CBS and Viacom Make Corporate Merger Plans Official; STAR TREK Film and TV Ownership Set to Reunite

August 13, 2019

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After years of rumors and speculation, corporate media giants CBS Corporation and Viacom have officially announced plans to combine into one company — and in the process, reunite the ownership of the two parts of the Star Trek franchise under the same roof for the first time since 2006.

Viacom’s holdings include Paramount Pictures — which holds the keys to Star Trek‘s film franchise, from the first ten “prime timeline” movies through three Chris Pine-led Kelvin timeline pictures — along with MTV, Showtime, and Nickelodeon, the kid-friendly cable network set to be the home of the second Secret Hideout-produced Star Trek animated series currently in development.

Combining with CBS’s longstanding ownership of Star Trek television and licensing rights — and the upstart CBS All Access streaming service — the two media companies each carry complementary offerings to one another, making the newly-titled “ViacomCBS” entity one that will benefit each… especially the Paramount Pictures film division, which has been facing significant difficulties in recent years.

ViacomCBS touts the combined strength of the merged companies’ content production and ownership.

One of the more public benefits of the merger will be the blending of the two companies’ content libraries, including of course the Star Trek franchise which had been touted as a potential impetus behind the merger plans, in the age of mega-forces like Disney’s Marvel Studios and Star Wars — the large film library owned by Paramount Pictures is expected to make its way to bolster the offerings of CBS All Access’ streaming service, for example.

The official announcement even included Star Trek‘s “reunification” — specifically — as one of the benefits to the corporate union, surely a sign that the Trek franchise is being looked upon as a keystone of ViacomCBS’s future plans.

All that being said, of course, it’s likely to be quite a while until the current Star Trek projects will start to see the benefit of this merger; the deal itself isn’t even complete yet and is expected to take several more months before the situation finally clears the usual regulatory approvals — so don’t expect to see any immediate changes to the Trek we know, but with today’s news, and the recently-formed Star Trek global franchise group that’s been built within CBS’s walls, the future is likely looking bright for Trek of the future.