Star Trek series have been steadily leaving Netflix.
The final Star Trek property that is still streaming on Netflix is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but that series will be departing from the streamer on July 1st. This will make Paramount+ the exclusive streaming home of all Star Trek series which shouldn’t come as a surprise after the earlier departures of Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise in September of last year and Star Trek: The Next Generation in April.
Netflix first began streaming Star Trek series in 2011 with all five live-action shows, according to Trekmovie. And now, with the exception of the documentary “For the Love of Spock,” anything Star Trek related will be gone by July 1st for North American viewers. As for right now, international viewers can still watch the series, but we don’t know how long that will last as ViacomCBS bought back the distribution rights for Star Trek: Discovery last year. ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish said at the time that a decline in third-party business would happen because of the transition to Paramount+.
"“As we increasingly transition to leveraging our particular franchises and original production for our owned and operated streaming assets, principally Paramount+… that, in turn, will create a decline in that third-party business over time as these deals roll off. I would note that as an example of that, we just took back Star Trek: Discovery internationally from Netflix. And so we now have that property globally. That’s clearly a core franchise for us, and it’s working.”"
This transition isn’t going to help Netflix keep its subscriber base.
At the beginning of 2022, in the first quarter alone, the streaming giant lost 200,000 subscribers, according to The Verge. It also expects to lose another 2 million subscribers by the end of the second quarter which is just a few weeks away.
Meanwhile, Paramount+ gained 6.8 million subscribers in the first quarter of this year, putting its current total at almost 40 million. Though all of that increase can’t be attributed to Star Trek fans, undoubtedly, a good portion of it is, especially with the recent release of the brand new series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which quickly became the top viewed US show as of May 18th. And, based upon the reviews, this series seems destined to remain at the top for a long time.