130 replies to this topic

[Gothneo]

I don't mind if members make long posts / replies. 1701 has his opinion and he's free to share it. I'm pretty sure I know what it is by now w/o re-reading most of his posts, but I'm glad that Alex is responding to to 1701's posts, as its a new perspective. Plus, as Alex pointed out we may all learn something new about the way Star Trek merchandizing is licensed, and I think thats the point of the topic.

[JMW326]

I agree that some of the long winded posts are a bit much. People have a right to express themselves but this is a discusssion forum not a blog. Evwery now and then writing a long post is going to happen. We have all done it., But every response running on and on is a little much and somehting I dont want to have to read through to find a point. If you have that much to say about this stuff then maybe a blog is the way to go instead of clogging up a discussion forum.

[TheHSBR]

There are no rules on the length of posts only preference. Lets please get back on topic of the license. There are rules on that.

[bgiles73]

Yeah some posts here are long winded, but man that last one by 1701, really says what I feel right now. Paramount/CBS aren't buying that franchise fatigue/ licensing fatigue crap anymore! It got Berman and Braga the boot. DST and Playmates might be next! Like the Bob Dylan song says "The Times They Are A-Changin' ", so too is Star Trek!

[bgiles73]

The thing about all this licensing buisness that intrigues me most is this, "If CBS owns the Star Trek name, why is Star Trek not shown on CBS' network?" It was shown on FOX in syndication in TNG era, on UPN as well. Spike and SCIFY( Who are both under MTV's banner, I believe) had a run of the shows a while. Now BBC has the show. In my lifetime I don't remember ever seeing Star Trek on CBS. I was born in 1973 so maybe some time from 1966-1973 it may have been shown on a CBS affiliate. Anyone care to speculate?

[knightone]

CBS only merged with Paramount Television in 2006.

Even so, CBS has produced shows for other networks before, for example "Caroline in the City" was produced by CBS and aired on NBC in the 1990's.

Syndication deals are also worked out with individual stations separately. And previous Treks were made specifically for the syndication market. At the Voyager and Enterprise were produced, CBS was not under the Paramount flag (or vice versa) and Paramount Television owned UPN at the time, so that is who got to air the two series.

I'm sure if CBS wanted to produce their own Trek series, they could easily do so. Like with most others, the desire to produce Trek seems to be non-existent.

[Gothneo]

Yeah, prior to 2006, Paramount Television owned the rights, and UPN was also Paramount, but TNG, DS9, and VOY were targeted to go into syndication right off the bat. That was the initial business model. It worked because there just wasn't as much competition back then, but as all the cable stations sprung up, the competition for air space got greater and Star Trek's audience shrank.

[Alex]

All right, I'm going to try this the way VulcanFanatic suggested, and split the post into multiple parts to make it easier to read. If others find the multi-part posts more manageable, I'll try to use them more frequently.

1701, I want to let you know that I did read your entire post, and I do agree with you on several points but I disagree with you on others. I want to touch on "Star Wars" one more time very briefly and then I'll get back on topic with regards to the license. Also, if you wouldn't mind sharing what was wrong with your Enterprise-D, I'd absolutely love to know, because I purchased two of them, and aside from the "missing windows" defect (which has one official and several unofficial fixes,) both of mine are absolutely flawless, as were most of them from what I understand. (Duds are inevitable in any mass produced item.)

THX1138 was made by Lucas when he was in college as a "final project" of sorts, and was good enough to be released to a mass (non-college) audience; this is how Lucas was discovered by FOX. All Film/TV majors are required to produce some sort of film on their own in lieu of a "senior seminar," in schools where the aforementioned major focuses on the creative rather than the business aspect of film/TV production. (I should know, I went to one of each.) George Lucas conceptualized "Star Wars" when he was in college, stating that he wanted to make a "modern day Flash Gordon," but it was almost universally panned by his professors as being a waste of time. Fox liked the idea though, and they agreed to pay for half of the film's production, provided that they had some say in the end-result of the product. Lucas couldn't afford to produce Star Wars on his own, and no other studio would even touch the idea, so Lucas agreed to this idea, and the rest, as they say, is history. (ESB and onward were produced directly out of George Lucas' pocket since he quit the Director's Guild, had a good deal of money from the first "Star Wars" film, and didn't want FOX "meddling" with his idea.) In fact, before Lucas began writing revisionist history in the mid-90s, he openly admitted that "Star Wars" was supposed to be a feature-length take on children's shows like "Flash Gordon," and that it was aimed at children. As noted before, it just happened to do much better than either FOX or Lucas himself expected that it would, and it did well with adults, which was unexpected as well. (Don't get me started on how the facts have magically changed in the DVD commentary from earlier materials, or have been conveniently omitted.)

Okay, back on topic. Before we continue though, I want to point out that I read the entire TrekMovie interview, and checked the date: it's from March of this year, (2010) and that's very important because a couple of things have changed since the 2009 movie was licensed, produced, and even shown in theaters. I'm going to quote bgiles73 here because he raises an important question that's incredibly relevant. While we're still talking about the interview though, let me state that as an aside, I'm really looking forward to those Haynes Guides, and hope that the Enterprise-E is one of the first to be given said guide. (I loved the old technical manuals like the one from TNG, and this appears to be the modern equivalent.) All right, here's bgiles73's post:

[Alex]

The thing about all this licensing buisness that intrigues me most is this, "If CBS owns the Star Trek name, why is Star Trek not shown on CBS' network?" It was shown on FOX in syndication in TNG era, on UPN as well. Spike and SCIFY( Who are both under MTV's banner, I believe) had a run of the shows a while. Now BBC has the show. In my lifetime I don't remember ever seeing Star Trek on CBS. I was born in 1973 so maybe some time from 1966-1973 it may have been shown on a CBS affiliate. Anyone care to speculate?

As I noted above, this is an excellent question. When TOS was initially produced, it was produced by Desilu Studios, Gene Roddenberry's "Norway Corporation," and broadcast on NBC for the '66-67 season. Desilu went under during production, and Gulf+Western, purchased Desilu's entire library of programs, renamed the studio Paramount Television, and offered Ms. Ball the opportunity to continue producing the shows that she was previously working on, including TOS. I reserve the right to be wrong about this, but I believe that Roddenberry's "Norway Corporation" was controlled by Desilu, because I don't see it credited beyond the '66-67 season. As we all know, TOS was cancelled by NBC, but not before 79 episodes were produced allowing it to be syndicated.

Gulf+Western had already owned Paramount Pictures for some time, and had made several failed attempts at entering the television business prior to the acquisition of Desilu, including deals with the defunked DuMont Network, (which in an odd way, is a direct-predecessor to FOX, right down to FOX's first two transmitters--Google them for more information,) and a 1950's attempt at their own network known as Telemont (Television + Paramount) that never got off the ground. Gulf+Western made another attempt at creating a "Paramount Television Network," which as well all know, would've launched Phase II before it too became another failed attempt by Gulf+Western to enter the business of Network TV ownership.

Gulf+Western decided to do what they had been doing successfully for their next attempt at a "Star Trek" TV series, and TNG was produced for first-run syndication by Paramount Television. Initially, Gulf+Western dabbled in the idea of cable, but Gene Roddenberry was completely adamantly against it--remember, in the '80s, cable TV was a joke, it was only in 1998 that Cable actually overtook broadcast television in terms of viewers and popularity, and that's a trend that continues to this day. Gulf+Western was about to meet the same fate as Desilu though, after initially restructuring as "Paramount Communications Inc.," named after Paramount Pictures and continued business failures, Gulf+Western sold itself to Viacom in 1989. As Paramount Communications Inc., Gulf+Western had cut deals with Time Warner and FOX though, so TNG aired on Time Warner's WB as well as FOX.

As a result of Gulf+Western's restructuring and TNG's success, all licenses for Star Trek spin-offs were renegotiated, and Filmation's TAS was "decanonized" by Gene Roddenberry in the process. Trek-related merchandise, including Novels and Toys was prohibited from using any concepts from TAS. The firestorm this created among fans is well documented, and after Roddenberry's death in 1991, and the firing of Richard H. Arnold who vetted the licenses for him, TAS references returned to Trek. On June 27, 2007, the official "Star Trek" website added TAS references to its library and declared that TAS was once again "canon" Trek material. The late Majel-Barrett Roddenberry and Eugene Roddenberry Jr. apparently believed that this is the direction Gene ultimately would have taken and approved of the change.

The Viacom of 1989 handled the rest of TNG, as well as DS9, continuing the "first-run syndication" of Trek up until 1996, when DS9 moved to UPN alongside Voyager. It's important to note that Viacom (VIdeo Audio COMmunications) was originally known as CBS Films Inc. in 1971, changed it's name the same year, and in 1973, was spun-off after an FCC ruling stated that TV networks couldn't own syndication companies. (The ruling was later repealed.)

In 1995, Viacom successfully did what Gulf+Western couldn't: Paramount Television, in conjunection with United Television, formed a network known as the United Paramount Network, or UPN. As we all know, this was the "successful" Paramount Network, and it launched with "Star Trek: Voyager." A year later, DS9 was moved to this network as well.

Viacom's entire corporate existence, (note the past-tense,) and by extension Paramount Television's existence, consisted of being perpetually bought and sold in what some have dubbed a "string of acquisitions." In 1999, Viacom announced their most ambitious acquisition to date: They were going to buy their parent company at the time, the CBS Corporation. The "little fish eats big fish" merger/buyout was approved, and Viacom owned CBS rather than the other way around. It's worth noting that the CBS Corporation had previously been known as Westinghouse Electronics, before 1997 (Westinghouse acquired the CBS name in '97,) and one of the channels that Viacom acquired with CBS was TNN, which became Spike TV.

In 2005, the same year that "Enterprise" was canceled, Viacom as it was formerly known ceased to exist. Les Moonves of CBS, and Tom Freston of MTV had been perpetually fueding for several years, and talk began about splitting the company in two. Once Mel Karmazin left the company in 2004 to head over to SIRIUS Satellite Radio, (which acquired XM in the merger that created SIRIUS/XM Satellite Radio,) the split became feasible. Sumner Redstone, Viacom's CEO was set to retire in a few years, and splitting the company seemed like the best way to replace him.

On June 14, 2005, Viacom became the CBS Corporation; this is the CBS that we know today. The CBS Corporation retained the rights to CBS, the CW (a merger of UPN and the WB,) CBS Radio, Simon & Schuster, Viacom Outdoor (now CBS Outdoor,) Showtime, CBS/Paramount Television, (more on that in a moment,) CBS Television Distribution, CBS Studios International and more.

At the same time, a new spin-off company, also named "Viacom" was created, this "new" Viacom is headed by Tom Freston, and controls "old" Viacom's cable networks, including MTV, and other properties including and Paramount Pictures movie studios and home entertainment operations. At the time that Trek XI was in development, new Paramount Pictures licenses under "new Viacom" had to be created for all new Paramount Pictures products--including Trek, the CBS Corporation ("old Viacom") retained the rights to all previous Trek products, and any new TV shows. The Paramount name was split between CBS and Viacom, because of the existence of CBS/Paramount Television under the CBS Corporation and Paramount Pictures under "new Viacom," and it remained that way until shortly after the release of Trek XI.

On May 15th of 2009, one week after the release of Trek XI, CBS/Paramount Television changed its name to CBS Television Studios; the "Paramount" name had been on loan for over three-years as a result of the aforementioned split. Paramount Television's existence ended in 2005 when it became CBS/Paramount Television, and CBS/Paramount Television's existence ended in 2009 when it became CBS Television Studios.

[Alex]

So, to summerize/condense a rather complex answer to bgiles' question, the reason CBS never ran a new "Star Trek" TV series, is because the CBS that controls the rights to Trek now, wasn't CBS until Trek was no longer in production. Network TV channels generally don't rerun old TV shows the way that cable channels do, Spike TV was owned by the same company that owned Trek when they had the rights to it. SyFy/Sci-Fi is owned by NBC/Universal but still has the rights to cablecast TNG I believe, but for the first two years of their existence, Universal was a separate company from NBC, and Viacom partnered with them to Create Sci-Fi before selling their portion of the channel, which NBC bought before buying out Universal. Viacom/Paramount and CBS used to be one company, but they aren't anymore; although they frequently cross-license products to each other. The BBC likely has the rights to TOS because they paid whatever CBS was asking for them; if The CBS Corporation wanted to license Trek to themselves, they'd still have to draw up a contract with their affiliate company, CBS Television Distribution or to the CW as a matter of legal procedure. TOS remastered has been syndicated on the CW, and NBC, the former of which is owned by The CBS Corporation. Trek has been shown on CBS Corporation-owned networks, just not on the CBS Network itself. If a new Trek series is created, it will likely go to either CBS or the CW. To the best of my knowledge the name change from CBS/Paramount Television to CBS Television Studios does NOT affect DST's Trek license, because it's not under a different corporate banner.

Media companies are in a merging/splitting blitz these days. You can't turn around without one company buying or selling or splitting or merging with another anymore. This is the way mass media works: If you Google the Columbia Journalism Review's "Who owns what," you'll find a great little website that tries to keep track of all of this. The person who maintains "Who owns what," is a manned named Dr. Moore, who teaches at the four-year University that I attended. Although I never had him personally for any of my classes, despite the fact that he taught in my field of study, I walked passed his office almost every day for a year and a half, and I can assure you, as soon as he updates "Who Owns What," it's out of date again because of the speed at which mass media companies change hands.

The interview that 1701 provided is certainly interesting. I'm glad to see that we'll have new Hot-wheels ships in the future, although it further confirms that the "no master toy licensee" rule, at least not in the traditional sense, is still in effect for Trek. I should note that Van Citters didn't say that Playmates had lost or dropped the license, he just said that he didn't think we'd see anything from them in 2010, which as I noted, is common among toy licensees with the rights to films. Likewise, he pointed to what DST already had shown as the latest, but not last, or "final" offerings from them indicating that there's obviously more to come. Again, I'd like to thank him for the link, which makes me wonder if Viacom's corporate website is out of date with its licensing information.

Okay, hopefully that's shorter than usual.

[bgiles73]

All very interesting reading here. It's amazing how licensing deals are more complicated than quantum physics! LOL! I'm inclined to agree with 1701 in that DST will probably be given a trimmed down license in the future. If DST Star Trek figures become limited maybe they will be similar to the quality of the Marvel Select Line! I could see DST carrying on with Tech, Ships and Retro-Cloth without problems. Mini-mates might be a conflict of interest if the Lego name became attatched to the Star Trek franchise, but wouldn't it be great if Lego could do a little cross-licensing and bring Mini-mates into their world of building blocks and videogames?

[Gothneo]

He he! I don't think that was quite what VF had in mind Alex, but thanks for all the information. It's good to see a nice vibrant discussion guys, but in the end I fundamentally think DST makes a good product for the price point. I also agree that Star Trek merchandizing seems to be better then its been in years, but sadly, I don't see toys getting much interest or love.

Ultimately this forum is supposed to be a DST forum, and the only product that DST makes are action figures, ships and role play toys, so none of the rest is really consequential respectively.

No matter what company you pick, they all have their issues. I can go to any other toy forum on the web and regardless of if its NECA, Hasbro, or Mattel, there is never a shortage of people that are upset with the product any particular company makes.

I was really quite happy when Playmates got the license for last years movie. Mainly because it offered variety so that DST detractors had other options. Sadly it didn't seem to make very many happy, and I think if Playmates had offered a better product it might have been received better, and even if DST kept making product it would have been good for both companies.

[Gothneo]

I'll try and keep it brief so VF doesn't nod off

DST seem to want to have their fingers in all the pies, lets do action figures! lets do Ships, lets do role-play, lets do this, without having the infrastructure to do all of those things well.

Actually, DST kind of picked up where AA left off. It was AA that had there fingers in all pies.... but at 1st, as I recall, all DST did was re-release the same AA Star Trek Phaser in every possible re-paint variant. People were really upset that DST wouldn't expand the "Trek Tek" line, and now that they have it s seems they have (again for the price) put out several really good products! The TOS Communicator and TWOK Phaser have been great! The TOS Tri-corder has its issues with the electronics, but IMO they are minor. They seem to have hit a stride with Role Play, and it seems to sell! I've picked up most of the ships, and I really dig the Ent D, but I wouldn't say that ships really get me that excited so maybe they arent that great, but again, as a "toy" they seem pretty good to me. Anyhow, I guess my point is it seems DST started out with the intention of just doing action figures, but they don't seem to sell and Ships and Role play do.

By and large, DST's Star Trek line has been a solid effort, The first few waves of TNG were amazing...

I thought they were too. That's not to say that they didn't have issues, but they were a solid effort, also there have been standouts afterwards too. Odo is the one I always think of.

I think DST are shocking at quality control and ever since the LaForge & Data wave quality has diminished in all of DST's products - everything feels cheaper which isn't a good thing.

DST has said the sales of even the 1st few waves of TNG were just never what they expected. Wave 3 was a disaster, and in a way I don't know that DST ever really recovered the faith in allot of consumers from that wave. I should add, I thought I was done with DST after wave 3, but then they put out the TWOK product, and I'm glad they did! I think most of the TWOK figures were well done!

My "River Dance Trek" picture says it all!


I only fixed most of my DST "Legs" when sites like BBTS clearanced out the DS9 sisko for $3 ea.

[TheHSBR]

My biggest surprise came from the drop in quality of character likeness head scuplts. Riker and Worf were so well done, then we gradually saw a slide into a more cartoonish look that I think is best represented by the Data figure. Also DST pretty much discontinued its use of paintwash which also creates a cartoonish looking figure. I think thats where DST lost a lot of its followers. AA had always prided itself on superb quality scults that really nailed the likness and had a some kind of statuesque pose going on. When DST starting releasing the FC uniforms and to some extent the Data body, I think the posing became too static. Couple that with my aformentioned drop off in likeness sculpting and you have a number of the avid AA collectors jumping ship. I find it funny now that DST is finding its bread and butter for Trek inside highly detailed ship replicas that are one step below great models and highly detailed tech thats one step below what Rod and others are doing at far greater prices. As much as it pains me to say it, this line once DST took over should have focused on quality rather than quatity. If I held the DST license right now, I would continue focus on the Tech and ships but also introduce a new toyline geared more towrads the collectors market much like Marvel Select is doing. One figure per wave maybe 6 figures per year max.