Moonves: Why Trek Streaming
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Leslie Moonves, CBS Corporation president and CEO, explained recently why the decision was made to place the new Star Trek series on CBS All Access.
“A lot of conversation went into what we were going to do [with Star Trek],” said Moonves. “All Access is very important.
“Star Trek is a family jewel. It’s an important piece of business for us as we go forward. We’re looking to do original content on All Access and build up that platform. All Access will put out original content and knowing the loyalty of Star Trek fans, this will boost it.
“There [are] about a billion channels out there and because of Star Trek, people will know what All Access is about.”
There is already interest in airing the new series abroad. “Star Trek is a huge international franchise,” said Moonves. “Our international distribution guy is going crazy. He can’t wait to get out to the marketplace and sell that. Right away, we’re more than halfway home on the cost of the show from international alone. The risk is small in seeing the track record. We think it’ll be great and bring in a lot more subscribers. We’re really excited about it.”
“[Star Trek 2017 is a] world-class effort that will make all Star Trek fans proud.”
An ad-free version of the new series may be offered; the cost for it would be $9.99 a month.
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It’s the reverse; Paramount has to pay CBS for the right to make and distribute a Star Trek movie, if Paramount tried to make a TV show or movie on its own without permission from CBS, it would be sued in court by CBS.
Yeah, but it makes me wonder if the budget will be restricted too much due to the more narrow distribution. I wonder, how many subscribers does CBS All Access currently have compared with Netflix or Hulu?nnnOn the other hand, it is possible that CBS will give it all they’ve got in hopes of really establishing their streaming platform as something worthwhile. That is after all the main benefit of an online platform, the potential of a world wide audience.