Star Trek Discovery coming to cable in the US?
During a recent earnings call CBS President and CEO Joe Ianniello dropped some insights into the possible plan to move shows like Star Trek Discovery to their flagship cable broadcast.
Some may remember that I’ve been tilting at this particular windmill since shortly after I joined Redshirts Always Die with one of my first articles, Cutting Through the Paywall, and followed it up with the suggestion that changes in an advertising model could send Star Trek back to cable. We finally got our first hint that it was happening when news came out that the third announced animated Star Trek series is looking to land on Nickelodeon, but now we have new information that the flagships series of CBS All-Access Star Trek Discovery along with other exclusive All-Access content could be added to the cable network.
"CBS CEO Joe Ianniello asked analysts Thursday evening: “What if we took Season One of ‘The Good Fight’ and put it on the CBS broadcast network to drive subscribers back to CBS All Access?”“So, we’re really thinking about that going forward and obviously that has an effect of reducing costs, because it would reduce development cost across the company,” he added.Courtesy of MediaPost"
Its a solid strategy, considering that the hardcore fans will sign up for the streaming service on mass before the first season, a second wave will sign up as the first season continues, and a third smaller wave will sign up in time to binge before the second season, from there growth should be incremental or even in decline for some series.
More from News
- Rod Roddenberry is trying to obtain the missing Enterprise model
- Star Trek: The Original Series: Dr. McCoy’s medical tricorder becomes reality
- We now know for sure what killed Star Trek 4’s production
- Star Trek’s streaming home, Paramount+, isn’t satisfying fans
- The Writer’s Guild Strike is all but over but Star Trek won’t resume work anytime soon
But if they take that first season three years after it’s initial release and broadcast it on cable to the masses and you suddenly have the potential for another massive influx from fans who had never watched, or hadn’t heard there was a new series.
Star Trek Discovery not mentioned by name
Although he uses the example of The Good Fight in the quote above there can be no doubt that the same thinking is going into Star Trek Discovery, after all we’re talking about a far more vast fan base than that of The Good Wife. If they’re successful in their cross-pollination of the two services we could be looking at a full breakout of multiple series going cross-platform.
Regardless of which series comes to broadcast television first studios finally realizing that they can and should use both services to cross promote and draw viewers to each other can only be good for fans at the end of the day.
Next. Star Trek Discovery Red Angel’s Red Herrings. dark
We’ll keep you updated as new information comes available.