On a niche platform. I recently encountered someone who "self-identified" as a Star Trek fan who was not only unaware that they had been making new Star Trek for the last 10 years, but had never even heard of "Paramount Plus".
You might want to check the franchise value, because it's a lot more complex then something like Transformers.
The data doesn't show that at all. The breakdown is 38% Boomer, 39% Gen X, 40% Millennial, and 33% Gen Z. So other than a drop off among the youngest adults, Trek is pretty stable in terms of the self-identified fandom.
Of course, figures are more age skewed when you look at who's actually seen an episode of any Trek show. 80% of Boomers have seen TOS, only 25% of Gen Z. But it's important to note that for Kurzman Trek, despite the smaller audience, they skew younger. Only Picard skewed Boomer/Gen X (for obvious reasons), with SNW having basically equal levels of fandom across all generations other than Z, and Discovery, Lower Decks, and Prodigy all skewing millennial.
That said, the overall diminution of Trek's fanbase over time is clear here. Discovery reached 11% of adults, which is tied with Enterprise (which is still way behind the other Berman Trek series, which are in turn behind TOS). Then Picard was a bit lower at 9%. Lower Decks, SNW, and Prodigy only reached 4%. So you can see why they pulled the plug, as each show was hitting a smaller and smaller proportion of the original Trek audience.
I'm not sure this is unique to Star Trek (my understanding is the MCU and Star Wars suffered the same fates in modern streaming, with diminishing returns with each new outing), but to premier yet another show which gets a fraction of the audience of the shows preceding it just doesn't work.
Interestingly, we see the same general trend with movies. The Kelvinverse hasn't been seen by more than 13%-14% of people, which is way less than either the TOS or TNG movies. This might've been masked a bit when looking at general box office, as they were viewed as financial successes, but this didn't take into account how theatres track total box office, but not tickets sold.
I agree with this broadly, though I'd give the caveat here that these totals are not inflation adjusted, and include things like merch. Obviously something like Batman and Transformers will beat the pants of Star Trek, because 8-year-olds aren't playing with Picard action figures.
That said, just because Paramount was unable to figure out how to monetize Star Trek for the many casual fans who didn't care enough about Star Trek to check it out on Paramount Plus, that doesn't mean that it's impossible - and it doesn't mean that Skydance won't try and figure out if it can right the ship here. I mean, it's the job of studios to figure out how they can make money from things, rather than just throwing up their hands and saying nothing can be done.
Purely anecdotal but I feel like one of the big things that killed Star Trek was them taking it off Netflix and putting it on the more niche P+. Also arguably a big part of what killed Doctor Who as well just with D+ but that's another discussion (prodigy is the exception but then they dropped all 20 episodes at once for no reason).
Your article presents a lot of speculation without real numbers. It’s easy to say something is worth $200 gazillion dollars because I like it and I want it to be true. But if you don’t present me real numbers, your data is meaningless. Not to mention, that looks like a shit website designed to be able to speak to whatever “net worth” is the writer wants to present.
I have a lot more belief in @eschaton and his info over whatever that is.
That’s all fair, but I always wonder in situations, where are they getting their poll participants from? How random is their sample? I love Trek, but I honestly feel like 30-40% of the US population is a lot.
But that is part of it. I mean, at the end of the day, when I go into Target, I see Transformers on the end cap for the toys. My son typically goes straight to the Batman section. I can see Harry Potter books prominently in the book section. Star Trek stuff? Maybe I’ll find a Pop figure back in the niche stuff. Popularity and generational appeal go beyond just viewership. Kinda like you said, kids want something tangible. I just gave him a Luke Skywalker figure I found while going through a box. Carries it around a lot. We’re going to go see Star Wars in the theater in February. He’s never seen it. My 7 year old son watched Prodigy. Loved it. Has no interest in any other Trek that we think he can watch now. Might that change? Sure. But there’s no way to peak his interest in it. If I gave him a Da’al or Zero figure, would he play with those? Maybe, but I somehow doubt it. Would he want to go with his old Gen X dad to go see the next Trek movie? Honestly? Probably not.
That’s obviously all anecdotal.
But I agree, Skydance has said they are going to do something with Trek. Hopefully, they can crack that nut, because it was a challenge for the last owners of the IP. I won’t deny that.
Similar threads
- Poll
- Poll
- Poll
