ViacomCBS Plan Would Unify All of Star Trek In One New Streaming Service (arstechnica.com) 70
According to CNBC, ViacomCBS is planning the launch of a new streaming service that would expand upon the already successful CBS All Access with films from Paramount Studios and Miramax, plus TV program from networks like MTV and Comedy Central. As Ars Technica points out, both Star Trek films (Viacom) and TV series (CBS) would likely appear on this new service. From the report: The news follows a high-profile merger between Viacom and CBS. CBS had already launched its CBS All Access service before serious movement on the merger began, and Showtime (also owned by ViacomCBS) has offered streaming options for a while now. Previously, Viacom offered some streaming services of its own while also licensing its content to bigger players like Amazon Prime Video. Both CBS All Access and Viacom's existing streaming services would continue to exist alongside this new service in the company's current plans.
ViacomCBS owns such networks as MTV, VH1, CBS, BET, Showtime, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central, as well as the major film studio Paramount Pictures. It also owns publisher Simon & Schuster and a 50 percent stake in broadcast TV network The CW. (The other half is owned by Warner Bros., now owned by AT&T.) The CNBC report says that the ViacomCBS leadership is still finalizing its plans. However, the current thinking is that there will be both ad-free and ad-supporter tiers (as is the case with CBS All Access today), with Showtime included in at least one plan. Neither a name nor pricing have been decided.
ViacomCBS owns such networks as MTV, VH1, CBS, BET, Showtime, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central, as well as the major film studio Paramount Pictures. It also owns publisher Simon & Schuster and a 50 percent stake in broadcast TV network The CW. (The other half is owned by Warner Bros., now owned by AT&T.) The CNBC report says that the ViacomCBS leadership is still finalizing its plans. However, the current thinking is that there will be both ad-free and ad-supporter tiers (as is the case with CBS All Access today), with Showtime included in at least one plan. Neither a name nor pricing have been decided.
Q: When is a dupe not a dupe? (Score:2)
A: When the previous version of the story, from a couple days ago, has been removed from the site.
Re: Q: When is a dupe not a dupe? (Score:5, Insightful)
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More streaming services is exactly what we need, this is really filling a big hole the other 200 streaming services have not filled.
Monopolistic cable providers that make you buy 75 channels to get the two you want
Two hundred à la carte streaming services with exactly one or two good shows each (at a rate of 8-12 episodes a year)
Pick one.
Doesn't sound right... (Score:1)
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No more new strange plots that lack rights to past content?
Re:Doesn't sound right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Without new writers and producers, I'd prefer they stick to the Kelvin timeline. As Kirk said, "let them die." When we one day have the right people to have real Star Trek again, an upbeat show about a utopian future where problems are primarily solved with diplomacy, then we can just ignore the recent stuff as non-canon and be happy.
A show that remembers Roddenberry's dream, that has a real script bible and at least vaguely tries to stick to science where it can? Sign me up. But, sadly, Hollywood is currently back to believing that there's no market for real Star Trek, and the license is may well be abused until no one is left to care about it.
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Star Trek is no stranger to politics, but mostly it was done with subtlety and charm, not anvilicious (some TOS episodes were pretty bad, but TOS was like that). The best political commentary of TOS was that it had a woman of color and a Russian on the bridge crew and no one in-universe ever commented on it as if it were special or unusual. It was the normalcy of it that shocked some back in the day. 50 years later, you can watch it oblivious to any social commentary and it's still solid.
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Roddenberry was a mediocre hack with little talent and a hackneyed vision
Eh, his talent was average for TV, call that what you will. But his vision was what made it great. In TOS he just hired SF short story writers of the day, instead of the usual crap Hollywood writers. That's how we ended up with a mix of the best and worst episodes on TV from that time. TNG was more middle of the road, and suffers for it now as stand-out episodes are fewer, but the acting was better once you get past season 1. (The first 0.5-1 seasons of any SF show have crap acting and character writin
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(The first 0.5-1 seasons of any SF show have crap acting and character writing, as everyone is trying to fimd thier way).
Mostly true, but is not limited to Science Fiction.
I also felt that "Firefly" was an exception, being great from the start. (It has been awhile since I have seen it though, I could be in error. It will be due for another watch soon, I will give it further thought then.)
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While I was less enthused by Firefly than many others, consider what it might have been if it had had more seasons, after the writers and actors had settled in.
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"No more new strange plots that lack rights to past content?"
This hasn't been a problem in the past. CBS has full rights to use *anything* from the franchise, and it always has.
Don't believe bullshit conspiracy theories.
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One Star Trek to rule them all? Good luck with that.
They're all being assimilated -- I hear resistance is futile.
Where no cash grab has gone before. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't care (Score:3, Informative)
All the Star Trek I want is out on DVD.
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Have you actually seen the new ones?
No. Nor will I. No pun intended. (Score:4)
It's like asking of someone allergic to fish to "just try a little bit, maybe they'll like it".
I'm allergic to terrible writing, incessant smugness and the underlying current of passive-aggressive puerile churlishness aimed at the audience, as practiced by Jar Jar, Lindelof, Kurtzman and Orci.
These guys are neither artists, storytellers nor are they capable or willing to grasp and explore a subject, ANY subject, beyond the most superficial of levels.
They are marketing executives who were too lazy to study business.
I don't need to watch anything they are attached to, to know that it will be shit and bastardization of someone else's existing work which will end up going nowhere, saying nothing and just taking up space.
No pun intended.
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So you haven't watched it because you hate all the stuff that was in the Original Series... OK.
I guess the Original Series was very in-your-face with the social justice stuff. Almost every episode was some kind of morality play, barely disguised because Roddenberry was constantly pushing it to be as overt as possible and the only thing holding him back were the network execs.
But the new ones are not like that at all. It's very subtle, far far more so than TNG and DS9 for example. And tangential to the plot,
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why would Picard respond to past events with xenophobic racism?
You're not the man he is, you wouldn't understand him.
Twirling your neckbeard doesn't turn it into a mustache, either.
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It's funny, you clearly know how new Trek differs - the old was very optimistic and it's slowly been showing that the federation and the characters to be less than perfect.
But then to go into full SJW rant mode about people being too sensitive... For liking more edgy content.
You mention how TOS showed the Klingons having redeeming features. I guess you didn't watch all of season 1 of DIS.
I can't really discuss this with you because for you it's all about the SJW conspiracy.
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Quite the opposite.
I don't watch it cause I've seen it already. And it was shit EVERY GOD DAMN TIME!
And I'm not talking about TOS, TNG, VOY, DS9 or ENT. Or the movies which came out of that.
One of the "worst" TOS movies has the best and the most concise ever argument against organized religion - "What does god need with material goods?"
That's taking a complex philosophical argument and boiling it down to an argument-ending question.
And yes... it IS a shitty movie - but at its core there IS more.
What' I'm ta
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It's like asking of someone allergic to fish to "just try a little bit, maybe they'll like it".
I'm allergic to terrible writing, incessant smugness and the underlying current of passive-aggressive puerile churlishness
OK, so you don't know what an allergy is?
So you think fish is gross, and lie that you have an allergy so people don't laugh at you?
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The latest Star Treks are shit -- they have been turned into dumb action schlock.
* Star Trash: Disaster [youtube.com]
* Star Wreck: Retard [youtube.com]
I'll take my Seth Trek (The Orville) as the spiritual successor to ST:TNG any day over this modern day agenda crap. Even TOS broke new ground with the first interracial kiss on TV, putting our cold war enemies on the same bridge, giving hope that things will be better, etc.
New Star Trek is just a complete cluster fuck by people who don't have a clue WHY Star Trek got popular in the firs
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I watched the first season of the STD show, so aptly abbreviated, took about 4 hours, fast forwarded over the boring bits, the stupid bits, the idiot feelings bits and the Klingon orks (they were just to annoying to watch or listen to). Didn't even bother with the second season. I also skipped the majority of modern star wars films, skipped them from the moment the mary sue spider crawled up a wall, knew it would get even worse from there. Rogue one was surprisingly good, the rest other people watched them
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So you watched less than 1/3rd of the first season, fast forwarding through most of it, and your conclusion is that it sucks?
It's no wonder you seem to know next to nothing about it.
Marketing slogan (Score:2)
Pic a card, any card.
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Okay, I'll take Pic-card.
Don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake me when they figure out that people don't want to subscribe to 20 different streaming services to watch the 20 shows they're interested in.
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Wake me when they figure out that people don't want to subscribe to 20 different streaming services to watch the 20 shows they're interested in.
You’re in for a long sleep as fragmentation of content by the IP owners is the future.
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Lets go back to buying dvds
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With DVDs you can also rent just the ones you want to see, and then return them. You don't have buy them.
You know you're full of shit when you have to misrepresent the choices to make the good one look bad.
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What I remember the TV heads saying was that they wanted a-la-carte pricing. They wanted to based on which channels they wanted to watch, instead of being forced to buy giant bundles that included crap they didn't want.
Buying a different bundle from a different company for each of 20 different shows is extreme movement in the opposite direction.
People want them unbundled, that in no way implies they want to still buy a bunch of bundles.
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They long since figured that out, that's why they are doing it! It's their business model.
And you will never get it a la carte, for every good show, you will have to subscribe to and get 23 other shows that suck.
Call it what it is (Score:2)
The whole thing needs to die. Copyrighted content is already artificially limited - by giving the copyright holder a monopoly on distribution (nobody else is allowed to copy it). This is completely stupid with a product which costs virtually nothing to copy. We need compulsory licensing. The copyright holder decides on a price to license their content (to an entity
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That ship has sailed a long, long time ago.
Copyright infringement dropped sharply with the advent of Netflix and the like, when people had a convenient, easy and affordable way to get a hold of all of the shows they want to see. Now we see it rise again when this convenience goes away and is replaced by a FUBARed streaming hell where everyone rolls his own, with this one not working on Firefox, that one not working on Chrome, that one over there requiring you to download some godawful software that does god
Balkanization begins (Score:3)
Dump your Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon stock. Now that the content creators have figured out the streaming technology, they no longer need a middleman to deliver it. Of course, you, dear viewer, will have to spend a lot of money subscribing to a dozen different content creators to get the stuff you want to watch. More money in total that you do today, I would say.
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Re:Balkanization begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and became a content creator - and one of the better ones. While they might struggle against the juggernaut that is Disney, nobody else really is matching their quality of output.
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Hulu is 100% owned by Disney now.
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Hulu was owned by Disney,(ABC) Disney (FOX at the time) and NBC. NBC agreed to sell it's % of hulu to Disney Hulu is going to do great(it's Disney+ for things too adult to be on Disney+)
Netflix has been creating their won content for years because they saw the writing on the wall. Is it enough? I dunno.
Amazon Video is not a relevant percentage of their income. And Amazon can piss away billions to also compete
Netflix is the only one of those three I would worry about.
So are we just republishing mega corp's releases? (Score:2)
So Much for OTA TV Access? (Score:2)
A local NBC affiliate has a subchannel running the "H&I" network. Among other things, it binge-runs the Star Trek TV series' (all of them) in a daily evening time block. I guess this means their ability to do that will end sometime soon? Yes, commercials are a pain (though the mute button helps), but the shows are pretty good, and it's interesting to compare the later versions and spinoffs with the original all on the same night.
TOS without CGI? (Score:2)
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You used to be able to buy them on the iTunes Store. Not sure if you can anymore.
Actually, though, I think I prefer the CGI versions. The whole "Red Planet, Blue Planet, Green Planet" thing is kind of annoying--it's nice to see real-looking planets. They can also get rid of some of shots where they re-use stuff (i.e., the S.S. Botany Bay from "Space Seed" and the un-named ore carrier from "The Ultimate Computer") and make for some more interesting shots of the Enterprise and other ships (again, check out
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oh no (Score:5, Insightful)
not another streaming service???? we are being nickel and dime to bankruptcy with all the subscription fees. cord cutting is not what it used to be. it has been corrupted by big business.for profit. and they wonder why people turn to piracy to get their shows.
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How About "Fan" Stuff? (Score:2)
I'd love to see CBS officially get involved with the Axanar [youtube.com] stuff and maybe some other fan productions, too. Let a thousand flowers bloom...
Is it still a Freudian slip... (Score:2)
Is it still a Freudian slip when reading something? I read the title as "...Plan Would Unify All of Star Trek In One New Steaming Service".
And now, back to your original programming.