CBS boss Les Moonves has opened up about the split between CBS and Paramount regarding the ownership and rights to the beloved Star Trek franchise. As you guys know, Paramount owns the movie rights while CBS handles the TV side. He also revealed why we have to wait until January 2017 before getting that new Star Trek series, spearheaded by showrunner Bryan Fuller.

And it's all the movie's fault.

Speaking at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference, Moonves said they had to wait six months following the release of Star Trek Beyond in theaters before having the right to air their upcoming Star Trek series, set to sream on CBS All-Access in January 2017. He also elaborated on the Paramount/CBS split.

“When [CBS] split from Viacom ten years ago, January 1, 2006, one of the big sticking points, as you can imagine, was "Star Trek." You know, we both wanted it.

They said "It's a movie!" and I said, "No, no, no, it's a TV show." Actually, we're both right. So they kept the feature film rights, we kept the television rights; they have ["Star Trek Beyond"] coming out July 22.

Our deal with them is that we had to wait six months after their film is launched so there wouldn't be a confusion in the marketplace.”

Sure, it’ll give plenty of time for director Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond to warp onto the big screen domestically and internationally, as well as seeing a home release right on time for the 2016 holidays, but I’m not sure how there could be that big of a confusion in people’s minds (which I assume stands for the marketplace Moonves is talking about) between the Star Trek movie and new TV series. Oh well. About the new series and its distribution, Moonves had this to say:

“"Star Trek" is an expensive show, it's the family jewel, obviously. The previous "Star Trek" shows that we sold to Netflix did extraordinarily well; I don't think it's a great surprise that Trekkies would go to the [streaming services] of the world. So we sort of felt that we had a tiger in the bottle.

We announced "Star Trek," and internationally, we basically have covered 60% of the cost of the show already... to make up that [other] 40%, it's not going to take a whole lot of subscriptions, and it says to the world that we are very serious about this.

When you put something on [All Access], it's got to be something special, something you wouldn't find on the [CBS broadcast network], something that will attract subscribers. As I said, "Star Trek" was kind of a no-brainer: there aren't a lot of [properties] out there with that kind of following.

In 2017, when "Star Trek" starts on All Access, we think that's going to be extraordinarily successful.”

Do you agree with Paramount's request to CBS that their Star Trek TV series not air before six months had passed following the movie's release?

(via Trek Core)