A year ago, I would have said that the chances of a Star Trek: Seven of Nine/Star Trek: Legacy/Star Trek: Enterprise-G (whatever you want to call it) spinoff would have been very high. Terry Matalas has proven he can deliver a very popular show that is broadly satisfying even to people like me who were more skeptical, and he clearly laid the groundwork for a spinoff starring Seven of Nine to carry the baton into the 25th Century. And it seemed like having this spinoff ready would enable Paramount+ to continue its goal of releasing new Star Trek almost every week of the year.
But, in the past year, streamers have started to come under much heavier external economic pressure than they did previously. All the major studio streamers have been operating at a loss for a while as part of a strategy to build up a large enough back catalog to entice subscribers to stay subscribed all year round; it was the plan to operate at a loss for a few years. But they've all been around a few years now, and unless I'm mistaken the single-studio streamers are mostly not turning a profit yet, and Wall Street is starting to put much more pressure on their studios to get the streamers to turn a profit. That means cutting costs.
We already know that Paramount+ is committed to keeping Strange New Worlds in production at least through season three. We know they're ending Discovery after season five and we know they've ordered a Starfleet Academy spinoff from Discovery. I speculate that this Starfleet Academy show will be cheaper to produce than Discovery or Strange New Worlds, because it can probably do a lot more Earth-based sets that don't need to be as expensive as starship sets, and because it can probably use the existing 32nd-Century set infrastructure from Discovery (like the Federation Headquarters sets), in much the same way that The Next Generation saved money by redressing sets originally built for the TOS films.
Ultimately, I think (and I could be wrong about this) that the question is whether Paramount+ will be able to turn itself around and earn a profit, and that part of that question is whether the money saved by producing Starfleet Academy will enable them to afford to produce Legacy alongside Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy. If nothing else, the fact that they've already built quite a few sets for the Enterprise-G gives them some affordability advantages. But it's not clear to me yet whether or not Paramount+ will be able to afford to continue to produce three very expensive-looking sci-fi action shows simultaneously.
Alternately, maybe they could but we'd see a major reduction in all three shows' budgets? Beats me. Modern TVs have such high resolution that I wonder if it's even possible to do a lower-budget show that looks decent anymore.
