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CBS restructuring eliminates Star Trek.com |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 16 December 2007
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 Our good friends at Star Trek.com have fallen victim to restructuring at CBS Interactive. While they managed to survive the splitting of Star Trek from Paramount, it looks like the axe has finally fallen and the entire production team behind the thirteen year old website has been dismissed effective immediately.
What exactly the future of Star Trek.com holds is anybody's best guess. The always busy Star Trek.com forums have been locked to new posting and no new news items have been posted since Friday.
The firing of the Star Trek.com team comes as result of layoffs within CBS News. Reports indicate that anywhere between 60 and 70 people have lost their jobs as a result. A statement about the layoffs, CBS said that they are consolidating their internet operations in the San Francisco Bay area, where CBSSports, Last.fm, and Dotspotter are all based. Star Trek.com was based out of Los Angeles.
This serves as a sad day for Star Trek as a whole, and on a personal note, I am worried about the future of Star Trek.com. The site was one of the earliest corporate websites and has stood apart from the other media sites for years. I'm afraid that it is now going to be folded into CBS.com or retooled with flash and whatnot. While I do think that Star Trek.com does need a refurbishing, eliminating those who have worked on it for all these years (including good TrekUnited friend Larry Nemecek) is not the best way to restore it to its former glory.
The farewell note from the Star Trek.com team left impetus for fan response: send your reaction emails to editor@startrek.com. I've sent a letter myself; perhaps SaveStarTrek.com is waiting to be born. It might be a fruitless endeavour, but we Trekkies seem to have a thing for hopeless causes.
Lastly, I'd like to wish good luck and a safe and happy holiday season to everybody who has worked on Star Trek.com in their future endeavours. CBS sure picked the worst time of year to institute these changes, but if our experience with corporate entities like CBS, Paramount, and the former Viacom has taught us anything, the little guys don't factor into their big picture.
The Star Trek.com Team.
Read: Goodbye from the STARTREK.COM Team
Email: editor@startrek.com
Discuss: TrekUnited Forum
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"Well I don't particularly like the way you smell, either."
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