I wouldn't necessarily have a problem if the new show tried to be proper Trek, while being set in the JJVerse. I love the design aesthetics of the new movies, and would love to see it more fleshed out since I see a lot of interesting potential there.
The problem with this is that the JJ–verse is fundamentally designed to be an action–flick universe. The second it becomes the setting for this new show, it's inevitably going to bring in people who are expecting the show to mimmic the movies in that sense, and when it fails to do that, it'll lose its audience. If it pivots to the action–flick crowd to compensate for this, it'll alienate the fans who were supporting the show in the first place, and not wind up winning over any of the people it lost who weren't really Trek fans to begin with. I've been pretty indifferent to the design aesthetics of the new movies, and distancing this from "Beyond" will almost inevitably result in an aesthetic change of some sort anyway. While there's potential to do something with the JJ–verse in that span between the Narada destroying the Kelvin and the launch of the Enterprise, I think it would be better suited to a miniseries than a full–scale TV series. If you jump ahead to the JJ–verse's 24th century to get away from "Beyond," you're pretty much proving that there's no point in staying in the JJ–verse anyway, because you could do the same thing by jumping to the 25th century in the Prime Universe and actually producing a show that would be more appealing to fans.
We know Starfleet ramped up exploration and technological development after Narada took out the Kelvin, would be interesting to see how things went between then and the 2009 movie in a more Star Trek style of story telling.
As much as this could be interesting, I'm personally burned out on 23rd century JJ–verse Trek and have been for quite some time. I honestly think that even if this idea were attempted, it would wind up devolving into a JJ–verse action series, and ultimately wind up facing a lot of the same criticisms as Voyager for doing so. It might work, but it definitely has a lot of potential for disaster as well.
Just because the movies have been more action oriented, doesn't mean a TV show set in the same universe would have to be the same.
While you're right that the show doesn't technically have to mimmic the movies, it's what will inevitably wind up happening. CBS Inc. will immediately alienate a chunk of the fans just by setting this in the JJ–verse, and they won't bother to pay $6 dollars a month for it. When the numbers are low, CBS Inc. will tell the producers to make it more like the movies, (making the incorrect assumption that the JJ–verse moviegoers will pay $6 dollars a month for Trek,) which will in turn alienate the rest of the Prime Universe viewers who were paying $6 dollars a month for this, while subsequently not bringing anyone new in. As soon as the JJ–verse is referenced, the expectation is going to be an action–series, even if that's not what this turns out to be. I actually think you could do a miniseries or even a direct–to–video movie series or miniseries about the part of the JJ–verse that you referenced in the style of traditional Trek, but I'd be very reluctant to bring it to the small screen for weekly episodes. I've been poking around other places since this announcement and the most common thoughts I see are people hoping that this is a 25th century Prime Universe series, so hopefully CBS Inc. is paying attention to those claims.
Edit: Also, I hate the idea of a Captain Worf TV show. His character was fleshed out enough during TNG and DS9, I don't need more.
I can understand why you feel that way. I actually hate the idea of spending anymore time in the JJ–verse myself, and while I'd enjoy the "Captain Worf" series, it's actually not my favorite concept that was pitched to CBS Inc. I chose it for my examples specifically because it was the most fleshed out concept, and supposedly had a lot of support from people in the company who were aware of what Michael Dorn wanted to do. While I doubt this new series is the "Captain Worf" series, it's still certainly possible that they're one and the same. My favorite concept was actually Manny Coto's 25th Century Trek idea that would have followed Enterprise in production order and Voyager/Nemesis in continuity, specifically because he turned Enterprise around and I felt he could create the next Trek to do what TNG did in terms of giving us another long run. That idea combined with some of Bryan Singer's concepts for "Star Trek: Federation" would have definitely gotten my attention, and could actually work quite well following the destruction of Romulus as the one contribution the JJ–verse made to the Prime Universe. Lose the 29th century concept as a 25th century revision, go with a larger ship, and keep some of the overall concepts from "Federation," and you'd have something that I'd pay to watch, and apparently other people would pay to watch as well. (Just don't call it "red matter" in the Prime Universe as anything other than a slang term and we're good.) This new show is still obviously very early in its development, but it needs to be handled carefully to avoid becoming the next Enterprise for all the wrong reasons.
Streaming and TV on Demand is the way the rest of the world watches TV nowadays and is undoubtably the future of TV series like Star Trek. It's likely that CBS will eventually sell the show to networks once it's finished its inaugural run anyway as I'm sure every network will be chomping at the bit to show a new Star Trek TV series and CBS would be foolish not to cash in especially if this new Trek is a hit.
1701D, the funniest thing about what you've just mentioned is that the rest of the world is going to be getting this on actual television. One thing people outside of the United States don't seem to realize is that the way streaming is utilized here is very different from the way it's utilized elsewhere. A show doesn't go for streaming as long as a broadcast channel or even a cable network will pick it up. Shows in the United States get dumped on streaming services because nobody else wants them, and nobody else is willing to pick them up. While you occasionally get a show like House of Cards, you also get a lot of junk, and House of Cards only went to Netflix because nobody else would touch it. There's also no actual TV station showing older episodes of that show or other streaming shows in the states the way there are in other parts of the world, because anything that debuts on streaming is seen as undesirable by actual TV stations here. The real problem is that there is a channel that wants a Trek TV series, and that wanted it for the fall 2016 television season at that, and that's the CW, which is partially owned by CBS. What CBS is doing could effectively kill this series because of how it's distributed; while I don't even have my eyes on the CW these days, it's still a network, and network's still command the highest budgets and the most respect for their shows in the states. All CBS would have to do is put this new Trek series on the CW, and they'd make the CW happy and avoid driving away other channels that might be interested in distribution rights. Instead they're shoving it on CBS All–Access as a streaming series, which is putting it at a huge disadvantage. CBS All–Access doesn't even have the name recognition that Netflix has, and if actual TV stations won't touch a show that debuts on Netflix, they're definitely not going to touch a show that debuts on CBS All–Access.
I was actually working with someone up in Canada who couldn't understand why people were laughing at his idea to launch a show on a streaming platform in the United States when he tried to get funding for it. The people he was working with in Canada and other parts of the world were very interested in his proposal while everyone in the U.S. looked at him like he was crazy. It took two people actually living in the United States to explain to him why nobody was taking his proposal seriously, and this was after Netflix had already created successful original shows. (Needless to say, his idea fell through due to lack of funding.) While other stations will take this new Trek series in syndication outside of the United States, no broadcast or cable network is going to touch it in the United States if it debuts on a streaming platform just because of the politics of the US TV industry.
NYT says it won't be related to Beyond, but that doesn't rule out a JJ-verse setting. Given the fact that Beyond is JJ verse, I dunno if they'd want to have two competing Trek universes airing one right after another -- they could see it as damaging to JJ verse and the movies if they're disparate.
While the way the original article was worded doesn't rule out the JJ–verse, the further this is from the JJ–verse the better. I'll pay $6 dollars a month for a good Prime Universe Trek series, (especially if it's set in the 25th century after the destruction of Romulus,) but I will not pay $6 dollars a month for something set in the JJ–verse, and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. The best thing CBS Inc. could do is keep the movies and the TV show separate from each other. The Prime Universe is perfect for a TV show and the JJ–verse is perfect for a big–budget movie, and there's no reason why each shouldn't be utilized for what it's best at. Even J.J. Abrams himself stated that Trek needed to get back to the Prime Universe eventually when he was promoting Trek XI, and this would be as good a time as any to do so. I know how Marvel does things, but that's exactly why I stopped caring about most of what Marvel does a long time ago; they mastered reset button mashing before it was cool and have continued it to this day. I was interested in the Spider–Man movies before the fourth film became a reboot, and rebooting the franchise again for the next film has only made me less interested in it than I was before. Trek's Prime Universe works, and sticking the new show anywhere else is just asking for unnecessary trouble, and premiering it on CBS All–Access is going to create enough of that without the addition of another artifical obstacle. Likewise, not having this related to "Beyond" and then setting it in the JJ–verse is only going to cause more confusion because people are going to wonder why it's not connected to "Beyond." Setting the show in the Prime Universe solves that problem and makes it easier for newcomers to avoid wondering why it isn't tied to the films. Setting it in the 25th Century effectively will do what TNG did for Trek in the '80s, and allow this show to be its own thing without another unnecessary pseudo–reboot.
From the press release it suggests to me that CBS are carrying on with their prime universe. There also may be contractual issues with CBS using the JJ Abrams universe as I believe that anything that relates to JJ Abrams and Paramount's universe would have to involve Paramount and Bad Robot. Furthermore, if we look at the DC universe, the TV and Movie universes are separate. It work's well for WB and there's no reason why it couldn't work for Star Trek.
1701D, I would hope that you are right about the Prime Universe. While that seems to be what the press release implied, the fact that they didn't just come out and say the new show would be in the Prime Universe does have myself and others worried that it might not be. I would love for CBS to put this to bed today and just amend the release to say that the new show "will be unrelated to Star Trek Beyond, and set in the show's Prime Universe where all other Star Trek series have taken place." That would end any speculation about where the show would be set instantly, and still wouldn't give anything else that's really significant away.
As for potential legal issues, it's my understanding that although Paramount retains the rights to produce the new movies as they've done since the Viacom split, the material that they produce is ultimately owned by CBS Inc. as CBS Inc. owns the overall rights to all things Trek. Looking at the fine print on my Into Darkness every–format–imaginable–sans–holodeck release, this appears to be the case. While Paramount is now distributing their own discs, (something that they didn't do for the '09 movie,) the legal copy on them notes that "Star Trek and all related marks and logos are the property of CBS Studios Inc., used with permission." This woud indicate that they're licensed to use the Star Trek property, but that they do not own it. It's also been implied that Abrams could have used the Prime Universe in the films if he wanted too, but chose to create a pseudo–reboot instead to distance the films from Enterprise, which would indicate that CBS Inc. is really just having Paramount produce the films as a sort of "works for hire" since CBS Inc. isn't in the business of making their own movies.
It's also interesting that you bring up the WB though, and the fact that the DC Universe TV and film franchises are separate. CBS and WB jointly own the CW, so this would be consistent with the format that WB is using on shows that are airing on their jointly–owned network. (It also further pushes the question of why CBS is trying to shove All–Access at Trek fans when a new Prime Universe Trek would not only follow the format of other shows on a network that they jointly own with WB, but on a network that wants Trek no less.) This same format could definitely work for Trek, and was actually how Trek was going to be handled back in the '70s before the Paramount Television Network fell through, and Star Trek: Return of the Titans was dropped in favor of turning the Star Trek: Phase II's "In Thy Image" pilot into a motion picture instead. Interestingly, Paramount is supposedly going to begin producing TV shows again soon, with the possibility of launching a new network again at some point under consideration as well, so it's starting to feel a lot like 1995 and possibly 1979 (depending on your age) all over again, and not necessarily in a bad way.
It's not just on streaming service it will be airing weekly on CBS January 2017.
Where are you getting your information from? Is there a reliable source that's made this claim and backed it up, or is it just coming from a clickbait site like Collider making plausible but not neccessarily factual information up? So far everything I've seen from reputable sources has claimed that only the pilot will be shown on CBS broadcast TV, and that the streams will debut in January 2017 on CBS All–Access.
Finally, I should note that I have a theory, and that I want to stress that this is only a theory of mine, and should be taken as pure speculation. I honestly think that the real reason CBS Inc. plans to show the pilot on CBS isn't really to use it as "bait" to get people to sign up for CBS All–Access. While I'm well aware that the first hit is always free, Star Trek is a drug that has plenty of junkies who've been in withdrawl since '05, and who will easily watch this if it's a new Prime Universe series. CBS could give the first episode away for free on the free portion of CBS All–Access if they really were just handing out the first hit for free, completly negating the need to debut the pilot on network television. What I'm guessing CBS is really doing is debuting the pilot on network television not only as "bait," but as a way to measure ratings of the show on network TV. If it draws in a large number of viewers and CBS All–Access loses most of them, I fully suspect that CBS will quickly find a way to work the show into their actual broadcast schedule rather than distributing it as initially planned. A January debut on All–Access would imply that the pilot will likely be shown in the fall of 2016, and if All–Access loses most of the people who watched the pilot, I could see CBS deciding to show season one as part of their summer broadcast line–up to see if they're still able to pull in the kind of numbers that they got for the pilot. If they do, I fully suspect that season two will premiere on CBS in the fall of 2017 rather than on CBS All–Access. I could be wrong, but Netflix, iTunes, and multiple other sites all give pilots away for free, so there's no reason why CBS couldn't do the same thing without a network debut if they weren't trying to see how this show might fare on network TV. If they really just wanted to have some sort of special "spectacle" for the pilot, they could just set up one of those fathom events that they've been doing with movie theaters for TOS–R and TNG–R, and easily have the same effect that showing the pilot on network TV as "bait" would have. I know I'd personally pay to watch the premiere of this on the big screen if CBS were to go the fathom event route, just as I paid for TOS–R as a fathom event, and would have paid for TNG–R if the one–night showings didn't always occur when I was away in an area with no movie theater holding such a showing within a 40 mile radius.