Because they think they can get more money if "Streaming Service X" pays for it than individuals subscribing to their service. I have no idea what the numbers look like, but how many will unsubscribe because of a lack of Prodigy? Probably very few. I won't. So they're basically only losing the ad revenue from the ad-supported tier. Which is Streaming Service X is willing to pay more than that, then why wouldn't they go for it? Standard Ferengi mentality: Profit first, customer second.

And absolute worst case: if no one buys it, tax write-off. Seems to be the big motivator for the purges on other streaming services.

Unless all this purging is part of a plan to fill a quickly deteriorating broadcast schedule due to the ongoing strikes. Disney+ has already announced a few originals shifting to broadcast

People may not unsubscribe, but people like me will likely not subscribe, if some obvious Star Trek property is not on the service that touts itself as the home of Star Trek.

I'm still only going to subscribe for as short a time as possible to binge the Star Trek stuff, but the rest of the service is largely garbage. The things I like on P+ that aren't Star Trek are either old, I've already seen, or both.

Sure, but given that there are something like 900 Star Trek episodes, and I only own a couple hundred on DVD/blu-ray, the service is still totally worth it for me.

Same here. Aside from Prodigy, i own every episode on physical that's possible. And there's a couple other shows on P+ that I've been watching.

And as for the on-off subscribers, whoever they sell it to will plan for you to subscribe to their service instead. So, for arguments sake, let's say there's 10,000 on-off sibscribers. Most probably wait until the season is complete to subscribe, pay a month, binge, and ditch. So they're losing maybe $100k. If said service offers $1M for the rights, that's a huge profit! and you'll still pay the same $10 (roughly) to view it.

Of course, i don't know the real numbers, but I'm sure someone at Paramount/CBS gets paid a whole lot of money to crunch the numbers. and then at the end of the day they ring a bell and yell "We're rich!" on a daily basis. That's how I imagine studios work. I don't care if I'm wrong.

I think Paramount's current financial situation tells us how good their calculations usually are...

Which could be another factor. If Plan A doesn't get you the profit you want, go to Plan B.

So Europe gets the full set. If they're region free, i'm importing. If not, then i guess i'm waiting for the inevitable "Complete Series" set.

I'm with Fandyllic, I don't understand why Paramount kicked PRO from their own streaming service. Cancelling their end of production, I can understand, but also kick it off their own streaming service, where it could still bring in the maximal amount of revenue for them, no matter how small, and without having to split it with a third party? To me, it genuinely sounds like Paramount's passing up what profit they could get from the show, for reasons I don't really understand.

(...though the thought HAS crossed my mind that Paramount did it deliberately so to try and artificially increase demand for the show...and if so, it might be working...)

Further, Fandyllic's also got a point about how Paramount+ is supposed to be home for the entire Star Trek franchise, but it's not actually if it's missing even one show. And this is important because The Animated Series is on Paramount+...and I kinda suspect PRO would be making more profit than it is, so...

Further, one of the big appeals about streaming from the start was that it was a place you could watch all of your old favorite shows that were no longer airing on conventional networks, providing a chance for their respective studios to still be earning some profit off of them even well after production on them had ceased...and why wouldn't Paramount want in on that? Particularly when they're already doing exactly that with probably more shows than I could list?

Whatever the reason, I'm sure part of it boils down to internal politics. And who could ever make sense of that, am I right?

Cool