Paramount Pictures/History with Star Trek/Creating an overall Star Trek franchise

Until 1979, and reflecting the studio's general attitude towards Star Trek, merchandising and licensing Star Trek remained a rather passive and haphazard affair; interested parties had to approach the Paramount Publicity Department with proposals, which the department's involvement somewhat limited to either agreeing to them or not, and drawing up contracts. Having had personal dealings with the department, author Stephen Edward Poe has commented 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." (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager, pp. 45-46)
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|-| Emergence=
|-| Print material=
|-| Home video format=
|-| Exhibit & Attraction=From the early 1990s onward, the franchise has, through subsidiaries and conglomerate sister companies of Paramount (such as Paramount Production/Show Services, Paramount Parks Entertainment or CBS Consumer Products itself), branched out in Star Trek-themed commercial public side-activities in the form of exhibitions and attractions. However, it was somewhat ironic that neither phenomenon was actually started by the franchise itself; it was only after the phenomenal successes of the 1988-1996 Star Trek Adventure attraction of distribution partner Universal Studios (though fully licensed by Paramount) and the 1992-1994 Star Trek Smithsonian Exhibit by the Smithsonian Institution (though supported by the studio), that the franchise, from 1993 onward and deeming them commercially viable, took over full control over either, starting with the 1993 Star Trek World Tour for exhibitions, and the 1998 Star Trek: The Experience for attractions.
|-| Becoming "The Franchise"=
|-| Viacom/CBS split & reunification=
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