Paramount+ will be making major changes, highlighting growing concerns with the streaming service for Star Trek fans.
Star Trek’s home for streaming is going to see major changes coming in 2024. The service has announced that it’s shuttering its sports arm via Showtime to close in 2023. That means that all sports content, which mostly includes boxing and Bellator MMA will no longer air on Trek’s home, Paramount+. This ends Showtimes Sports and brings to a close a popular era of sports for the service.
Showtime is one of the main reasons to get Paramount+, and its merger with the Paramount+ service was a major one. So to close down one of the biggest reasons to get the former Showtime channel and app isn’t going to help sell Paramount+.
This is being done to help the struggling streaming service finally turn a profit in 2024, something the service has yet to do. In conjunction with closing down the Showtime Sports arm, Paramount is looking to sell off its combat sports assets, namely Bellator, which has been part of the Viacom and Paramount umbrella for over a decade.
While this doesn’t directly affect Star Trek and its offering of shows, it’s just another example of Paramount making massive changes to cut back on spending amid financial issues with the streaming giant.
Star Trek will be impacted in 2024
While people like Alex Kurtzman speak highly of the partnership with Star Trek’s parent company, Paramount, the fact is the franchise has seen three shows get canceled in 2023 alone. One of them, Prodigy, was saved by Netflix, but Lower Decks appears to be on the chopping block as well for 2024, and who knows who else could get the axe?
The streaming service has to start paying back investors and that’s where the focus is, and if a show like Strange New Worlds needs to be canceled, they’re not going to hesitate to do so.
It’s likely Strange New Worlds doesn’t get canceled, but it’d be surprising if Lower Decks was kept around.
For 2024, I think fans can expect to see very little Star Trek besides Prodigy on Netflix. Fans can expect Strange New Worlds, the upcoming Section 31 Paramount+ film, and Star Trek: Academy and that’s it for some time.
And honestly, that may not be the worst thing to cut back on the number of Trek shows.