Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco, CBS CEO Les Moonves discussed Star Trek: Discovery, and the serialized approach to the latest TV Trek outing.
Moonves insisted that the show wouldn’t be quite as serialized if it was on broadcast television. “Star Trek could have gone on CBS, it could have gone on Showtime, it could have gone directly to Netflix instead of just international, for a lot of money,” Moonves said. “There is a distinction. The Good Fight is a spin-off of a successful CBS show. It is sort of different on All Access, they can be serialized. On CBS we try to avoid that generally. Network television generally works better when it is not serialized.”
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The CBS exec went on to flat-out say that CBS All-Access’ success can directly be attributed to Discovery. “We could have sold [Star Trek] to Netflix for a whole lot of money,” he said, “but you can be darn sure that All Access wouldn’t be doing as well as its doing.”
Already green-lit for a second season, Star Trek: Discovery returns later this year on the CBS All-Access streaming platform.
(via Trek Movie)