BREAKING: CBS Announces Settlement Delaying Potential Viacom Re-Merger, Moonves Resigns

As anticipated last week, the legal battle for control of CBS following a push to re-merge the corporation with Viacom has come to an end. Today CBS announced a settlement with controlling shareholder Shari Redstone’s National Amusements and the resignation of CEO Leslie Moonves.

Merger can wait, keeping Star Trek split

Shari Redstone pushed for CBS to re-merge with Viacom earlier this year, and in March, CBS took the unusual step of attempting to dilute Redstone’s control to prevent the merger, resulting in a lawsuit that was set to go to court in a few weeks. Today the parties have announced a settlement in which Redstone’s National Amusements would retain its control, but will not attempt another merger between CBS and Viacom for at least two years.

When CBS split off from Viacom in 2005, one of the side effects was the division of the Star Trek franchise. CBS retained ownership of the brand as a whole, including the vast library of TV shows, with Viacom’s Paramount retaining ownership of the film library and holding the rights to make new feature films. Re-merging the corporations would’ve brought the possibilities of additional synergies between Star Trek on television and film. Right now, both CBS and Paramount are developing multiple Star Trek projects, with no coordination between the parties.

CBS for sale?

In a nod towards the possibility of CBS seeking other merger possibilities besides Viacom, the settlement statement notes that National Amusements has reaffirmed that it will “give good faith consideration” to any potential mergers or acquisitions.

CBS remains one of the smaller players in the world of mega-mergers in the media industry and is often cited as a potential target for acquisition. Part of today’s settlement involves new members being added to the CBS board and Variety notes the new additions to the board specialize in mergers and new media.

Moonves resigns

Perhaps the biggest opponent to the Viacom/CBS re-merger has been CBS CEO Leslie Moonves. However, today’s announcement includes news of his resignation amidst new accusations of sexual harassment and even assault, reported over the weekend by the New Yorker. It was also announced that CBS and Moonves would immediately donate $20 million to “one or more organizations that support the #MeToo movement and equality for women in the workplace.” Any possible severance benefits for Moonves are being held pending the investigation into the allegations.

Will next CEO share the same vision for All Access and Star Trek?

Les Moonves has had a major impact on the Star Trek franchise in his decades as a senior executive with both Viacom and CBS. He was reportedly instrumental in pushing for the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005, ending an era of 18 years of new Star Trek on television. He was also a major proponent of bringing Star Trek back in 2017, with Star Trek: Discovery spearheading CBS All Access, a streaming service he launched in 2014. The CEO also tapped Alex Kurtzman to develop Discovery as well as additional Trek series for All Access.

Current CBS COO Joseph Ianniello, who has also touted Star Trek’s ability to bring subscribers to All Access, has been named president and the acting CEO while the CBS board begins a search for a successor to Moonves.

Any new change in leadership could result in changes to CBS’s streaming strategy, which could also impact the future of the Star Trek TV franchise, as it is now intertwined with the future of CBS All Access.

Keep up with all the corporate news that can impact Star Trek here at TrekMovie.com.

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Since we don’t know a lot, there is really nothing to panic about at this point.

Yeah, profound impact is a bit of hyperbole. The franchise continues to make money, so CBS and Paramount will keep making TV shows and movies.

Gary 8.5 and Phil,

Well, we know this type of thing brings a regime change and here’s what Mrs. Moonves’ co-host Sharon Osborne had to say:

“When a new regime comes into a company, we all know they sweep clean. Everybody here at CBS is nervous about their jobs.” — Sharon Osbourne, co-host THE TALK on today’s broadcast

Lets say CBS All Access did shut down in the future. Which I doubt unless CBS is bought by another streaming service.

Even if another streaming service did not buy CBS, and they decided to shut down All Access. I believe they would shop their shows to other streaming service.

My bet is CBS All Access will continue unless Netflix, Amazon, or Apple buy CBS. CBS has invested a lot in All Access because they know the CBS broadcast networks days are numbered. They know streaming is the future and they want their own service.

All Access is meant to compliment CBS, not replace it, filling a void that the other broadcast networks did with Hulu. CBS opted out of Hulu to reap the benefits of having their own service but that doesn’t come cheap and they’re a bit late to the game.

I’ve always said even if Discovery failed on AA they probably have a plan B for Netflix to outright buy it. IF Netflix thinks it’s been successful enough on their site and there isn’t evidence to suggest it hasn’t been. So my guess is unless DIS just truly sucked it will go to Netflix. And most likely the other shows will go somewhere else as well.

I think all the other Trek shows will continue on as well. I’m still hoping the Khan show never sees the light of day but that’s up to Kahless now. ;)

Tiger, I suspect the Meyer Khan show is a red herring. It may still be a prequel to ST2:WOK, but I think it’s a Reliant show. The name’s already been registered…

Wow. Good catch!

Wow I didn’t think of that either. I still wouldn’t want that but that would be 100 times better than just a Khan show.

I was under the impression that TWOK series was in pre-production when it was halted at the start of contract disputes. I’d like to learn more about the shows direction. I’m aware of the recent trademark acquisitions, but that’s about it. I’m a big fan of Nick Meyers and can’t wait to see the Khan story in a modern portrayal.

The way Meyers told it, they had an IDEA for a Khan trilogy movie but it never got past the idea stage because of the studio split. And that was a year ago now. Maybe he will work on the new Khan show (dear god no) if they make a show. Or even put some of those ideas they had with the films but it does sound like a different idea from what he was working on. Or at least it’s been reported differently.

I heard it started as a TWOK prequel, and that the web just jumped to the conclusion it was going to be a Khan show. I may be wrong but I don’t recall Nick Meyer explicitly saying it was a Khan show.

No he never said anything about a show. That was just rumors. When he directly clarified it he said it was suppose to be a movie. I can’t remember if it was for theaters or for AA but it wasn’t a show and why I don’t think he has anything to do with the show idea.

I really dont think that anything is going to happen to CBSAA.
But if it did, somebody would save DSC.
Most likely, Netflix

It’s probably not a bad idea to think of CBS being bought out. Putting Discovery on Netflix or Amazon would likely gain more viewers as those are mainstream services.

Agreed DataMat
Personally I hope it goes to one of those two streaming services. I mean why shouldn’t Netflix have it worldwide? They invested a lot in Discovery.

I think most people think AA is a bad idea lol. They should’ve just put it on Amazon or Netflix from the start.

Nobody is shutting down CBSAA.

I can’t imagine a merger would effect Star Trek on the television side. There would be no reason for it to.

The movies are what I’d be more curious/concerned about, and one can only speculate. In an ideal world, anything already planned would hopefully still move forward and Tarantino Trek would still happen. And then Paramount/CBS could slowly unify their ST movie/TV franchises however they saw fit.

Either way, at least two more years of separation between ST film and TV sounds really good to me right now.

I appreciate the logic on the television side,
Sam.
As far as Tarantino goes, he has not even written anything yet, at least as far as we know.

Mark Smith’s now got two years to come up with something. Tarantino isn’t available until next year anyway.

The Chris-and-Chris movie I think is still the greatest threat to the Tarantino project. How much longer than two years it might delay Paramount, how Paramount will react if it underperforms, etc.

Well, one reason a Viacom/CBS merger could affect CBS television is that VIACOM and Paramount have television programming and cable and streaming services. Paramount was even planning to take the fake SF TV series from GALAXY QUEST and make it into a real series which apparently they would use as part of a new streaming service/rebranding launch (UPN?) before Grey lost all that money.

@Disinvited — of the two, Paramount’s TV offerings are no match for CBS. Even their attempt to rebrand TV LAND is struggling with the horrible AMERICAN WOMAN series, and the HEATHERS series they had to pull after the Florida shooting. Unfortunately, as much as I would enjoy GALAXY QUEST on TV as a series, ORVILLE has already beat them to the punch, and it certainly doesn’t have the cache of STAR TREK in terms of anchoring a network. And that’s really Paramount’s problem. They have limited options for developing product offerings for a network outside of original programming, and have nothing like the resources necessary to compete with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, DC/Warner Bros., Disney, or even CBSAA.

This has all happened before. When Warner Bros. bought Lorimar, ironically then headed by Mr. Moonves who brought the stronger slate of creative executives, and top rated programming produced on a tight budget and eventually absorbed WBTV. I imagine in any contemplated merger CBS wins the TV battle, even if they most likely begin using the Paramount brand for international expansion. CBSAA then becomes Paramount TV.

Les Moonves we hardly knew ye.

Thank The Lord for that!
Anybody who treats women the way that he does is not somebody that I could call a friend.

Rumors had been circulating for years so it was only a matter of time.

I’m pretty indifferent about Moonves (he’s already a billionaire, somehow he will land on his feet) but I don’t think this will have any big changes to Star Trek or AA. At the very least Discovery and the Picard show should be fine. It’s the others that hasn’t gotten a green light yet (or they maybe they have, just not announced yet) that might be affected, but I seriously doubt it.

Moonves didn’t seem to have any real interest in Star Trek, he seemed more concerned about AA succeeding and my guess is Discovery did just enough to prove putting on more Trek is probably the way to go either way. They could decide AA isn’t worth it in itself but they gone too far now to just turn their backs on it.

Yeah, Star Trek on both sides will be fine. This basically removes the headache of Moonves while giving them two years to work out the logistics of a potential merger (or they may decide to shift assets from one entity to the other).

Paramount Pictures should have remained on the Viacom side. It never made sense to put a film studio on the broadcast side when the film studio could take advantage of the assets available on the cable side.

Since his temporary successor has interest in Star Trek I think we’re good.

May Moonves reap what he has sown harassment-wise. Arrogant. “Entitled.” Ugh.

He’s a scumbag for what he did to women — there is no excuse for that, and he should serve jail time if the charges are proved in court; and I hope those women sue him for all that he’s worth.

Regarding my completely separate assessment on his role in the business history of Star Trek, I think he did no less than save the Trek franchise and give it a healthy future again by:

(1) Having the guts to pull the plug on the tired Berman era and give the franchise the breather it needed by cancelling Enterprise (this was probably two seasons too late, but it was still a gutsy move);

(2) Having the vision to re-start Trek on TV internationally as a streaming offering with story-arc ultra high quality eps, which has now paved the way for multiple Trek TV series; and

(3) Stepping in to step in and take control of DSC after Bryan Fuller nearly ruined creative development of the series (and was grossly mismanaging the production), and taking full management of the effort to produce a largely successful first season.

It’s been my understanding that Fueller’s departure (leaving insufficient time for the remaining staff to regroup) is what primarily crippled STD Season 1.

BK and Sam. Funny how we interpret the story differently. My understanding is Fuller created a TOS prequel but Moonves wasn’t really interested in appealing to the existing fan base feeling they’d tune in anyway just because the show had Star Trek in the titles. Instead he wanted the show to appeal to the crowd that go to see the MCU movies. Ultimately Fuller walked over creative differences conveniently marking him out as the perfect Discovery fall guy.

Most “success” Discovery had (I assume it boosted subscriptions of Moonves’ previously obscure service) was owing to the Star Trek name, less so to any achievements of Discovery. I don’t blame them that much- Fuller got too far along, so they had to keep a lot of his wacky notions and promote his unqualified underlings. And the resulting Frankenstein monster was a stumbling mess. But, given the backstage drama, many Trek fans will give them another chance for the second season.

I almost feel like Discovery succeeds less as a show and more as a press junket — giving interviews about how progressive they are and how optimistic Roddenbery’s vision blah blah. Lots of great PR around this show, not so much a great show behind the PR.

I absolutely agree with that, albatrosity. Hopeful season two will turn things around.

Pish-posh.
obviously YMMV.

BorgKlingon

Innocent until proven guilty in a courtroom. Even so, nothing in the squalid hole that is Hollywood would surprise me

While I’ll admit there’s likely some, or a lot of truth to these Allegations, that’s all they are at this point, allegations. Everyone has a right to due process and their day in court. Is he a ‘scumbag,’ as you put it? Maybe, but there’s a ton of ‘scumbags’ walking the streets at this moment with no criminal charges against them whatsoever. Innocent until proven guilty.

What makes allegations different from truth? At the end of the day it’s the judge and jury that will decide whether or not the allegations have merit. When six separate women come forward complaining about the same behavior from the same man, they aren’t mere “allegations”. And doing horrible things without getting caught doesn’t make you any less guilty. Besides, being a “scumbag” isn’t a crime, but sexually harassing people is. So yeah, the dude is unequivocally a “scumbag,” and he doesn’t need to be proven guilty for us to know it’s true.

Definition of Allegation: “a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically one made without proof.”

Definition of Truth: “that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.” Something proven.

As I said, I believe it’s likely, given the information out there, that these claims are true. The guy may be a lecherous cur, I have no idea (and neither do you, honestly, unless you know him, which you don’t). Once again, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Sorry, it just really gets under my skin when someone is deemed guilty of something just because a group gets together and claims it happened. Mob mentality.

Anyway, that’s Les’ problem, and he has a golden parachute anyway. Back to Trek, I’d love to see all present and future Trek television incarnations land on Netflix.

Um, you quoted a definition of truth and then immediately abandoned it. Truth isn’t truth because it’s been proven on a court of law. All of us manage to get through the day learning things and making judgments without relying on a court to tell us what’s true and what’s false. Can we be wrong now and then? Sure. But I don’t need a court to tell me whether there’s ham on my sandwich or whether I should believe a large number of people who all come out to say similar things.

The standard in court is a different thing. That standard is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (which juries still sometimes get wrong), which is a probabilistic statement not a truth statement.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is a sentiment that gets advanced by folks who want to delegitimize legitimate allegations and shut down conversation.

…which is exactly what I was trying to do, Drew, shut down this part of the conversation. I would argue though, that over the past few years the pendulum has swung too much the other way towards “Guilty until proven innocent,” honestly. And for the record, I’ve worked in a courthouse for nearly 30 years, and it is commonly known that juries are certainly fallible. Everyone is fallible.

I am really angry about the pressure my own party exerted on Sen. Al Franken to resign, after he was accused by an adherent of Roger Stone. Roger Stone! Agggghhhh! [gnashing teeth]

@Marja — yeah, Bill Maher’s piece on that Friday was truly heartbreaking …

I believe “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” does not apply in a civil suit, only a preponderance of evidence.

So if they fail to *prove* wrongdoing on Moonves’s part on the criminal side, they can still pursue him by civil suit.

Marja

Due process… what a quaint notion.

That’s not how it works in the MeToo age.

And you can thank Kirsten Gillibrand for leading the lynch mob that cast out Franken. I won’t be voting for that horrible woman again. I’ll write in Susan Sarandon or something.

Let’s face it. A great many millionaire and billionaire are fairly blindsided by their own vanity and self importance. They are ignorant to their own morals precisely because they have power over others and great levels of wealth which is probably like living a big bubble. They feel invincible to repercussion.

That’s why so many allegations from the 60s through the 80s have come to light in the last few years. With social media and internet it has become a completely different world to hide away from, for even the most powerful.

Agreed, and one reason to be glad we’re not millionaires or billionaires.

Truly, I thank the lord for that every day!

Stories which never got out to the press have been circulating for years. When everything started hitting the fan it was always a bit of a mystery how he managed to fly under the radar

Weinstein too. Amazing how these things turn out to be “open secrets” … which I can’t really figure out what that is, linguistically

I’m sure there are some suitable and colorful words that would work.

It is hard to prove some of these things in a court of law. If the victim spoke about it to friends/relations at the time of the occurence, that gives them credence, but Moonves has a lot of money and a lot of power, and many of the women have exactly the opposite.

Money buys good lawyers. Prosecutors may or may not succeed against such.

I hope those women were attacked receive justice; their careers suffered. This stuff isn’t cute retro “Mad Men,” it’s still happening, it is real and it’s injurious. And it makes me angry.

People ask me why I never went to sea when I was in the USCG. Well, back in the day women were allowed to opt out of sea duty. Why did I opt out? Because women told me when they were assigned to ships, the guys immediately started betting on who’d be the first to schtup them. That crap still happens in various military units today. Not all. But some.

And some people wonder why women are so ticked off. [explosive sigh]

The scumbag part trumps everything else that he did.

@Gary 8.5 — while I don’t disagree, and Bill Cosby is certainly a prime example of that principle in action in the court of public opinion, but would you feel the same is allegations like this came out about Shatner?

ABSOLUTELY!
That being said, I hope that never happens.

@Gary 8.5 — I’ve heard some credible stories. Enough to color my opinion of the man. Not to the level of Moonves accusations, but still. As Carol Marcus said of Kirk — he’s a lot of things but he’s no boy scout. I’ve also heard some credible stories about Moonves as well, which likewise don’t rise to the level of the accusations currently made against him. I’m not going to get into any kind of accusation debate since I’m not the direct participant. But at some point you sadly may have to make this decision.

Don’t give Moonves too much credit. It wasn’t gutsy to cancel Enterprise. His decisions were all business driven with no regard to creativity or the health of the franchise. The numbers weren’t there and as UPN’s most expensive series (and knowing that UPN would be gone within a year) there was no reason to keep it going. He was not sitting in his office thinking, “I think this franchise needs a breather. We’ll revisit the thing in, I dunno, 10 years or so.” Moonves was more of a ‘proud of how this show is performing’ guy than a ‘proud of this show’ kind of guy.

And, again, it wasn’t ‘having the vision’ to restart Star Trek but the necessity to jumpstart a streaming service which wasn’t generating any buzz and lagging in subscriptions. Bringing international partners on board to offset costs and making it available elsewhere is pretty much how things work. There’s a lot of original content on Netflix that wasn’t actually produced by Netflix.

As for Fuller, you go over budget, fall behind schedule and clash with the studio (the trifecta) and you’re going to get fired. Moonves didn’t grab the reigns and drive the creative direction of the show. They just pushed one guy out and put in two other people in which, as we know, didn’t exactly work out either. That was pretty much it.

I don’t think Moonves cared about Star Trek one way or the other either. I seriously doubt he cared about where the franchise was heading. He cancelled Enterprise because it was a low rated show on a low rated network but probably the costliest show on that network. It’s not exactly brain surgery to decide to cancel it.

Only reason why we have a new show now is because they needed something to promote AA. That’s it. Moonves doesn’t seem to care about science fiction in general looking at what is normally on CBS. He made it sound like Star Trek was important like any good business person but my guess is if it wasn’t for AA we still wouldn’t have a show now. They would’ve made another one eventually of course but they clearly were in no rush to do it and probably figured they made enough from it on the merchandise end and all the broadcast and streaming licenses the shows collected annually worldwide. Moonves only rolled the dice when he needed a big brand name to attract attention to the site.

And it certainly worked but it was more of a reaction to a site no one cared about than it was about Star Trek. That just seem like a means to an end. I still wish he just sold it off to Netflix and see what kind of shows they would’ve made. I have a feeling it wouldn’t have been Discovery at all.

Ironically enough, the best place for Discovery season 1 would have been CBS and then the gutsy move would have been to shift season 2 to All Access. The numbers for Discovery probably would have been on par with The Orville (both debuted to similar numbers) which would have meant millions more dedicated to watching each week compared to the current number of viewers watching on All Access. Sure, fans would have been upset but if you get even a quarter of those loyal viewers to subscribe to All Access it would have been worth it for CBS.

And THAT’S how the mind of a network exec works. A bit of brilliance mixed in with the evil intent of the corporate mind. Heh, heh.

Yeah they should’ve at least let it run on normal TV a bit longer, if not all season at least a month. Get people into the show first and a bit invested. Some would’ve dropped as you said but many would’ve still signed up once the show grabbed them enough.

I think the way they did it just made more people upset and even less interested in AA, especially when they went on it and discovered there was next to nothing on the site lol. AA is just not popular at all. It has no buzz and little interest with consumers when there are just other and much better streaming options out there.

And probably why hardly anyone is watching Discovery now.

All business motivated decisions on the part of Moonves.
I agree.

If things weren’t complicated enough in the franchise, they had to go and add the Kelvin universe. And now I hear they want to fix the contract dispute by creating a third ‘Super-Prime’ timeline that combines the Kelvin, and prime universes into a third universe that supersedes everything that came before by rendering it the ‘Sub-prime universe’. This is just hearsay but it has the smell of Les Moony all over it. It’s a blessing he’s departed.

Wait, what? Where did you hear that? So would that mean both Kelvin and Discovery would be in the same universe?

THANK GOD this terrible person is out of a job. A predator should not be CEO of a major media company. I hope the dude gets no money on exit. If anything, he owes his victims money. Can’t wait for the rest of these scumbags to be weeded out.

He’s reportedly getting well over $100 million to exit, if what I read has any truth to it.

I definitely believe it since I guess he was contracted to get $180 million upon departure, but these new revelations should cut that down significantly. But no matter what he gets, it’ll still be too much.

I think they’re cancelling his Golden Parachute and donating a portion of it to programs fighting sexual harassment and supporting victims of same. I believe I read that in the New Yorker article. Maybe on the Tweeter.

That headline makes it sound like the merger was almost a done before this happened.
That’s not true.

I wonder how all this is helping Star Trek overall.

I don’t think it actually impacts it one way or another and most people aren’t tuned into all of this one way or another.

Seems that Viacom has the right to block any potential suitors for CBS. Moonves’ #2 is taking the reins of the business while they search for his replacement. I can’t see Star Trek or Twilight Zone tentpoles going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Moonves may be a terrible, horrible person, but he made CBS into something people want to buy, and the “Trek as TV show” brand is up there as one of the reasons. Also, don’t forget Netflix is a major financier of “Discovery” and shows it worldwide, so I choose no danger for our favorite show.

So is there a possibility that the new leadership would want to get rid of All Access or develop a newer streaming service? I am asking because I am an international Trekkie and I don’t know how this system operates in the U.S.

There’s several possibilities:
1. They revamp All Access, basically making it better
2. They sell off star trek or the rights to air Star trek to Netflix in the United States
3. They dump streaming and put it all back on broadcast tv.
4.My favorite choice, they create a streaming service for star trek. This would include every documentary, show, movie, related to Star Trek. Plus new shows, mini-series, documentaries and other content. I think people would pay $15 a month for it.

Or, they dump Star Trek. Sad, but a pissibility.

Star Trek is one of their most valuable IP’s.
It isn’t going anywhere.

If they dump streaming, they are behind the curve.
Not going to happen.

The economics for a single network seem too much to me. I can foresee the networks pooling their content into one big shared streaming service, though..

But isn’t that what Hulu already is? CBS was offered to go in, they refused and decided to make AA instead. AA can still be successful but I do think no one really watches it because it just doesn’t have much variety on it. Most people seem to be saying this in general.

I still have and support AA but I don’t know anyone that has it. Everyone I know has at least Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or all three. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t have at least Netflix. AA itself just seems to be behind the curve in so many ways. And I truly feel Discovery is suffering by being on it. I have a feeling it will stay the least watched Trek show with no real buzz because of it.

But it’s still early. I’m guessing the Picard show will bring a lot more viewers and interest to AA that Discovery didn’t but I don’t think it will do a thing for non Trek fans. The site should have a lot more well rounded shows and films and not just turn into the Star Trek site.

I really love “The Good Fight,” also a CBSAA production, but I think that and “Disco” are the only shows there that I’m remotely interested in. Seems most everything else is a rerun, Big Bang Theory ad infinitum, golly.

Yup, that’s exactly what Hulu is and a lot of people who have ‘cut the cord’ subscribe to Hulu to get their broadcast fix, watch old shows and to watch original content.

All Access doesn’t need more Star Trek, it needs a Handmaid’s Tale.

It sure does. Handmaid’s Tale is absolutely fantastic.

TJ, They could do #4 right now. They have all the series; they just need to buy rights to show the movies from Paramount.

Personally I’m pulling for Netflix, but que sera, sera.

They will no doubt be taking a closer look at how All Access performs over the next two years. All Access should have launched much sooner than it did and that has them lagging far behind the competition.

With Hulu you have access to programming from across multiple broadcast and cable networks as well as original content. With CBS you pretty much just get CBS and their offerings.

I wonder if this will affect STD’s continued existence and if we’ll get any actual information on how good or bad it is doing to drive CBS All Access subscriptions.

Considering it’s done well enough to push them to sign Kurtzman to a 5 year deal and work on new series’, I’d imagine it’s been doing awesome for them on a money / viewership aspect. Also STD is the childs acronym, even if you don’t like Discovery you can at least talk like an adult without “hurr durr STD, get it?”

What is this holier-than-thou attitude of STD being a child’s acronym? Maybe he wasn’t trying to make a dirty joke? Maybe you’re the one interpreting it like a child? Do the letters really mean that much? Like what’s the big deal STD DSC DIS it doesn’t matter we get what he’s talking about. You’re the one who assigned it meaning beyond what he meant.

MysticalD. All that talk of wanting a new star trek show on all year round actually struck me as a form of desperation. And let’s remember Universal paid Kurtzman a lot to get Dark Universe off the ground too.

Dark Universe. Oh, my.

Voicing what is being talked about by behind the scenes production, and staff members is not spreading conspiracy theories. When people try to silence you and accuse you of spreading lies that’s how conspiracy theories start.

I’m not a fan of All Access. I don’t think these networks understand that paying $10-$15 for each service per month adds up. I have Netflix. I’m not paying for All Access. Netflix airs Star Trek everywhere else in the world besides North America. It’s a slap in the face of American fans to try to force us to pay $10/month.

So I don’t.

Agreed, BBKP. What I do is pay $10 once, binge the whole season during the month and then cancel CBSAA. I do pay a monthly fee for services which have a lot to offer – Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO NOW. But I agree with you, it does start to add up. Next year, Disney is coming out with their own streaming service, too (which will probably be dynamite). CBSAA would have to go a really long way to get me to shell out $10 monthly, all year.

CBSAA is still in their infancy in terms of original content.
Let’s see what they come up with down the road.

@BBKP — They understand it just fine. And that’s still far cheaper than any cable package you could subscribe to.

I hope whoever takes over gives a greenlight to DS9 in HD, for streaming and blu ray.

That would be so cool skyjedi. Sadly though my impression has been that pleasing the fan base of yore is not the CBS priority. I think they want to poach the MCU crowd.

It’s very reassuring to hear that some of the rumors on the net regarding the show runners plans for this series are debunked. So many people want to see Trek fail- typically radicalized Star Wars fanatics. I love Star Trek like I love my wife and children- forever.
It’s too bad that the show runners aren’t a little more forthcoming with their information. It causes way too much speculation, and one would think they would at least test the audience reaction out once in awhile; just to gauge how fans react, as apposed to the general audiences feed-back. It could save them a lot of cash.

The Big Surprise thing can take them only so far. If Lorca’s coming back, they should at least drop a heavy hint somewhere in the first few weeks of S2 broadcast …. critics and fans alike seem to love him [y’all know I do].
#findPrimeLorca

I think part of the problem is that Star Trek pretty much wrote the book on twists, cliffhangers and surprises in it’s 50 plus years. The showrunner’s have to keep tight-lipped since fans had this uncanny tendency to figure out the various twists and turns of season 1 well before the reveals unfolded.

I Always thought less Moonves ist better than more moonves….