For its first three seasons, viewers outside of the US have been able to enjoy Star Trek: Discovery on Netflix. But a shocking last-minute deal has left all international fans without any way of watching season 4's premiere this week, as the series is being pulled from Netflix at midnight and it won't be available for international viewers until 2022.
At the show’s 2017 launch, previous CBS head Les Moonves made a deal with Netflix that the latter would pay a large portion of the show’s budget in order to obtain the overseas rights. In the US, Star Trek: Discovery was available on CBS All Access, which rebranded to become Paramount Plus earlier this year. This rebrand came with an expansion of offerings and a widening global reach promised, but the expansion to international markets will take a few months, hence fans outside of the US suddenly not being able to watch Star Trek: Discovery season 4 until next year.
Deadline has reported that ViacomCBS and Netflix have just closed the deal today that Star Trek: Discovery is set to launch globally on Paramount Plus, next year, shocking many because season 4 is set to premiere tomorrow. There will be more than 20 countries included in the non-US territories for Paramount Plus, and the first markets to get Discovery will reportedly include the UK, Germany, Ireland, Austria, and Switzerland. ViacomCBS anticipates further expanding to 45 markets within the next year, with Star Trek taking the forefront as a huge brand of theirs. Company head Kelly Day told Deadline today, "As we rapidly expand our global streaming footprint, we are bringing more of our top titles home to ViacomCBS for Paramount+ markets around the world."
The move comes as ViacomCBS reports having nearly 47 million streaming subscribers across its services, and so is understood to be looking for opportunities to reduce costs and rely more heavily on streaming originals to keep this up. Indeed, the third season of Star Trek: Discovery saved money by all post-production being completed by homeworkers. But the expansion from around 20 to 45 markets for Paramount Plus is paltry when compared to Netflix's accessibility, which enabled around 190 countries to watch the much-loved show. Now, most of the viewers of Discovery are now left with no way of watching it.
As many people across social media have commented, the decision is very likely to drive up piracy, especially considering that the announcement comes so soon before the 4th season's premiere and that most of the show's viewership is outside of the US. The move may even serve to conclude the whole show for many fans, as it will be extremely hard to avoid spoilers. It isn't clear what brought on such a sudden move. Anthony Rapp, who plays Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets in the series, tweeted that the news came as a shock to cast members as well. The show was recently praised for breaking boundaries with Star Trek's first non-binary and transgender characters cast last year.
While fans also wait for the new Star Trek movie in development by Discovery writer Kalinda Vazquez, many are also wondering what will happen with other contemporary Star Trek shows. Picard, Lower Decks, and Prodigy all currently stream across different platforms outside of the U.S. or North America, so it seems likely they will also be migrated to appear solely on Paramount Plus next year. Whether or not viewers will want to fork out for yet another streaming service is another matter.
Star Trek: Discovery premieres on Paramount Plus in the US and CTV's Sci-Fi Channel in Canada on November 18th, 2021.
Source: Deadline