Star Trek took another step into the world of online streaming today with the announcement that starting in April episodes from all the Star Trek TV series will become available on Netflix. Details below.
Star Trek TV headed to Netflix Streaming [UPDATED]
Today CBS Corporation and Netflix, Inc. announced a major licensing agreement that will allow episodes from select TV shows from CBS’s library to be streamed instantly from Netflix. The official announcement notes that the streaming deal includes "episodes from all generations of the definitive sci-fi series, "Star Trek"", meaning the offering will include the original Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. TrekMovie has checked with a spokesperson for Netflix who confirmed that they will be offering a "representative selection from each [Star Trek] series", but Netflix is not yet confirming how many episodes from each series will be available.
The Star Trek content will be available on Netflix in early April. Also included in the deal are episodes from sci-fi/cult shows Medium, The Twilight Zone and Twin Peaks as well as episodes from other CBS series including Flashpoint, Frasier, Family Ties, Cheers, The Andy Griffith Show, and the original Hawaii Five-0. The CBS licensing deal is for two years, with an option to be extended for an additional two years. Paramount also has a streaming deal with Netflix, which currently includes five out of the eleven Star Trek feature films. Netflix streaming-only subscriptions cost $7.99 and all streaming on Netflix is commercial-free. Netflix also has every Star Trek season and movie available for DVD (plus the movies and seasons which were released on Blu-ray).
UPDATE: All episodes?
In the afternoon the official Netflix Twitter sent out a tweet saying "Hey Trekkies – You can now instantly watch all original @StarTrek episodes streaming from @Netflix. Live long and prosper." Hopefully this confirms that the Netflix streaming offering will be all-inclusive with every episode of every Star Trek series.
More Trek streaming to come?
CBS also offers every episode of the original Star Trek, Star Trek Enterprise and Star Trek: The Animated series for ad-supported streaming at CBS.com and other CBS sites. With episodes of TNG, DS9 and Voyager coming to Netflix, it is possible these series will finally be added to the CBS offering of ad-supported streaming.
The CBS release also notes that the Netflix deal is non-exclusive so it is possible that we could see Star Trek streaming with other services. It just so happens that today Amazon announced their own "Amazon Prime" online streaming service, which includes 5,000 TV and movie titles (vs. Netflix’s 11,565 titles). The new Amazon service’s initial offering does not include CBS or Paramount titles. CBS has also not yet signed on to the popular Hulu (or Hulu Plus) streaming service.
Are these the remastered episodes ?
YAY!
Nice..watched the first season TOS HD versions when they were on Netflix awhile back…not as good as the blurays, but they’ll do in a pinch!
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve already got a Netflix and it is freaking awesome!
Well worth the fee and price, they have tens of thousands of DVD mail titles thousands of instant play titles and even more blu ray!
I wonder if the content will be re-encodes from the original 480p and 5.1 LPCM, or just another crappy transcode from the DVDs. let’s hope for the former.
5. Matt, I have no idea what you just said, but all I can add is: AWESOME.
I guess it’s really and truly time for me to off-load the VHS tapes clogging up my closet.
Huzzah!
It will be great to be able to get DS9, which isn’t on any channels as far as I know. Maybe this will help more people get into it.
Hasn’t every Trek fan got all the DVDs anyway?
Hopefully Enterprise will be in 1080.
I’ll never understand how Netflix makes a profit in the streaming business. They have to pay licensing fees to the studios and their only revenue is derived from the mail order business. Sooner or later that $7.99 fee has got to get much higher.
That being said, I’ll definitely stream a few episodes once in awhile.
I am curious about the term “representative selection”.
What constitutes “representative”?
What about Gilligan’s Island?
Just as a general shout out to Anthony and the gang. Thanks for keeping the updates coming. I for one thouroughly enjoy everything you have to post, even the posts about some of the lame products that have been coming for Trek fans. (not all lame, but some of them)
@9 Sadly, not everyone can afford the price of the DVDs. And people wonder why illegal downloading is on the rise every day.
Re: “never understand how Netflix makes a profit”
It’s called Volume – when a movie or show is released,
Netflix pays a percentage of the fee. The more subscribers
that watch an certain episode, the more Neflix makes
and sends to CBS. One show could generate 100 sales
the first week, 1000 the next, and 10,000 the next…and so
on… If they weren’t making any money, they’d be going
out of business instead of growing the way they are…
Also – the shows and movies are already made. There
is little to no production costs.
What about “It’s About Time”, “Lost in Space” and “The Invaders”?
US only again I guess ? It’s about time us foreigners were looked after.
Yes! I’m giddy with excitement, now!
YES!!!!!!!!!! It’s about time! I’ve had Netflix for almost 8 years and I’ve been waiting ever since they started streaming for Trek TV shows to get on there. I wish they’d just put up all seasons of all shows, but I’ll take anything over nothing.
I am giddy because the ground is still moving here in Dunedin, NZ.
Our poor neighbours (and some of my friends) in Christchurch are not so lucky.
My thoughts are with them and their families…
Hopefully in the near future we will have some kind of Star Trekkian device that will be able to predict quakes accurately….:(
The Netflix deal is rockin’ good news.
Watching episodes at sites like CBS (I think?) and ABC is annoying because, for some unfathomable reason, they have their sites set up so that they automatically exit full-screen every time a commercial hits, and do not automatically re-enter full screen when the episode resumes. So, if you want to watch the episode in full screen, as most people surely do, you have to keep getting up to switch it back to full-screen after every commercial. I can’t, for the life of me, imagine how they could be so idiotic as to overlook this, but there you have it.
And if they don’t ruin the experience by means of the full-screen oversight, they make it almost insufferably annoying by means of obnoxiously loud commercials.
If anyone from one of the monster-networks happens to be reading this, the above grievances are why people like me—and there are more of us every day—have stopped watching TV and now watch all of our shows, whenever we damn well feel like it and with little or none of your obnoxious commercials, on the World Wide Web. So, do you see what happens when you get too greedy?
You can shear a sheep many times—and you monster-corporate networks have surely sheared us many, many times over—but skin him only once. And even so, you’ve managed to skin us many, many times with your ever-growing ad-spaces until the Web finally liberated us from your avaricious oligopoly.
And so now you can suck on it, my friends, because I’m not watching a damn one of your neuron-lysing commercials. And how do you like THAT?
Punks.
@22
Now that, my friend, is tellin’ ’em!
#5 – 5.1 LPCM will never be streamed over Netflix. Besides, if you want to get really technical the original masters were either magnetic (analog) mono (TOS) or digital (PCM) stereo (TNG, VOY, DS9). ENT was the only true 5.1 TREK series.
Plus, why use a 480p master when TOS and ENT have 1080i/1080p masters?
Netflix on the PS3 offers 1080p and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 so that would be the goal to shoot for.
In any case, I have every DVD and BD release so the streaming versions will be (as 7 of 9 would say) irrelevant.
And this naturally is only in the States I presume, cause the Canadian Netflix sucks big time, so I highly doubt it would be enlightened with such gems as Star Trek and The Twilight Zone
Well, it’s a step in the right direction for CBS. And I was watching online at CBS and it may not be news but it seems that the shows are now the remastered versions. I just saw “Journey to Babel” and it was the remasterd version with reimagined visual effects. Of course, you have to watch limited commercials but it is free.
CBS, how about cutting the prices to the shows’ DVDs? And about doing something with the franchise, how about an animated CGI movie with a de-aged William Shatner? Look, CBS you don’t have to do a series. A TV movie in the prime universe or a mini-series on HBO. But if they can bring back “Family Guy” and “Futurama”, what about “Star Trek?”
Please have this come to the Canadian Netflix. Please please please!!!
Where’s the “Like” button? Oops! Wrong site! };-)
All I want is all if the Trek Series to be ob Bluray. But this is good news.
17. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the original ‘Lost in Space’ television series is owned by 20th Century Fox.
Canadian Netflix blows chunks. Seriously.. no trek, no babylon 5, nothing. Hell, it only has 2 of the 4 resident evil movies.. and not the first two.. f’d up man. But then again, Canada blows chunks anyways. And yes I am allowed to say that, I, sadly, am Canadian.
Also, it is not Netflix’s fault, its our CRTC that cockblocks all the good shit from coming to canada…
Netflix is going to be interesting to watch over the next couple of years because most of their contracts to stream movies from the major studios (i.e, Warners, Paramount, Disney) are coming to an end/up for renewal. Netflix got those contracts “dirt cheap” the first time around, but studios (particularly Warners and Disney) have publically said that Netflix is going to have to pay a lot more to re-up the contracts this time.
I agree with those who say Netflix is probably going to have to increase their streaming membership costs…either that or they’re going to have to start “tiering” it – charging higher monthly rates for access to more “premium” content.
Just a follow up…I went into my Netflix account this morning (I live in PA) and TOS of Star Trek was NOT an option for me to stream. Did they pull it down, or are they rolling this out depending on your location?
Anyone else not have access to streaming TOS epsidoes?
Read the article.
This certainly would sway my decision to “yes” for getting Netflix….If it applied to CANADA!!! >:(
Cygnus X-1, however you feel about them, commercials pay for the programs you watch. The network does not fund its own shows. Blame the sponsors for making them play their spots so loud. They really call the shots.
Shannon, the article Clearly Says this Starts in April.
Did anyone answer Question #1 – are these to be the TOS Re-Mastered episodes?
#37
“commercials pay for the programs you watch”
I feel you but I have to say, I don’t watch anything with a commercial in it (not counting placement ads of course *looking at YOU Slusho*)..
If that means I don’t get to watch it I don’t get to watch it.
Paid for the first season of Fringe, didn’t care for it, will wait until it comes out on streaming netfilx before I check it out again..
I guess the point is there are other $ models that support television shows.. should be said though I don’t know what % comes from what..
If you are frugal you can pay for shows you WANT to watch, without commercials, that you can watch anytime you wish for less than the price of cable..
And as I only own a couple of TOS episodes this is great news for me.. think its time for another TOS run through..
hopefully TNG won’t be as long a wait :)
Sorry…was looking at the Twitter post from yesterday – seemed to imply it had already started. :(
Just checked netflix, still not on instant. The tweet must just mean every episode later. Not like right now, unfortunatly.
@42 lol
37. Driver – February 23, 2011
—-Cygnus X-1, however you feel about them, commercials pay for the programs you watch. The network does not fund its own shows. Blame the sponsors for making them play their spots so loud. They really call the shots.—-
Some of the money from the sponsors pays the people who actually make the shows and some of it goes to enrich the owners of those shows, i.e. the parent companies of the networks that hire the people to make the shows.
But now that I don’t watch TV any more, my monthly membership fee pays for the shows I watch on Netflix, which shows are soon to include many, many Star Trek episodes. I paid the networks for many, many years with my attention and brain cells, and I believe I that I was overcharged and now entitled to a refund.
But, as per your suggestion, in addition to blaming the monster-corporate TV networks, I will save some blame for the sponsors. And I will blame them for the aforementioned neuron-lysing quality of the moron-pandering dreck produced by their so-called “creatives.”
But I’m really not having any of this nonsense in defense of the poor, disadvantaged monster-corporate TV networks, which are subsidiaries of international multibillion-dollar conglomerates, for having to do what the mean, ol’ sponsor tells them to do. Because, guess what? If a sponsor told them to play a commercial with a racist or anti-religious theme, do you think that they’d do it just because the big meanie sponsor told them to? I think we all know the answer to that question.
And so I refer the kind reader, the monster-corporate-international-multibillion-dollar-conglomerate-subsidiary TV networks and all of the sponsors of the former who happen to be responsible for the “creative” content referenced above, to my previous post (#22).
Thank you, drive thru.
#16-
That makes sense. Still going to be interesting to see how long that $7.99 price point lasts.
I’ve wondered if it was just a coincidence that CBS.com was only streaming the series that are available in HD. I suppose I was hoping they were waiting because HD versions of the others might be in the works (yes I know that’s wishful thinking). DVDs are too pricey for me, so it’ll be nice to see the other shows appear, in whatever definition. I’m sure they’ll look better than the old VHS recordings I made at EP speed so I wouldn’t need so much space to store tapes.
OH.. HELL.. YES! About Time!!
Incase you were wondering Netflix streaming is all HD quality! Even though i own every season of star trek ever made on dvd i am glad to see netflix team with CBS to bring it to the masses cheaply
We have only had netflix one month now..streaming only thru our WII but the TV the wii is attached to is only a regular stereo tv so none of it is hd for me….how can you tell if it is hd? nothing on netflix says you can choose hidef?
I have a ps3 hooked up to my bedroom vizio hd 32 inch monitor….I dont have wifi so running the netflix thru my nintendo wifi connector is how we have done it….if I get a wireless router maybe i can try netflix thru the ps3…
Overall i like the streaming for only eight bucks a month theres a ton of movies and tv shows to watch..adding trek makes it cooler althoough as others have said i already have all the episodes and movies on dvd and hidef…..
@46 Re: VHS tapes.
I have a set of VHS taped in EP too in my closet. In fact, most of them from middle-DS9-era onwards are taped directly from the original broadcast, so I can’t bear to part with them even though I have the DVDs.