Star Trek: Discovery Beats Picard & Rises Higher In Nielsen Streaming Top 10
Discovery outranks Picard season 3, episode 9.
tl;dr ST Discovery is doing well in the ratings, despite cancellation being announced already.
Especially considering it's only on Paramount+.
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One gets the feeling that Paramount senior management have been paying more attention to review-bombed scores on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb etc. and YouTubers than to actual viewing minutes and audience size.
While Nielsen stats are only for the United States, it’s clear that Paramount has been doing vastly better by Discovery than any of the naysayers have claimed.
Remember when every new episode came out the ragebait youtube channels would proclaim it has already been super secret tripled cancelled? And yet they kept producing more episodes post-cancellation for reasons I never quite could follow?
It's really quite simple. No one was watching it, which is why it was cancelled.
But they had to keep making it because CBS All Access needed those viewers, which I remind you did not exist, to prop up the streaming service.
See? See?
Attracting new subscribers with an expensive unpopular show! Brililant!
They're also paying attention to when they need to renegotiate contracts. After the strikes, studio leadership has really doubled down on not giving an inch on writers' and actors' salaries even if it means cancelling a successful show. It's more valuable to them to keep workers in a state of perpetual gig work than anything they'd make from the show.
Contract length is a fair point. But so is the over reliance on US SGA talent in a show that’s trying to reach a global audience and represent a future that’s diverse.
Discovery had only five seasons but in calendar years, in which contracts are written, it was seven years from production of the pilot. So, regardless of the impact of the strikes, further seasons would have required higher salaries for Martin-Green, Rapp, Cruz and Wiseman.
One has to wonder if that was a consideration in the decision on Lower Decks as well.
Also, while federal and provincial governments give significant tax credits for the ACTRA-contract labour costs of Canadian and Ontario resident actors (50%), up until Rennie joined this season the Discovery main cast were all full SGA scale, although the seasonal ‘big bass’ have all been Canadian or resident since season 2. That can make a huge difference to the overall cost.
All to say, if talent salaries were the key driver of decisions, CBS Studios should put more casting in the hands of their Canadian casting director.
One has to then of Canadian/resident main cast will also put a cap on the potential number of seasons for SNW.
It will be interesting to see whether CBS Studios will go for the tax credit when they cast the cadet roles for Starfleet Academy.