Star Trek: Prodigy is coming to Paramount+ in the USA this fall, but we are now learning more about how fans will be able to watch the new kids’ animated series around the world.
Paramount+ and Prodigy coming to Europe, with help from Sky
Today ViacomCBS announced a new partnership with Sky (part of Comcast) that will bring the Paramount+ streaming service to Sky platforms in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria in 2022. Paramount+ will become available as part of the Sky Q service and be included with Sky Cinema packages at no additional cost. Other Sky customers will be able to subscribe to Paramount+ as an add-on option.
Paramount+ will also be available direct-to-consumer in UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria through the Paramount+ app for iOS and Android and across supported smart TVs and streaming devices.
Among the exclusive Paramount+ originals announced to be part of this European expansion is Star Trek: Prodigy. The new kids’ animated series will debut on Paramount+ in the USA and in Canada on CTV Sci-Fi this fall.
Set in the Delta Quadrant a few years after Star Trek: Voyager, the series aimed at younger viewers follows a group of alien teens who discover an abandoned Starfleet vessel, and set off on a series of adventures. The show includes the return of Kate Mulgrew playing the Emergency Training Hologram in the form of Captain Janeway, who will guide the young aliens in the ways of Starfleet.
The Prodigy characters
There are no details yet for the availability of Prodigy in other markets, but ViacomCBS continues to expand internationally, including currently being available in Latin America, the Nordic countries, and in August will launch in Australia and New Zealand, with a goal to reaching 45 markets by 2022.
Other Star Trek series currently available in the Sky Europe markets on Netflix (Discovery), and Amazon Prime Video (Lower Decks) should remain with their current streaming partners. There is no news yet on the availability in Europe for the upcoming live-action series Strange New Worlds, which launches in 2022 on Paramount+ in the USA and Latin America, and on CTV Sci-Fi in Canada.
ICYMI: Prodigy trailer
The following trailer for Prodigy was released in late July. It can be viewed outside the USA via Instagram.
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Find more Star Trek: Prodigy news and analysis.
Amazingly, Lower Decks arrives more than 1 year late from its release and one month late for its 2nd season in Latin America by Paramount+, SNW already confirmed in Latin America by P+. Now Prodigy will arrive in Europe, but without a confirmed launch in Latin America. Even worse is having to subscribe to Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount+ and Telecine in order to have all the Star Trek content
Let’s not forget the movies are licensed away from Paramount+…
I suspect that some business school professor is going to write up Star Trek IP rights and licensing as a case study of self destructive behaviour in firms resisting a merger.
Star Trek is ViacomCBS’ top franchise IP and rationally should have been managed like that even when CBS owned the IP and Paramount just had licences for movie making.
This kind of narrow focused decision making on licensing really has the feel of sel-interested executives’ poisoning the potential merger.
And now we all will suffer for it for 5 years or whatever the life of the licences.
That is crazy. I remember the old days waaaaaaaaay back in 2017 when Americans thought they were being jipped with being forced to sign up to All Access to watch Discovery while others got it on Netflix, the site everyone liked. Boy it looks like such a great call now even if the service itself is still not amazing. But at least we don’t have to sign up to 3-4 different sites to catch them all.
Wouldn’t you just sub to one or two and no more? How would you have time and money to just sub to all these services anyway? I just swap and go depending on what Im interested in watching at any given point in the year. Prodigy will drop and be on the whatever service its on for at least a good few months.
I think that’s the idea of the streaming model, it’s super easy to swap around and get different flavours and content depending on what’s of most interest at the moment. IMO.
I’m looking forward to Prodigy and excited to see Lower Decks next week!
Kind of a good news-bad news scenario for me. I do already pay for Sky Q but the streaming quality is hopeless on my Sky Q box so I have to fully download everything before I can start watching.
So, I will have to pay for around two months of Sky for getting this show in order to watch it here in Germany. Well, I think its time to see what else they got that is worth watching in this timeframe. Also, I have no idea how Sky works and what to book.
Also, some release dates would be nice.
the deal was just announced this morning. That’s all the detail available for now but we will have more coverage as the launch gets closer in 2022. But according to the press release it will be available on its own and I believe that means you won’t have to have Sky.
Ok, I thought Prodigy is expected to release this year in fall, not in 2022.
And if I can watch it on its own (where exactly) then I don’t get the deal with sky. I thought Sky would ship Paramount+ here in Europe, and thus, ship Prodigy.
Prodigy is due to release in North America this fall. Looks like Europe will have to wait a few months. That’s less than ideal in this day and age, but I remember the late ’80s, when I had to wait years for the latest season of Doctor Who to show up on my PBS station.
Prodigy will come out this year but only in the US and Canada, with this P+ agreement for Europe kind of confirms that PRO should only arrive in 2022 in these countries.
As far as I know, Sky Q is only available two ways: either a regular Sky TV decoder or through an extra device that you have to attach to your internet router. This means – but I’m not sure at all – that Sky Q cannot be simply streamed online like Netflix or Prime.
Hopefully P+ will be available the “old-fashioned” way, a simple online subscription. If ALL the series arrive on P+ in Germany that way, it would make things less dire…I will keep my Prime subscription for free shipping and LOTR and probably cancel Netflix when Stranger Things is done…
Oh no, that’s bad, very bad. I was hoping for either Amazon or Netflix which I already pay for. As I’m not going to cancel either of them (I need Prime for free shipping and the upcoming LOTR series and Netflix for Stranger Things and The Witcher), I would have to pay for THREE different services only for Star Trek. With Star Wars on Disney+ that makes four :-(
I’m really looking forward to PROD but until further notice, I guess I will have to wait for the Blu-Ray this time. But if SNW is on Sky as well… I definitely won’t wait one second for that…
Unless Netflix or Amazon will accept deals for non-exclusive licences, no new Trek will come to them.
Generally, ViacomCBS’ new corporate policy of not selling any exclusive licences to non ViacomCBS platforms is a good thing. In a few years when existing licences expire, all Trek will be available on Paramount+.
However, it means the day of having one or two streaming services is gone. All the major content producing conglomerates are pulling back their IP to their own platforms – Disney, WB, NBC/Universal etc.
Netflix is making vast amounts of content for itself because it knows that its era of having exclusive licences to others’ libraries of shows and movies is done. Amazon has just bought a major library and content producer MGM for over $8 billion.
The tyranny of these unending and ever increasing fees!
I think I might chunk the interwebs and this smart phone that attracts fee-based services and apps like a magnet… and just read a book.
It will be interesting to see how long DISCO will remain on Netflix with new seasons and PIC / LDS on Prime… LDS S2 will be on Amazon this summer but then?
Anyway, Prime is here to stay for free shipping and LOTR (and the last seaso of The Expanse)… Netflix I keep mainly for Stranger Things but I can live without The Witcher.
I am looking forward to Prodigy as much as I am ST: SNW!!!!
This looks good, hopefully they don’t “into Darkness” these!
Who the heck can afford multiple screening platforms? Not me, alas.
Sorry but that is really a half assed aproach to expanding your streaming service. I would have payd to get Paramount + as a self contained service, but to have to deal with sky where I don’t have the slightest interest in.
In the press release it says the service will be available on its own too!
not good news. too many different streaming services. I’m already a Netflix Amazon and Disney + subscriber … I think it’s the worst way to retain new fans in countries where fans are already so few.
i don’t think i will do another subscription. in Italy to have P + with Sky cinema you have to pay 39 euros per month …
A shame this day has finally arrived, because that means SNW will end up there too. As a huge Trek fan in the UK, I simply won’t sign up for P+, I’ll wait for the physical media release. Multiple streaming platforms per-studio will just not be a thing in this house, we can’t justify the cost. The exception to this is Disney+, which does have an absolutely enormous catalog, and is a genuine rival to Netflix and Amazon.
Paramount is not a big enough name to take off independently in the UK. The tie-in with Sky is a smart move, because they probably know this- but even being on that platform they’ll be up against Sky’s own channels and their tie-in with HBO via Sky Atlantic, which is very popular.
The more streaming becomes the mainstream and the more I see the direction it’s going, the more I’m convinced that physical media is still the way to go for the content you really love.
Paramount + will fail miserably here in Australia. Virtually no one will subscribe.
If there is a free period then most will just wait until the episodes are all up and then binge watch quickly.
Wow the international streaming rights are becoming a mess aren’t they? So many different sites you have to use just to watch the new shows. It sounds like most people in Europe, South America , Australia and possibly Asia will probably need at least 3 sites: Netflix, Amazon and Paramount+.
For the hardcore fans, they will probably get all of them if they can but also a lot of places people can’t afford to get all these sites at once either. Sad that Trek can’t be more centralized everywhere like Star Wars is on Disney+.
It’s not just that people in Europe will have to get yet another service. It also seems like they will have to wait longer for Prodigy because it will only come to Sky/P+ in Europe some time in 2022. So it’s the Lower Decks international delay all over again…
Great news! Amazon prime AND netflix AND P+ in Germany. I always wanted to pay for much plattforms as possible just to watch Star Trek.
2022?!? Really? Again the international fans are left behind and I am (and for sure many others) are really pissed of! What kind of strategy is that? Do they want to motivate the fans to look for illegal viewing options because it is not possible to what it legally for MONTHS? I can live with getting a third streaming service and happyliy pay for it to watch a new trek series but I want to watch it directly with the US release.
I can certainly relate to the feeling. However, this delay only really affects hard-core international fans who want to discuss the episodes with their North American friends as they are released for the very first time. Most casual fans or more general audiences (remember, Prodigy is supposed to open Trek to new audiences) probably don’t care whether the show is released this fall or next spring. I’d go even further and suggest that outside of people who visit websites like Trekmovie most people aren’t even aware that Prodigy is coming (or when it’s coming).
So yeah, this could drive some international fans to seek out illegal ways to watch the show as it is released in North America. But again: this show is targeted at families. How many families in non-English-speaking markets will pirate an English-only version of the show to watch with their kids?
Likely, the problem is that Paramount Plus can’t get their service up and running in Europe by the time Prodigy premieres. So they could either delay Prodigy also in their home market (not a good idea since this is still where most of their subscribers are) or license Prodigy to another streaming service outside of North America (not a good idea either because they want people to subscribe to P+). Also, if ViacomCBS won’t grant them exclusive distribution rights that makes the show less interesting for Netflix, Amazon and Co.
So, from a UK perspective that means I would need 3 subscriptions to cover all Trek series: Lower Decks on Amazon, Prodigy via Sky and Netflix for the rest.