However, Fox’s success in the first half of the nineties set a precedent. This was partly due to a deal with New World Communications that allowed them access to a huge number of television markets, and partly due to a deal with the NFL that made Fox home to one of the country’s most beloved pastimes.įor decades, the prospect of a fourth network had seemed like a pipe dream, something unattainable and impossible in the television market place as it existed. The television landscape had been redrawn in the mid-nineties, with Fox emerging as a serious contender to the established big three networks. Their fate was tied up in that of UPN, the television network that Paramount had launched in the mid-nineties. Star Trek: Voyager, and later Star Trek: Enterprise, found themselves anchored to a particular television channel. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine never had the same kind of ratings, but it also luxuriated in the creative freedom. Star Trek: The Next Generation had thrived in first-run syndication, free of the constraints of network interference and able to tell the stories that it wanted to tell. In its own weird way, tethering itself to a broadcast channel seems to have been the worst decision in the history of the Star Trek franchise. This is good, because it is impossible to talk about Voyager without talking about UPN. It’s impossible to talk about Tsunkatse without talking about UPN.
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