I suppose that it's only implicit in my original question, but ultimately I'm wondering about the motivation behind a lot of the creative decisions going on, what the CBS strategy is. At least from the outside, and from my point of view, a lot of it appears to be "Throw stuff against a wall and see what sticks," along with a DC Comics-like attitude of "We can't figure out what they want, so let's just give them some of everything we can think of." The loss leader explanation seems to be the one that truly fits the best.
I think there's a divided fandom. And CBS has been smart enough to take advantage of it. You have: 1. Fans of Discovery. 2. Fans who wanted to go passed Nemesis. That's how Picard came into the picture. 3. Fans who want to stick to what reminds them of TOS, and nothing else. That's how we got Strange New Worlds. So, these three series primarily appeal to: 1. "We want a new Star Trek series!" (DSC) 2. "We want the 24th Century back!" (PIC) 3. "No bloody A, B, C, or D!" (SNW) DSC started in the 23rd Century, presumably, because if it was too unfamiliar, you'd have too many people thinking "What's this?" And we were just rolling off the Abrams Movies. When they wanted to launch the first new Star Trek series in 12 years, they probably wanted to get as far away from the Berman Era as possible, where they never used the 23rd Century as the main setting. I think having Strange New Worlds around to cover the 23rd Century gave Discovery the room to blast off into the 32nd Century. They're going into this unfamiliar time but now we'll have a crew that we're familiar with. They'll find out about this new century the same time we'll be. So it won't be as disorienting as it would've been if Discovery had started there in the first place. So now Star Trek has a "TOS" Show (SNW), a "TNG" Show (PIC), and a "Future" Show (DSC). One where the Federation is exactly like we expect it to be. One where it's changed a little but at least it's still recognizable. And one where everything's completely unrecognizable. CBS All Access wants some type of Star Trek series on the air 12 months a year. And when they get there, they don't want all the series to be the same. So keeping them different enough from each other stops them all from feeling the same and slows down the burnout. These other Star Trek series they want to do sound different enough so that they won't be covering the same ground either. I don't think Starfleet Academy and Section 31 will be covering the same ground. And Short Treks allows them to be more experimental and try things that wouldn't fit anywhere else. I think they've stopped seeing Star Trek as a series and now see it as a genre. And someone who likes all this stuff will keep their subscription all year round. Someone who doesn't like all the new Star Trek series, but enough of them, will probably just be too lazy to cancel their subscription.
And Lower Decks will be done by a TNG fan who will likely ape the show with a humorous twist, a la The Orville.
Discovery also airs on a broadcast Canadian network (Space TV?) and gets revenue from the commercial advertising there. I think they were pretty smart how they hedged things for DSC. Between airing in Canada, having the Netflix funding for non-US broadcasts, and then driving CBSAA subscriptions in the US...I'm sure they aren't taking a bath on it.
Not very well. Streaming platforms are loath to give out figures, however, Discovery did make the UK top 10 in Netflix viewership before. We have 3 examples of Discovery ratings: 1. The pilot, which aired 1 hour on CBS proper. It garnered 15 million viewers in the +7 ratings. 2. Canada cable ratings. DSC set records. Picard broke them 3. UK 1st season reruns. Discovery did very well early on then evened out later on. Parrot ratings do not directly translate to viewers, but CBSAA has about 7 million subscribers and a greater number of revolving transient subscribers. I'd say the total viewership of Picard over a month could have been as high as 10 million, but more likely in the 6 or 7 million range. Millions more pirated it. RAMA
I just did a count, and I've heard of 11 of them. The only ones I've actually seen are bits and pieces of NCIS because my father was watching it before I moved out (and still watches it, as far as I know) and a brief snippet of Survivor just to see what the big deal was. I made it to 30 seconds.
Survivor fared better with me than Pokemon. In 1999 someone told me, because I'm also an anime fan, "You should watch Pokemon!" I put it on, then changed the channel after five seconds. But here we are 20+ years later, and it's still going. So there must be something to it.
About 30 years ago I was in a game store and I saw a box labeled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. "Self" I said to myself, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Never go anywhere." The rest is history :-)