CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves touted the importance of “Star Trek” to the network on Tuesday, calling the franchise “the family jewels.”
“‘Star Trek’ is sort of the family jewels,” Moonves said on a conference call for CBS’ third quarter earnings report. “It’s a very important piece of business for us. As we go forward, we are looking to do original content on All Access and building up that platform. But once again, as we say, Netflix is our friend and they’re also our competitor.”
The network announced Monday that it would launch a new “Star Trek” series exclusively on the streaming service CBS All Access in 2017. “Noting the loyalty of the fan base of ‘Star Trek,’ we think this will boost [All Access].”
Moonves also said that streaming of previous “Star Trek” series on All Excess has done “exceedingly well,” and that the international market is already eagerly awaiting the new show.
“Our international distribution guy is going crazy,” he said. “He can’t wait to get out to the marketplace and sell that. So right away, we’re going to be more than half way home just on the cost of the show just on international alone.”
The CBS executive also said the network is considering an ad-free option for All Access, similar to that just rolled out by Hulu. “It’s a very possible thing for the future,” he said. Moonves also revealed that the network is looking into what new original programming beyond “Star Trek” they could develop specifically for All Access.
Moonves also took a swipe at FX Networks CEO John Landgraf, who spoke of a content bubble in television programming. “We are a content company. We believe the world can have more content. We don’t believe the guy who said, ‘Oh, there’s too much content.’ There never can be too much content and we want more of it.”