CBS Consumer Products CBS Consumer Products , Inc . is the licensing and merchandising unit of CBS Entertainment which manages the licensing of products for the various television shows owned by CBS , CBS Television Studios and CBS Television Distribution . This company controls the licensing to produce all " Star Trek " DVD s , novels , games , toys , clothing , and merchandise . The company also collaborated with Mad Science to develop " Star Trek Live " , an interactive stage show which opened in 2010 and continues to tour today . Star Trek The Exhibition was also co - produced by the company . Products branded with the CBS Consumer Products name have also been released by The Bradford Exchange , The Hamilton Collection , Hammacher Schlemmer , and ThinkGeek , among others . The unit also doubles as an archive for the " Star Trek " merchandise they have licensed – some of which actually turning up in various live - action productions such as , aside from " Star Trek " proper , " The Big Bang Theory " – as well as serving as a repository for the surviving original live - action production documents , art and other assets ( such as uniform , props and studio model s ) that have been created throughout the history of the franchise , thereby functioning as a reference source for authors of licensed reference works , though a considerable amount of the production assets has been sold off in the 2006 - 2008 wave of " Star Trek " auctions . ( ) All remastering projects of the " Star Trek " television series and movies were initiated by , and have fallen under the auspices of the department , and the home media formats thereof are currently released under the heading " CBS Home Entertainment " . Origins . As far as " Star Trek " was concerned , the unit was established in 1967 , while was in production , as part of Paramount Pictures , which encompassed the newly formed Paramount Television department , itself formed out of the former Desilu Studios and Paramount ' s own , rather small and hitherto relatively insignificant television department . Their marketing unit , into which Desilu ' s own publicity department was absorbed , became known as the " Paramount Publicity Department " , headed by Howard McClay and Frank Wright , and it were they , aside from handling the legalities surrounding contemporary " Star Trek " merchandise , who provided author Stephen Edward Poe with the illustrative material for the first " Star Trek " reference book , " The Making of Star Trek " . Poe also had professional dealings with the department , as he was the account manager for model kit company AMT in regard to their " Star Trek " model kit line . ( p . 15 ) Personally acquainted with the department , Poe has stated in later years , " " Desilu " [ and its successor ] " treated the whole idea of " Star Trek " licensing and merchandising with immense disdain . It was as if studio executives felt greatly annoyed at having to even discuss the subject at all ( . . . ) – some sort of corporate aberration – and licensed merchandise emerged only slowly and with , apparently , great reluctance . " " ( " " , pp . 45 - 46 ) Unsurprisingly therefore , merchandising and licensing remained a rather passive and haphazard affair until 1979 . Interested parties had to approach the department with proposals , which the department ' s involvement somewhat limited to either agreeing to them or not , and drawing up contracts . However , when was in production , the department , now recently renamed to " Paramount Marketing and Licensing Department " ( covering both the television as well as the movie properties of the studio ) made a quantum leap forward in professionalism . The leap forward was necessitated by the February 1979 during the movie ' s production , and responsible for the leap was the department ' s newly appointed Vice - president Dawn Steel . Steel was charged with creating another revenue stream to help cover the ballooning production costs . She did so by organizing a vigorous merchandising and licensing fund drive , which climaxed in a highly imaginative presentation , held in the largest theater on the Paramount lot . A resounding success , the presentation was met with rambunctious enthusiasm by the attending prospective licensee companies . " " It was the most unbelievable party Paramount ever had . " " , attending studio producer , Brian Grazer , remembered , to which then novice studio producer Jerry Bruckheimer has admiringly added , " " She went to convention s and got every toy - maker , anyone who made T - shirts and key chains and raised every nickel she could . She shook the trees . There hasn ' t been that energy vortex in merchandise since she left . " " . Numerous companies signed up , including , at the time , unusual ones such as food industry corporations like Coca - Cola and McDonald ' s . The presentation marked the first time for Paramount that licensing revenues were generated , before a production had premiered . Concurrently , parent company Gulf + Western had commissioned the development of an accompanying , " The Motion Picture " - themed , book line through subsidiary Pocket Books and its imprints , which it had acquired in 1975 ( and therefore a sister company of Paramount Pictures ) , and from here on end merchandising and licensing became an integral part of a proactive overall marketing strategy , further refined in the subsequent years . ( " New York Magazine " , 29 May 1989 , p . 45 ; 6 September 1993 , p . 40 ; " " , pp . 108 - 109 ) A somewhat ambiguous situation arose in late 2005 , when the original Viacom holding corporation was split up into two independent corporations , the television corporation CBS Corporation ( which constituted the former Viacom ) and a motion picture corporation , which , a bit confusingly perhaps , was called Viacom ( new ) and of which Paramount Pictures was now a part . The split was formalized in January 2006 . CBS has licensed the right to produce to Paramount Pictures , but CBS Consumer Products remained the sole entity responsible for the marketing and licensing of the " Star Trek " product line for both the television as well as the movie properties , instead of farming it out to Paramount ' s own division , Paramount Licensing , Inc . It was on the occasion of the split that CBS Consumer Products was formed , and from start to date , the executive most intimately involved with managing the licensing of " Star Trek " merchandise was its Vice President , Product Development , John Van Citters .