CBS Explains 2017 Star Trek Release Date

CBS Preisdent Les Moonves explained in a presentation why the upcoming Star Trek tv series will miss the 50th anniversary of the series. It turns out to be due to contacts.

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.

Since Star Trek Beyond is set for release on July 22, 2016 that means the new series cannot debut until mid-late January depending if corporations tend to count 6 months literally (30+31+...) or figuratively (7/22/16 + 6mo = 1/22/17). Bascially the windows allows for the movie to complete its theatrical to home video release cycle. Assuming Star Trek streaming is successful and renewed for another season, I doubt that would have any impact on Star Trek 4 and vice versa from that point forward.