Paramount's Brad Grey Wants to Build a TV Studio

[BillJ]

Speaking of Star Trek, Paramount and Viacom should read the riot act to CBS Corporation/CBS Studios/CBS/The CW and make it clear that if they don't do something with the franchise, legal action and something else will be undertaken to force them to make a Star Trek TV show, or to get them to drop the franchise and let Paramount Pictures get it back in order to make a TV show by itself as Paramount TV.

One of the silliest things I've ever read on these boards. CBS owns Trek, Paramount has absolutely no say-so legal or otherwise over Trek. CBS could do a revival of TNG with Ed O'Neill as Picard and Matthew Perry as Riker and Paramount can't do jack-shit about it.

 

[hyzmarca]

Why would Netflix or CBS go with Star Trek if it a proven loser on tv?

With the exception of Enterprise and the original run of TOS, Trek had consistently good ratings. TNG did awesome in syndication, and DS9, too. Voyager was UPN's highest rated series.

Heck, even TOS reruns do pretty well in ratings.

Trek on first-run TV has two loses, three wins. TNG era Trek was popular enough to spawn three spinoffs, which is a record for anything not All in the Family.

 

[Christopher]

TNG era Trek was popular enough to spawn three spinoffs, which is a record for anything not All in the Family.

What about The Mary Tyler Moore Show? It spun off Rhoda, Phyllis, and Lou Grant. Then there's Happy Days -- itself a spinoff of sorts from Love, American Style -- which in turn spun off Laverne and Shirley, Joanie Loves Chachi, Blansky's Beauties (debatably), Mork and Mindy, and Out of the Blue (the last two in a backdoor-pilot kind of way). And of course there's Law and Order, which spun off L&O: Special Victims Unit, L&O: Criminal Intent, L&O: Trial by Jury, Conviction, L&O: Los Angeles, and arguably L&O: UK (though that's more a remake than a spinoff).

Maybe you could also make a case for Sanford and Son, which had two short-lived spinoffs (Grady and The Sanford Arms) and a short-lived revival/sequel (Sanford) -- and was in turn a remake of the British Steptoe and Son. And The Brady Bunch spawned the variety show The Brady Hour, the animated series The Brady Kids, and the revivals The Brady Brides and The Bradys. And Beverly Hills 90210 spun off Melrose Place which spun off Models, Inc. in turn, and was revived as 90210.

Ooh, and Knight Rider has had a backdoor-pilot revival movie (Knight Rider 2000), a loose reimagining pilot movie (Knight Rider 2010), and two sequel series (Team Knight Rider and Knight Rider), none of which are in continuity with each other.

In animation, you've got Batman: The Animated Series spinning off 5-6 other series and four movies in the DC Animated Universe, depending on whether you count Justice League and Justice League Unlimited as separate shows.

And of course in the UK you've got Doctor Who, which has spawned the failed K9 and Company pilot, the revival Doctor Who series, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures, as well as an extracanonical Australian spinoff series K9.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Speaking of Star Trek, Paramount and Viacom should read the riot act to CBS Corporation/CBS Studios/CBS/The CW and make it clear that if they don't do something with the franchise, legal action and something else will be undertaken to force them to make a Star Trek TV show, or to get them to drop the franchise and let Paramount Pictures get it back in order to make a TV show by itself as Paramount TV.

One of the silliest things I've ever read on these boards. CBS owns Trek, Paramount has absolutely no say-so legal or otherwise over Trek. CBS could do a revival of TNG with Ed O'Neill as Picard and Matthew Perry as Riker and Paramount can't do jack-shit about it.

Call it what you will, I'm just tired of CBS having control over Star Trek and not doing anything with it other than license it out to Paramount for movies, while limiting it's ability to be on TV and not letting a show be made. As a wise old saying goes, CBS should shit or get off off the pot. If Paramount potentially can/wants do a TV series with the franchise and is willing to do so as the cornerstone for a new TV division, then they should be able to do so without CBS holding on to it for dear life like some kind of cosmic ATM used only to get extra cash from licensing.

Why would Netflix or CBS go with Star Trek if it a proven loser on tv?

With the exception of Enterprise and the original run of TOS, Trek had consistently good ratings. TNG did awesome in syndication, and DS9, too. Voyager was UPN's highest rated series.

Heck, even TOS reruns do pretty well in ratings.

Trek on first-run TV has two loses, three wins. TNG era Trek was popular enough to spawn three spin-offs, which is a record for anything not All in the Family.

A better reason for there to have a new Star Trek show on TV again, I've not heard.

Also, Star Trek can be on network TV again; it just needs a network willing to air it fully and to resist the cynical siren call of profit in order to make it a success. After all, Hawaii Five-O's a success now on CBS, why not a new Star Trek show?

 

[Christopher]

Call it what you will, I'm just tired of CBS having control over Star Trek and not doing anything with it other than license it out to Paramount for movies, while limiting it's ability to be on TV and not letting a show be made.

We survived without a Trek series on the air between 1974 and 1987. It's only been eight years since the last series ended.

And if you want more Trek fiction than what's on the movie screen, there are active, ongoing novel and comic series out there.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'd rather be 'internally inept' than be tragically hip...

Why? "Tragically hip" would be an affectation (and is The Amazing Race actually "hip" in anyone's book?) "Internally inept" would be pretty pathetic.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

We survived without a Trek series on the air between 1974 and 1987. It's only been eight years since the last series ended.

And if you want more Trek fiction than what's on the movie screen, there are active, ongoing novel and comic series out there.

I know Chris, but I love TV shows a lot, and Star Trek works best on the small screen (great as the recent movie was.)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

With the exception of Enterprise and the original run of TOS, Trek had consistently good ratings.

More people watched TOS on NBC than have ever watched any version of Trek since.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

I'd rather be 'internally inept' than be tragically hip...

Why? "Tragically hip" would be an affectation (and is The Amazing Race actually "hip" in anyone's book?) "Internally inept" would be pretty pathetic.

These shitty reality TV shows are too popular for my tastes, and everybody wants ordinary scripted TV to be pushed to the side; hence why I said what I said.

As for the "Tragically hip" comment; if being hip means liking shitty TV shows like The Amazing Race that are big ratings successes, I'd rather be what Ms. Fern said than the former.

 

[hyzmarca]

With the exception of Enterprise and the original run of TOS, Trek had consistently good ratings.

More people watched TOS on NBC than have ever watched any version of Trek since.

No Trek series has aired on NBC since, either.

Really, decent ratings for NBC and awesome ratings for UPN aren't even in the same order of magnitude.

 

[C.E. Evans]

IIRC, TOS actually gained more viewers after it was cancelled. Once in second-run syndication, millions more were able to see the show because it was scheduled outside of primetime (depending on where you were, it was either on weekend afternoons or late nights on your local station).

 

[Christopher]

With the exception of Enterprise and the original run of TOS, Trek had consistently good ratings.

More people watched TOS on NBC than have ever watched any version of Trek since.

As I mentioned in another thread, raw numbers aren't enough; you need the context to understand their meaning. In the 1960s, there were typically only, maybe, 3-5 commercial television stations in any given market, so the total viewership was only divided 3-5 ways. These days, it's divided among hundreds of channels, so each show gets a much smaller slice of the pie. So even the highest-rated shows today are watched by far fewer people than a low-rated show in the '60s.

Compared to the other shows on the air at the time, TOS's ratings were mediocre. That's why it struggled for renewal every year, why the budget was cut each season, why the third season was bumped from a desirable time slot in favor of a show that had a better chance of doing well.

 

[Harvey]

IIRC, TOS actually gained more viewers after it was cancelled. Once in second-run syndication, millions more were able to see the show because it was scheduled outside of primetime (depending on where you were, it was either on weekend afternoons or late nights on your local station).

I see this claim a lot and often wonder if it is true. It certainly is true that the original series was a great success in syndication, but did it really have more viewers in re-runs than first-run? I don't doubt that, over time, more people saw the series after it was cancelled than had watched it on NBC, but was there really an audience at any one time that was bigger than the one delivered by a major network during the three network era?

 

[Christopher]

I see this claim a lot and often wonder if it is true. It certainly is true that the original series was a great success in syndication, but did it really have more viewers in re-runs than first-run? I don't doubt that, over time, more people saw the series after it was cancelled than had watched it on NBC, but was there really an audience at any one time that was bigger than the one delivered by a major network during the three network era?

I'm not sure it's even possible to make such a comparison, since in its network run it was run in a single weekly time slot, while in syndication it aired on different days and times in different cities. So you'd never have as many people watching any given showing, because that would only give you one city's worth of viewers, maybe a few if their schedules converged. I suppose you could compare the total number of viewers it had per week, but I'm not sure that would be a meaningful comparison given the different circumstances.

Anyway, I think it was more a cumulative thing, seeing the episodes over and over. Because the number of episodes was smaller than a typical syndication package, they got rerun more often, and that helped build more familiarity for the episodes and gave viewers more chances to discover them and get hooked. So the repetition itself was part of what created the loyal following.

 

[xortex]

I see this claim a lot and often wonder if it is true. It certainly is true that the original series was a great success in syndication, but did it really have more viewers in re-runs than first-run? I don't doubt that, over time, more people saw the series after it was cancelled than had watched it on NBC, but was there really an audience at any one time that was bigger than the one delivered by a major network during the three network era?

I'm not sure it's even possible to make such a comparison, since in its network run it was run in a single weekly time slot, while in syndication it aired on different days and times in different cities. So you'd never have as many people watching any given showing, because that would only give you one city's worth of viewers, maybe a few if their schedules converged. I suppose you could compare the total number of viewers it had per week, but I'm not sure that would be a meaningful comparison given the different circumstances.

Anyway, I think it was more a cumulative thing, seeing the episodes over and over. Because the number of episodes was smaller than a typical syndication package, they got rerun more often, and that helped build more familiarity for the episodes and gave viewers more chances to discover them and get hooked. So the repetition itself was part of what created the loyal following.

The quality of the show is what created a loyal following and the sequals.

And little suzie Neilson doesn't like or believe in aliens anymore now that she's older and likes GOT which has more available bare chested men who think they have more power than women.

 

[C.E. Evans]

IIRC, TOS actually gained more viewers after it was cancelled. Once in second-run syndication, millions more were able to see the show because it was scheduled outside of primetime (depending on where you were, it was either on weekend afternoons or late nights on your local station).

I see this claim a lot and often wonder if it is true. It certainly is true that the original series was a great success in syndication, but did it really have more viewers in re-runs than first-run? I don't doubt that, over time, more people saw the series after it was cancelled than had watched it on NBC, but was there really an audience at any one time that was bigger than the one delivered by a major network during the three network era?

TOS wasn't just syndicated in the US but in sixty other countries (where it was translated into other languages for some). It was really after the show's cancellation that it got its biggest following. It's impossible to say if it had a bigger audience at any one time after leaving NBC because it often aired at many different days and times in syndication, but definitely many more people saw there due to its greater presence in both US and international TV markets and its length of time there.

 

[xortex]

IIRC, TOS actually gained more viewers after it was cancelled. Once in second-run syndication, millions more were able to see the show because it was scheduled outside of primetime (depending on where you were, it was either on weekend afternoons or late nights on your local station).

I see this claim a lot and often wonder if it is true. It certainly is true that the original series was a great success in syndication, but did it really have more viewers in re-runs than first-run? I don't doubt that, over time, more people saw the series after it was cancelled than had watched it on NBC, but was there really an audience at any one time that was bigger than the one delivered by a major network during the three network era?

TOS wasn't just syndicated in the US but in sixty other countries (where it was translated into other languages for some). It was really after the show's cancellation that it got its biggest following. It's impossible to say if it had a bigger audience at any one time after leaving NBC because it often aired at many different days and times in syndication, but definitely many more people saw there due to its greater presence in both US and international TV markets and its length of time there.

Yea, but if it's quality is bad you can be sure it'll never be heard of again. It's hard to create a universe and the other shows just rode the coattails of GR's creation. Don't think that the spin off producers weren't thinking they were doing something much better than TOS, and were more clever than he was, etc.. 'We know you mean well, Gene, but..' Many have tried and died.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I see this claim a lot and often wonder if it is true. It certainly is true that the original series was a great success in syndication, but did it really have more viewers in re-runs than first-run? I don't doubt that, over time, more people saw the series after it was cancelled than had watched it on NBC, but was there really an audience at any one time that was bigger than the one delivered by a major network during the three network era?

TOS wasn't just syndicated in the US but in sixty other countries (where it was translated into other languages for some). It was really after the show's cancellation that it got its biggest following. It's impossible to say if it had a bigger audience at any one time after leaving NBC because it often aired at many different days and times in syndication, but definitely many more people saw there due to its greater presence in both US and international TV markets and its length of time there.

Yea, but if it's quality is bad you can be sure it'll never be heard of again. It's hard to create a universe and the other shows just rode the coattails of GR's creation. Don't think that the spin off producers weren't thinking they were doing something much better than TOS, and were more clever than he was, etc.. 'We know you mean well, Gene, but..' Many have tried and died.

That really doesn't have anything to do with the particular topic of TOS in syndication and is more your own opinion than anything else, but what subsequent Trek shows definitely did was expand the Star Trek Universe. DS9 and VOY were both spinoffs of TNG, with ENT as a prequel to everything.

 

[timelord1010]

Then CBS should do a Star Trek series. When was it the last time they had a sci-fi series on there network? Me, I don't know. I think it was Lost in Space. But we have google search to see with one was the last.

Of all the US broadcast networks, CBS is the one that's had the lowest percentage of SF/fantasy shows in its history. But currently it does feature one significant SF show, Person of Interest. Other genre shows on the network since 2000 include Wolf Lake, Jericho, Threshold, Ghost Whisperer, Moonlight, Eleventh Hour, Medium, and the short-lived Century City, while other notable CBS genre shows in decades past include the original Twilight Zone and its first revival, My Favorite Martian, The Wild Wild West, The Amazing Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, Logan's Run, Beauty and the Beast, Airwolf, The Flash, American Gothic, and Now and Again.

But if you mean to ask when CBS last had a show set in outer space, then as far as I can tell, Lost in Space was the last one of those, although 1985's Otherworld took place on an alien world which may have been either a distant planet or a parallel-universe version of Earth, and Logan's Run and Jericho were both in post-apocalyptic futures.

You forgot those live action sci-fi shows that used to be on Saturday mornings in the 1970's on CBS like Jason of Star Command which used to have James Doohan on it and Space Academy with Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith from Lost in Space).

 

[Christopher]

^Well, the implicit focus of the discussion was on live-action prime-time shows, since it was part of a discussion of the potential for a new Star Trek series. That's why I didn't mention Space Academy and Jason, two shows I was a big fan of from the start and now own on DVD.