In another sign of consolidation on Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video is saying goodbye to the classic Star Trek library of television shows.
Five Star Trek shows leaving Prime
For years Amazon Prime Video in the USA has had the full library of classic live-action Star Trek shows. Like on Netflix and Hulu, you could stream every episode from Star Trek: The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise as part of your Amazon Prime subscription. However, that will all end soon, with all five shows leaving Prime Video in the USA at the beginning of January.
Warnings of the removal of the series can be seen currently when browsing Prime Video for any given season with a countdown of the days remaining on the Amazon streaming service. You can see examples of this below for the first seasons of TOS and Enterprise.
This Star Trek exit from Prime Video is part of a trend that started earlier this year when three Star Trek shows left Netflix in the USA in September. Recently, ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish made it clear that the corporation is not renewing third-party licensing deals as they “roll off,” explaining it as part of their larger strategy of “leveraging our particular franchises and original production for our owned and operated streaming assets, principally Paramount+.”
As licensing deals for the two Trek remaining shows on Netflix and the five shows on Hulu expire, those are also expected to exit those streaming services, making Paramount+ the sole home for streaming Star Trek television, both classic and new original Star Trek series. This kind of consolidation has become a trend in the industry, with media companies making their own shows and franchises exclusive to their own streaming service, like Comcast with The Office on Peacock, and WarnerMedia with Friends for HBOMax.
While the Star Trek shows will no longer be part of the Prime Video subscription service, this will not impact any previous digital purchases of Star Trek episodes or seasons. And you will still be able to buy individual episodes and seasons through Amazon. You can also add Paramount+ to your Amazon Prime Channels lineup.
Amazon will have Picard season 2 in February
While the classic shows are leaving Prime Video in the USA, the new series Star Trek: Picard will remain on Prime Video internationally outside of North America. TrekMovie has confirmed that Prime Video will be streaming season two internationally starting in February, when the season debuts in Paramount+ in the USA. This is good news for international fans concerned over ViacomCBS pulling Picard away from Amazon Prime Video as they did with Discovery season four from Netflix last month.
Patrick Stewart in preview trailer for season two of Star Trek: Picard
Find more news on streaming and home video at TrekMovie.com.
I’m glad to hear about Picard. I just hope DS9, VOY, and ENT remain on Netflix LATAM for at least the next 13 weeks, which is how long it will still take me to finish re-watching them.
“In another sign of consolidation on Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video is saying goodbye to the classic Star Trek library of television shows.”
I guess Paramount+ issued the Prime directive.
nice
While I understand why CBS would do this, I don’t know if it’s the best way to bring in new fans. Take Howard Stern for instance. Forget how you feel about him for a moment, and just look at the situation. When he was on terrestrial radio, people could easily find him. You could love him, you could hate him, but you could discover him tuning a radio dial. Now he’s on paid subscription satellite radio. He can say anything he wants and his superfans followed him there. What about the average person turning on a radio? Nope, that person won’t find him. Maybe someone would have been a fan but won’t know about him now. Even better, maybe someone would be outraged and call in to complain, that was always fun. It doesn’t happen now.
So now with Star Trek, sure the Trekkies will subscribe to Paramount+, but what about the people who don’t and could casually find it on another service?
Excellent point, John.
I think you may be looking at that backwards. Star Trek is playing for Paramount+, it is supposed to bring fans to Paramount+. In the same vain as Voyager & Enterprise were meant to push UPN, not the other way round.
I don’t know much about Howard Stern or his situation, but did he bring fans to that “paid subscription satellite radio”? If yes, did he bring enough fans to be worth the cost?
In that case, not sure UPN is the business model they want to be following. ;-)
Although, if memory serves, Trek was pretty much the only thing keeping that network afloat. So maybe they DO want to follow that model and keep the Trek flowing.
It was for a while. But I recall UPN started airing wrestling and that was a big ratings grab for them for another short while before the inevitable.
Yeah I think by the time Enterprise came on the air, wrestling had the dominant ratings. It was a big reason why The Rock showed up on Voyager, to promote it being on UPN.
Oh right, I forgot about wrestling. My memory of UPN is fuzzy because, well, my TV reception was fuzzy, ha! Living out in the sticks, I could barely get a signal most of the time.
WWE while a ratings hit for UPN, then the CW, then USA, it has managed to keep a deal that makes it where the network buying it gets very little money out of the deal. As the bulk of the commercial revenue goes directly to the WWE. Now it does help draw eyeballs to a network and if you watch one thing on a network it helps you see the possibility of watching the network some more. But in an d of itself it was a very small revenue generator for UPN or the CW directly.
Vein.
And it is a good point Star Trek fans will use +, but people who have other streaming services and are new to Star Trek, they won’t be able to one of the shows or movies on the list and try.
I imagine they have gained a lot of new fans in the last few years that way.
I am an old Star trek fan. I watch it practically everyday. There is no way I am paying 10 bucks a month to follow it to Paramount+. The entire reason I ditched cable was so I wouldnt have to pay so dang much for a subscription when I only watched maybe one show on a channel or group of channels. They lost a long time watcher. Sad that we are being culled away from our long time favorites.
I think that’s a great point, especially when he did it. Granted, SiriusXM became much less niche as time went on, they started pre-installing it in cars so over the years so he could attract new listeners, but at the get-go in 2005 you really had want to have the service.
And to your point, Paramount+ already has a number of competitors and probably won’t ever reach SiriusXM status at this point, so it will be as if they’re stuck in the Howard Stern fandom of 2005.
Yep, great observation.
Exclusivity is a double edge sword.
Of course, one could just buy the discs and then none of this would matter.
Exactly, the simplest answer is usually the best one but then again the “casual” viewer wouldn’t really go out of their way to buy the discs would they?
There is always an aspect of not being available, or available in a place with a smaller market reach. For example UPN and the CW had lower coverage than networks. TNG (while on Syndication (and later DS9) fairly broadly, it was scheduled all over the place from early afternoons to even after 3am). But understand this, Netflix and Amazon aren’t in all homes so there already is a degradation of full market coverage where you still have limitations based on what’s available in your region, or if you pay for it. Netflix is currently around 52% of the nations homes. Prime 76 %, Hulu 43%.
As for finding it for new comers there is reason you see ads for Trek outside of streaming services. In fact some of the most watched tv shows in the US (like football) have had advertisements for Trek on Paramount +. Now of course this is for typically their newer programming, but if like you said you have never heard or seen of Trek before its exceedingly more likely that the newer material that gets a vastly larger promotional push will be what gets you to first see Trek. And once you have you will have access now here to find it.
While it loss some possible viewers absolutely. But that has also been true since Trek first come back to tv back in 87.
Yep, same with baseball and basketball, and to a certain extent football. When you put it behind a paywall, you slowly begin to lose the youth that cannot afford it on their own.
Ah well, this was expected. As of now, there’s still all or most of it on Hulu, fyi.
Once Hulu loses Trek and the original Twilight Zone to P+, I’ll probably drop Hulu and sign up for Paramount through Amazon. Luckily I also have my beloved Trek DVD’s, which no one can take away (except perhaps for some oddball Trek-obsessed burglar). In these days of streaming wars and companies nickel-and-diming everyone to death to see their content, physical media is a wonderful thing to be invested in for your favorite shows and movies. Cheers.
Agreed! I still invest in physical media. Especially in an age, where they could instantly take it away. If they do, I have my trek DVD/Blu-ray sets to fall back on.
Same here, I have everything I really like as physical copies and I have them ripped to my home media server so I can watch them on any device I have.
I still entertain the assumption — wrongly, perhaps — that the audio/video quality you get from physical media is still mostly better than what you can reliably stream. That doesn’t even factor-in all the extra features and docs you get with a DVD or Blu-Ray release. So, I agree: for your favorites, there’s no substitute for a copy of your very own. :-)
The other, major thing is nobody can withdraw the service if you have your own copies, and you still have something to watch if and when the internet goes down.
Plus, there’s also the matter of censorship. Okay, in most cases it’s not a going concern for most people, but for the completionists out there, there are certain controversial episodes of TV that have been edited or you simply can’t get on streaming now.
You are not wrong, Michael – the quality on BD and UHD discs is and will be much better in the foreseable future.
Agreed. Owning the physical media is always the better option for content you are sure to want access to in the future.
With the exception of Picard and maybe that Lower Decks show, they aren’t on UK Prime anyway so I won’t miss them. I certainly won’t be paying money to Paramount+ if it launches here just to watch Star Trek.
TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY are all on Netflix in the UK. Picard and LD are Prime and DSC is on Pluto for now.
I thought the older series were going to leave Netflix. Doesn’t matter to me as I’ve got the DVDs of all the ones I like.
i don’t agree with this strategy. i’m imagining a young person who could casually find classic star trek and fall in love but all those casual people finding trek all that will be gone. now they will have to actively seek out. i have a friend recently that caught the original series and loved it. he would not have signed up for p+ to get access to just sample the show. they’re hurting themselves a little IMO.
o think they should be giving everyone free trek a certain amount so people get hooked then they’ll want p+ for more
There is that. I stumbled upon the reruns as a very young child in the mid 70’s. If they were on a streaming service my folks did not have I would have never been exposed to Trek. Who knows if I would have seen it down the line? And if I had, would my mentality been to love it if I saw it under different circumstances?
Too bad it is now exclusive as 1. Let’s say someone has Amazon, and not Paramount +, Trek is new to them and they decide it to try it and end up liking it, that is potential new fan(s), while Paramount seems more aimed at the existing fans.
Seems short sited as far as building new fans, especially with classic Trek. Looks like the availability on Netflix, for example, added a lot of new fans.
Maybe this is a way for them to put kurtzmantrek above all else and downplay the classic shows and movies? I hope not.
2. I have the watched the shows and movies across the different services and they can vary in quality, so hopefully Paramount + will be providing the best picture quality.
That’s why I still buy discs and will buy discs for as long as there are discs to buy.
That way, what’s mine stays mine and isn’t subject to the whims of a licensing agreement.
From what I’m reading in the article, the Star Trek series are currently included for “free” as part of your Amazon Prime membership. Starting in January, you can still watch them, but have to pay to rent or buy them. I expect that once you’ve paid to buy an episode or season, it’s yours. They can’t just arbitrarily take it back. (Or maybe they could, but they would have to refund your money.)
Yes thay can take it back after you ‘bought’ it.
Unless you own the discs, you don’t own anything.
It sounds great, until I have to pick between paramount, Disney plus, Amazon prime (basic) Netflix, nickalodian, etc. it’s at the point where it’s not worth going for Netflix or Amazon prime , and I’m not paying subscription extras, so I’ll just be leaving the platforms and stick with my home recorded vcrs I inherited from my grandparents.
not many people are going to have so many different subscriptions. This is limiting the reach of their brand. Are they going to make more money off this buy taking Amazon and others out? Really? i thought Amazon etc pays to have them on. I don’t get it.
Obviously they did. It sounds like their contract just ran out and Viacom decided not to renew it because they want Trek exclusive to Paramount+.
This isn’t surprising news or anything but still a sad one. I did my grand rewatch of the franchise this year and used Prime as my main viewing platform of all the classic shows for two reasons. One, there is a intro skip button (seriously look into it P+) and two, which no one has mentioned, they actually provide trivia on the episodes and each actor in it. I learned so much just reading about specific info about each episode, especially with nearly 700 of them. Reading up on the actors were a lot of fun, especially a lot who played bit characters and what happened to them. So it wasn’t just watching the shows there, it’s a real resource learning about the shows in general as you watch it in real time.
But its really sad as others cited because Prime like Netflix is something a huge part of the population viewers already have and was a good way to sample Star Trek for the first time. I think just as syndication did for TOS and got new fans into the show for the first time, streaming is the modern way for new fans. Obviously I’m not saying anything new, but what gets missed is TOS because more popular BECAUSE it was everywhere in syndication. You didn’t have a hard time trying to find it…most of the time it found you lol. And that is the great thing about Trek being on so many different streaming sites, you couldn’t avoid it if you had Netflix, Hulu or Prime. An entire new group of fandom has come to these shows thanks to being on these bigger platforms. On reddit, every day you read someone watched TNG, VOY, ENT etc for the first time because they found it on Netflix or Prime. That’s the difference. Tons of young viewers are now new Trekkies today because of it.
Yes in time, they may hope that Paramount+ gets closer to the viewers Prime/Netflix has but it probably be anywhere close for years to come.
Paramount+ does have skip intro.
I don’t know what’s going on because it never shows up for me. In fact, I turned on an episode of Enterprise before I wrote this and no skip intro. Maybe I need to download an update or something?
Edit: I just glanced at another episode’s intro, this time Prodigy and no skip button again. So I don’t know why one isn’t coming up for me.
Most likely they have different versions of the app on different devices.
Do you remember that Black mirror episode some years ago where the viewer could decide the direction of the plot? To this day, it doesn’t work in the Windows version of the Netflix app.
I guess that’s it, because I now have a skip button on my TV app, but still not on my computer app, which is what I was originally testing. So thats great news and assume it will reach all the devices in time. But even then, this is clearly all pretty recent.
I am SO done with this. I’m slowly watching Trek abandon me as I’m just waiting and waiting and waiting because still no word if Paramount+ will ever get to Japan.
I had to wait over a year to start to watch Lower Decks. I don’t know if I can ever see Prodigy or DISCO S4, let alone SNW or Short Treks.
There’s just almost no reason to stay on the straight and narrow when you get this ‘good news’ and realize that the fricken sword is over your head and when it falls you’ll be happily told that something’s been worked out… for the UK.
These “streaming wars” remind me of small children in a playground holding on to their toys and not sharing them with anyone else. If you look at it one way there is the greed of the companies but if you look at it another way then yeah maybe they need to do this to keep themselves in this game of streaming. Personally I am a firm believer in sharing but then I don’t put monetary gain above everything else so what do I know.
What is the point. Its not like they will exclusively have Deep Space Nine remastered in HD or Voyager remastered in HD. They just have worse more compressed than the DVD versions. I’d probably subscribe if they had those in HD.
Just buy the discs.
Do I get a refund from Amazon Prime for all the TREK episodes and seasons I’ve already purchased?
This only affects “free” streaming of Star Trek included with your Prime membership. As the article states, it doesn’t affect any episodes you have bought in the past. You will also be able to buy episodes in the future.
Okay, thanks – very much appreciated. :)
That’s too bad. I just started watching TOS beginning to end. I saw a good number of the episodes as a kid, but grew up with TNG and am most familiar with that series. I don’t think I’ll be able to binge all of them in the next 8 days… Good thing I own TNG at least.
In the process of scanning all my old DVDs of Voyager and DS9- will have to live with that for awhile. Don’t want to support the new shows which have been so horrible. Let them earn my money by upscaling Voyager and DS9 to HD as they did for TNG and TOS.
Yeah I really hope some day they will upgrade DS9 and VOY, especially if the shows will live only on Paramount+ and for people who only care abut the classic shows like you. That will motivate them to subscribe too.
I cancelled amazon and got paramount +. I watch Star Trek every night right before i go to bed, was pretty much all i watched on amazon.
I’ve added Paramount plus to my Amazon channels and I still cannot watch any of the Trek classics, why?! Paramount plus is the absolute worst glitchy app I’ve ever used. You can’t skip ahead every time it freezes. Instead you have to let it fast forward only 3x as fast and then wait for the ads to roll in. Then glitch again some more ads. Ugh Amazon made the worst decision to get rid of them. Paramount plus needs to die.
Well, I do not like the dark story lines of Picard and Discovery.
I did like the 5 classics tv series that were on Prime.
I do not plan on subscribing to Paramount. I have Prime and Hulu (after dropping Netflix) and that should be enough.
Paramount will have to do with one less viewer.
I guess I will be making the Trek to the local library. I was in the middle of rewatching DS9. Definitely not adding yet another streaming service. If it is not on Amazon I won’t see it. I may actually look into the physical disks.