CBS offering Star Trek TV series commercial-free

Star Trek is coming to CBS, and you can watch it commercial-free for a little bit extra each month.

If you haven’t heard already, Star Trek is coming back to television. The new series is going to be called Star Trek: Discovery and will be premiering soon, but CBS is just now realizing that fans are more than likely willing to pay for commercial-free viewing.

CBS announced on Wednesday that Star Trek: Discovery would be available in commercial-free form for an extra $4 per month. That’s a small price to pay if you’re a trekkie who wants your fill of the new show. It’s not a model guaranteed to work, but it’s an admirable effort.

The market price for CBS All Access will be $6.99 per month, which is cheaper than any streaming service out there but will only include CBS shows. However, the network is airing Star Trek: Discovery exclusively on CBS All Access which is a brilliant way to get people to pay for the service.

In order to get the commercial-free version of the show, it’s going to run you $9.99. But when you think about it, you’re basically paying for Star Trek: Discovery and access to the other shows is bonus.

One way to think about this is that you’re directly paying for the show. Rather than having to worry about the ratings in order to keep the show alive, CBS will gauge this on views and revenue generated from the streaming service. So Trekkies paying the extra $4 are actually making a donation to the cause — which is one way to spin paying the extra coin.

Either way, this might become the way that television shows are produced someday. Leave it to Star Trek to pave the way in that regard.