StarTrek, the famous industrial brand from which the homonymous show is based, tells the fantasy-scientific stories of humans who will one day rule the future world, completely unimaginable. The story tells us about the story of the adventurous protagonist who will start to explore galaxies to discover new societies and forms of lives but captain Spooky will change things.
Disney, a company specializing in the production of children’s films, has never owned the Star Trek brand and probably never will, as it currently belongs to VIACOM-CBS.
Previously, the sole ownership was of CBS but there’s a long owner history that will be explained In this detailed article, I will show you what there is behind the big companies, business, marketing moves that have led Star Trek to be one of the main ambitions of the Disney house, created in the 50s and at the moment, always loved by adults and children alike. However, it is not joking with the economic world and has perceived the potential of the Star Wars brand.
What company owns Star Trek?
Over the course of history and years, there have been many companies that have owned Star Trek. Mainly, it is remembered the so-called “Desilu” company, manager of management for a short period, from 1964 to 1967. Years of revolution and change thanks to Lucille Ball, who produced the first two episodes of the television series, whose titles were respectively ‘The CagThe ‘and’ Where no Man has ever gone before ‘. From this idea, the series was born, projected on big screens only starting from 1966. The period of success, however, comes with Paramount Television, the bearer of excellent results in the period between 1967 and 1989, twenty years in which
Gulf and Western Industries or Gulf + Western have acquired Desilu naming it Paramount
Television, a name still in use today.
That company sold most of its communications shares in 1989 and there was a name change to Paramount Communications. TNG thus began to regain possession of Star Trek from a cinematic point of view, creating Deep Space nine in 1993 and other various films inspired by the series.
In 1994, the old but still goldy Viacom, decided to purchase Paramount Communication and then, CBS Studios in 2000. A mix between them gave life to the famous CBS Paramount Television, Star Trek: Enterprise but also Star Trek: Voyager. Viacom, in early 2006, was split into two types of companies. That name was changed to CBS Corporation.
CBS, the third owner of the franchise, became the owner of all
the rights to Star Trek. In the 2005 Viacom / CBS split, the old Viacom became CBS Corporation and a new Viacom was created. This new company owns Paramount Pictures, which in turn owns the rights to the first ten Star Trek films in full.
The split was seen as the right opportunity to separate Paramount Television from Paramount Pictures. The loss of a series of television operations meant the fatal loss of the Star Trek brand and at the same time, the end of a 40-year period that included
Star Trek. Paramount became just a simple subcontractor.
The current CEO and co-owner Sheri Redstone, a businesswoman and American media executive, had never expressed a positive opinion regarding the old division of Viacom that her father Sumner had planned in detail and meticulously with the help of Les Moonves (businessman with proven experience and husband of Julie Chen since 2004). Specifically, two years ago, 9th September, the latter was excluded from the business circle and was forced to give up his position as CEO of CBS for serious reasons including sexual misconduct and harassment.
This union has led to the reunification of film and TV aspects such as the beloved Star Trek and other important and various franchises. After the merger of CBS and Viacom was officially approved at the bureaucratic level, all Star Trek brand production is again under the guidance of a single and wise leader. This action was carried out on 4 December 2019, the official date of the merger.
Does Disney own ViacomCBS?
Officially, the Disney production company does not own ViacomCBS. However, affiliate channels such as ABC belong to the latter. CBS is currently controlled and directed by the Redstones also thanks to the National Amusements theaters.
Disney-owned companies include Marvel, Pixar, Hollywood records, Vice Media, and Core Publishing. They present marvelous characters such as Star Wars, Disney Princesses, Pixar movies. NBC is owned by Comcast, which completed the acquisition of its company in 2013.
The new parent company will be called ViacomCBS.
Viacom previously owned CBS, having initially acquired it in 1999. What is certain is that ViacomCBS is not and probably never will be in possession of Star Trek and CBS. Only ABC is currently owned by ABC Entertainment, which is itself a property of Walt Disney Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company.
Will Disney buy Star Trek?
Despite its strong popularity, Star Trek will never be as popular as Star Wars, but it has a remarkable group of admirers and loyal followers who help CBS All Access stay on the market and alive. Some economic problems for cinemas such as the diffusion of videos and TV series online and easily available, the streaming sites such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO, but also and above all the recent Disney + have led to the detriment of other houses.
On a daily basis, CBS seems to be working to compete and compete better with those streaming giants. In fact, we are already planning a collection of films available online thanks to a subscription such as The Godfather and Titanic.
In addition, there will be other content from channels such as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and MTV. Star Trek is exceptionally valuable to CBS in its efforts to gain and maintain a foothold in the streaming market during this intense period of initial streaming customer acquisition. For Disney, meanwhile, Star Trek would have brought more fans, but at the same time, Disney doesn’t need any more audiences as it already has its loyal viewers. Simply put, Star Trek is much more valuable to CBS than it would be to Disney, so it’s not possible to agree on a selling price. There would be no agreement.
Moreover, Disney has invested in other shares, such as the acquisition of the Fox channel and the opening of Disney + resulting in the closure of the Disney Channel. They couldn’t even afford any further investment. At the same time, Star Trek is not an ever-developing franchise, it just has a large fan base. In addition, Paramount also canceled the Star Trek sequel as the actors demanded that they were overpaid and the audience would be modest according to statistics. Disney would never risk losing this figure for a franchise it wouldn’t be worth fighting for.