Discovery Would Have Been Different On Regular Television
2 min read
Had Star Trek: Discovery aired on CBS instead of CBS All Access and the other streaming services that are airing the show, the show would have been a bit different.
According to TrekMovie, CBS CEO Les Moonves commented on the show during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco last week.
“Star Trek could have gone on CBS, it could have gone on Showtime, it could have gone directly to Netflix instead of just international, for a lot of money,” Moonves said. “It is sort of different on All Access, they can be serialized. On CBS we try to avoid that generally. Network television generally works better when it is not serialized.”
But as fans know, CBS wanted Discovery on CBS All Access to rev up their new streaming service. “For All Access, obviously we are starting a new pay service, and we were offering our existing series and catch-up on current seasons and old seasons, but it was important to have original content,” said Moonves. “And what better way to get people to pay for the first time than offering Star Trek? It is a built-in fanbase that was pretty emphatic and not averse to paying for what they are getting.”
Star Trek: Discovery is “a major hit,” according to Moonves, which means that CBS All Access will continue to grow and to offer new shows. “By next year we should have five or six originals on the air,” he said. “We continue to plan on having three or four new ones every single year. We are going to have a second season of Star Trek: Discovery. We have The Twilight Zone coming up, I think that is in the fall or early winter, which we are excited about. And there are a number of other things. You are going to see us ramp up that and as part of that we expect to ramp up subscribers.”
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