Star Trek's Picard series will stream on Amazon next day outside US
If you live in the US, CBS All Access is still the only place you can watch Patrick Stewart reprise Jean-Luc Picard in an upcoming Star Trek TV series.
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Patrick Stewart is set to reprise his role of Jean-Luc Picard.
CBS and Amazon said Monday that an upcoming Star Trek spinoff series, which has Patrick Stewart reprising his role of Jean-Luc Picard, will stream on Amazon Prime Video internationally 24 hours after episodes premiere in the US on the broadcaster's own CBS All Access subscription streaming service.
Note: CBS is the parent company of CNET.
Incoming Transmission from @SirPatStew! The untitled “#StarTrek” Jean-Luc Picard series will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries+ outside the US & Canada and on CBS All Access in the United States. #primevideo @primevideouk https://t.co/UgxPFcRyaT pic.twitter.com/gzAZBVe0MR
— Star Trek (@StarTrek) May 13, 2019
This isn't the first time CBS has set up a deal like this with Amazon. Starting in 2012, CBS agreed to let Amazon stream some of CBS' summer programming -- Stephen King supernatural mystery Under the Dome and Halle Berry sci-fi thiller Extant -- on Prime video four days after the shows were broadcast in the US on its namesake network.
At the time, CBS bragged that these Amazon international deals essentially paid for each season of the shows before anyone watched a single episode.
However, CBS hasn't been married to Amazon for these deals. The company teamed up with Netflix for the international streaming for CBS All Access' other Star Trek program, Star Trek: Discovery. That deal also gave Netflix the right to stream episodes within 24 hours of their US premiere.
The companies said their multiyear agreement would make the Picard series available to stream on Amazon in more than 200 countries and territories, excluding the US and Canada. Each episode will be available on Amazon Prime Video in those areas within 24 hours of its US premiere.
The still-untitled Picard series, which is expected sometime at the end of 2019, will leap ahead in time the prequel Discovery, to the next stage of Picard's journey after The Next Generation. Among the executive producers are Discovery producer Alex Kurtzman, author Michael Chabon and Stewart himself. The first two episodes will be directed by writer and director Hanelle Culpepper.
Originally published May 13, 6:31 a.m. PT.
Update, 9:55 a.m.: Adds background about Netflix deal for Discovery.