.)

Star Trek's budget on TV is likely to be less than a network show with "big names" and the budget they do have can go into the look, at least until the cast becomes popular.

I doubt that. ENT's budget was generally on par with network shows with big names commanding high salaries, but it was pulling in fewer viewers.

In a world where wrestling is on Syfy(and syfy is called syfy!!), STNG is on BBC Amercia, and pseudoscience appears on nominally "scientific" channels such as Ancient Aliens, Ghost Hunters, etc, you talk about an OBVIOUS place for it to be???? Time to start thinking out of the box.

RAMA

That's just a case of cable networks evolving from their original small origins to something that can compete with the broadcast networks. They're all trying to get as many viewers as they can.

But to be fair, BBC America is based in New York and is really just an American network that carries BBC programming that tends to do well among most Americans.

Not true at all, SOME stars on network shows were making as much per episode as a single episode of Enterprise cost!! Others came very very close to it.

Edit: Just looked this up for modern TV, in this age of low ratings and dispersed viewership, the top stars are making about half the budget of Enterprise per episode:

http://www.tvguide.com/News/TVs-Highest-Paid-Stars-1051754.aspx

 

[Harvey]

Enterprise apparently cost between $1 and $2 million per episode. Certainly, a few television actors command that salary per episode -- but on programs with much higher ratings that bring in a lot more revenue than a ratings-loser. Most dramas produced from 2001-2005 cost...you guessed it, between $1 and $2 million per episode.

 

[RAMA]

Enterprise apparently cost between $1 and $2 million per episode. Certainly, a few television actors command that salary per episode -- but on programs with much higher ratings that bring in a lot more revenue than a ratings-loser. Most dramas produced from 2001-2005 cost...you guessed it, between $1 and $2 million per episode.

Exactly..though in the 90s and early 2000s a few actors made in the $2 million range and more (I believe Charlie Sheen was the last to make $2 mill per episode), comparable to Enterprise's over pattern budget. Today shows that cost that much always are aired to lower viewership, so a ST show could do well in such an atmosphere.

From what I recall, STNG: $1.3 million-1.5 million; DS9: $1.5 million; ST Voyager: $1.5 million-$1.7 million; ST Enterprise: 1.5-1.7 million. However all the producers claimed that the comparable budgets were better utilized as they learned more from production in later years, which accounts for the improvement in the visual quality.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Star Trek's budget on TV is likely to be less than a network show with "big names" and the budget they do have can go into the look, at least until the cast becomes popular.

I doubt that. ENT's budget was generally on par with network shows with big names commanding high salaries, but it was pulling in fewer viewers.

In a world where wrestling is on Syfy(and syfy is called syfy!!), STNG is on BBC Amercia, and pseudoscience appears on nominally "scientific" channels such as Ancient Aliens, Ghost Hunters, etc, you talk about an OBVIOUS place for it to be???? Time to start thinking out of the box.

RAMA

That's just a case of cable networks evolving from their original small origins to something that can compete with the broadcast networks. They're all trying to get as many viewers as they can.

But to be fair, BBC America is based in New York and is really just an American network that carries BBC programming that tends to do well among most Americans.

Not true at all, SOME stars on network shows were making as much per episode as a single episode of Enterprise cost!! Others came very very close to it.

Edit: Just looked this up for modern TV, in this age of low ratings and dispersed viewership, the top stars are making about half the budget of Enterprise per episode:

http://www.tvguide.com/News/TVs-Highest-Paid-Stars-1051754.aspx

Um, those are 2012 numbers, not the numbers from ten years ago when ENT was on. An episode of ENT back then cost (on average) around 2 million dollars each, the same price as many shows back then with bigger name stars. Sure, there are a few shows that cost more than ENT, but usually those shows were delivering very high ratings to justify their cost.

 

[RAMA]

I doubt that. ENT's budget was generally on par with network shows with big names commanding high salaries, but it was pulling in fewer viewers.
That's just a case of cable networks evolving from their original small origins to something that can compete with the broadcast networks. They're all trying to get as many viewers as they can.

But to be fair, BBC America is based in New York and is really just an American network that carries BBC programming that tends to do well among most Americans.

Not true at all, SOME stars on network shows were making as much per episode as a single episode of Enterprise cost!! Others came very very close to it.

Edit: Just looked this up for modern TV, in this age of low ratings and dispersed viewership, the top stars are making about half the budget of Enterprise per episode:

http://www.tvguide.com/News/TVs-Highest-Paid-Stars-1051754.aspx

Um, those are 2012 numbers, not the numbers from ten years ago when ENT was on. An episode of ENT back then cost (on average) around 2 million dollars each, the same price as many shows back then with bigger name stars. Sure, there are a few shows that cost more than ENT, but usually those shows were delivering very high ratings to justify their cost.

Yes, I stated that...TODAY they make LESS because of the lower demand for network TV. More actors made $500,000+(Some $850,000-1 million+) in the last few decades than they make now. Even so, there are some who make about half of what ENT cost per episode. In fact the 4th season of ENT actually avged a budget of about $850,000 per episode, slightly more than Ashton Kutcher makes per ep.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I doubt that. ENT's budget was generally on par with network shows with big names commanding high salaries, but it was pulling in fewer viewers.
That's just a case of cable networks evolving from their original small origins to something that can compete with the broadcast networks. They're all trying to get as many viewers as they can.

But to be fair, BBC America is based in New York and is really just an American network that carries BBC programming that tends to do well among most Americans.

Not true at all, SOME stars on network shows were making as much per episode as a single episode of Enterprise cost!! Others came very very close to it.

Edit: Just looked this up for modern TV, in this age of low ratings and dispersed viewership, the top stars are making about half the budget of Enterprise per episode:

http://www.tvguide.com/News/TVs-Highest-Paid-Stars-1051754.aspx

Um, those are 2012 numbers, not the numbers from ten years ago when ENT was on. An episode of ENT back then cost (on average) around 2 million dollars each, the same price as many shows back then with bigger name stars. Sure, there are a few shows that cost more than ENT, but usually those shows were delivering very high ratings to justify their cost.

Yes, I stated that...TODAY they make LESS because of the lower demand for network TV. More actors made $500,000+(Some $850,000-1 million+) in the last few decades than they make now. Even so, there are some who make about half of what ENT cost per episode. In fact the 4th season of ENT actually avged a budget of about $850,000 per episode, slightly more than Ashton Kutcher makes per ep.

In other words, ENT was on par with network shows that had bigger name stars.

 

[Christopher]

Star Trek's budget on TV is likely to be less than a network show with "big names" and the budget they do have can go into the look, at least until the cast becomes popular.

Actually if a show has "big names," then a higher percentage of its budget will go to cast salaries and that means less of it will go into production values. So maybe that's not the best comparison to make.

TNG was definitely a big-budget series compared to its contemporaries. Its cast wasn't very well-known at the beginning; British audiences were very familiar with Patrick Stewart, but to American audiences the most famous cast member was LeVar Burton. But because the Trek movies were performing so well at the box office and bringing Paramount so much profit, combined with the ongoing success of TOS reruns in syndication and home video, the studio saw ST as its most profitable property and thus was willing to invest top dollar in the new series, wanting it to be as prestigious as possible.

The first Abrams movie did quite well at the box office. If the next two perform similarly, that might create the same incentive for Paramount and CBS to invest in a big-budget Trek TV series.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Only if you're a fan of Beverly Hills Cop. For Star Trek fans, not really.

Yeah...it has more bearing on the actual possibilities for the "future of Trek" on television than anything that's been posted in this forum since Enterprise was canceled. So I guess we'll go ahead and discuss it.

 

[RAMA]

Um, those are 2012 numbers, not the numbers from ten years ago when ENT was on. An episode of ENT back then cost (on average) around 2 million dollars each, the same price as many shows back then with bigger name stars. Sure, there are a few shows that cost more than ENT, but usually those shows were delivering very high ratings to justify their cost.

Yes, I stated that...TODAY they make LESS because of the lower demand for network TV. More actors made $500,000+(Some $850,000-1 million+) in the last few decades than they make now. Even so, there are some who make about half of what ENT cost per episode. In fact the 4th season of ENT actually avged a budget of about $850,000 per episode, slightly more than Ashton Kutcher makes per ep.

In other words, ENT was on par with network shows that had bigger name stars.

Let me summarize:

Shows in ENT's time with big name stars had much larger budgets because they paid so much to the big name stars. Consequently they still had to pay for the rest of the show on top of those salaries, god forbid there was more than one actor making more than 500,000. An example might be Friends, where the 6 cast members EACH made $1 million per HALF HOUR episode for the final season (omg, that's 6 million per ep before you pay for anything else!). Charlie Sheen recently was making $2 million per episode. Several actors still make $500,000 an episode DESPITE the decreased ratings...today a 10 is good. STNG avged a 12-13 in it's final seasons by comparison.

Yes, the shows had bigger ratings and so on than Enterprise but ST probably had better syndication deals (better ad revenue) and ENT probably made more in it's UPN network deal as well. Still, it has to be known shows like ENT cost more, but to produce, not to pay out to big names, so the money actually goes INTO the production of the show...more bang for the buck.

Today, with lower ratings but some actors still making large salaries, I think you can make a case for a sci fi show like ST, on a niche network or syndication-type deal or even streaming outlet doing well enough to warrant a good budget....knowing you don't need to score a 20 rating to be popular. A streaming series might get away with a budget of $1 million, and with 12 episodes, would cost less than the 25 episode seasons of past Trek. H+ the excellent, ward winning webseries by Bryan Singer cost $2 million to produce for 255 min, featuring FX, international locations, etc. Drone, another praised webseries cost a fraction of that and looks better than almost any studio produced network series.

A model:

http://scifipulse.net/2013/01/indienet-and-beyond-top-ten-web-series-of-2012/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qOb_S_Q_iI

http://singularityhub.com/2012/09/0...webseries-about-autonomous-humanoid-soldiers/

Star Trek's budget on TV is likely to be less than a network show with "big names" and the budget they do have can go into the look, at least until the cast becomes popular.

Actually if a show has "big names," then a higher percentage of its budget will go to cast salaries and that means less of it will go into production values. So maybe that's not the best comparison to make.

TNG was definitely a big-budget series compared to its contemporaries. Its cast wasn't very well-known at the beginning; British audiences were very familiar with Patrick Stewart, but to American audiences the most famous cast member was LeVar Burton. But because the Trek movies were performing so well at the box office and bringing Paramount so much profit, combined with the ongoing success of TOS reruns in syndication and home video, the studio saw ST as its most profitable property and thus was willing to invest top dollar in the new series, wanting it to be as prestigious as possible.

The first Abrams movie did quite well at the box office. If the next two perform similarly, that might create the same incentive for Paramount and CBS to invest in a big-budget Trek TV series.

I think you misunderstood me, see the post above. Hopefully I was clearer.