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Trekcast Breaking News: Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery in talks to merge! · Star Trek Podcast: Trekcast

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  Track Uss the Galaxy's most unpredictable Start Trek podcast. Here we are here,
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  we are live Sunday morning. Wait a minute, yeah, exactly Wednesday,
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  Wednesday. Yeah uh so for those of you guys watching, we are live
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  breaking news, big breaking news. Probably shouldn't shy away from what's going on.
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  If you guys have seen the reports, Paramount and Warner Brothers are in
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  talks for a merger and this was first reported by Axios and it's kind of
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  a big deal. So I thought we should just breaking news. So Scott
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  has joined me for this. Scott's going man, it's going great, going
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  great. Looking forward to hearing what's going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  absolutely. And to help us with this, we are bringing in Astor
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  from Daily Star trek News dot com. Astor is one of the reporters there.
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  You want to introduce yourself to everybody, Astor, Yeah, I'd love
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  to hi. I'm Astor, a big Star Trek fan. Like Daniel said,
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  I work at Daily Star Trek News. I'm just kind of a big
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  nerd and I got offered a really cool job and now I'm here. So
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  right, that's awesome. I love it on so Fillo sen ask what's going
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  on with this merger talks? What do we know so far? So basically
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  on Tuesday, Warner Brothers and Paramount just they met in New York City to
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  talk about the possibility of merging and this the main motivation from this for this,
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  from what I can tell, is basically after Disney Plus and Hulu merged,
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  they need to be a competitive streaming platform now because no one really has
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  Max or Paramount Plus unless they're really into one of those shows. So they're
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  trying to become a more competitive streaming platform as the main motivation right now,
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  it's just talks, though, Warner Brothers are getting their bankers to look into
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  it, and that's pretty much the news. Okay. The biggest effect that
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  this has been in like real life is there has been a twelve percent rise
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  in the Paramount stock, right yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, Well,
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  I mean this could be a big thing for for both Paramount and Discovery.
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  They're you know, they're not as big as Disney or Apple or Amazon
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  as far as entertainment media, so combining the two kind of does give them
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  a bigger footprint in the market. I know that Paramount has a pretty good
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  distribution internationally and so that could be a big benefit for Warner Brothers as well.
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  I know Warner Brothers, they do have their distribution, but typically they
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  partner with out the distributors to get their films out. So if they have
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  that already in house through Paramount, that could be a big thing for them.
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  Okay, okay. Plus, you know, this could give us the
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  crossover we've all been waiting for for years, Star Trek in Looney Tones,
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  I mean, bugs Bunny on the Bridge. I mean, that's what we're
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  all thinking, right, I want Scooby Doo in lower decks. Oh,
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  there you go, there you go. My first thought was actually a Game
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  of Thrones and Star Trek. I'd love to see some dragons in space.
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  There you go, There you go. I like that. Yeah, I
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  like that. I'm actually right in the middle of Game of Thrones. I've
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  never watched it before. I just started season four Game of Thrones, so
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  I'm kind of a Game of Thrones nubie. But yeah, I'm really enjoying
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  the series. So yeah, So it sounds like it's pretty early on.
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  We don't know exactly what this will mean. It's just a lot of you
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  know, just guessing at this point. But One of the things I had
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  thought about as I was driving home, knowing we were going to talk about
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  this is you know, Warner Brothers has been very much in a heavy let's
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  cut everything we can trim the fat mode. Right. We had the Batgirl
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  movie shelved famously. They were going to like it's done. I don't know
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  if you know about that aster, but yeah, oh no, I know
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  it's It's just it hurt a bit, right, Yeah. Yeah. And
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  then there's the Wiley Coyote Versus Acme movie that currently is being shopped around,
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  but that's only after public outcry for for this film. They were originally going
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  to shelf it too, So yeah, that makes me wonder about Star Trek.
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  Like, you know, we know that Discovery used to be profitable when
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  they were selling it internationally to like Amazon and to Netflix for distribution, right,
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  so by charging those streaming services international, that's how it was profitable.
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  But then when Paramount Plus went international, it wasn't as much because now they
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  were on streaming revenue, and we don't know what those numbers are. How
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  much of a draw Discovery has been for their own streaming revenue or or any
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  of the other Star Trek shows, right, because now it's all in house.
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  So can we be seeing a reduction in Star Trek shows if this merger
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  happens, just because of how tightly Warner brother It keeps the purse strings.
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  I was worried about that too, especially with Prodigy just getting cut and moving
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  to Netflix. That was my story when reading about this. I'd hope that
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  theoretically it would allow for both companies to have a bigger budget, especially if
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  they can become a competitive streaming platform. Yeah. I mean ideally that's the
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  hope, right. I mean, I guess Discovery doesn't really have to worry
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  about it because it's their final season, so they're good either way, right,
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  So yeah, yeah, but like long term in a Stranger Worlds,
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  could that be reduced? Could lower decks? I mean lower decks is already
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  what four or five years in so they could be saying, hey, time
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  for that to go. You know, we we've got the what section thirty
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  one movie that's supposed to be starting to shoot next month, So yeah,
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  it'll help boils down to the to the dollars. I mean obviously, you
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  know, we want these companies to make money because if when they make money,
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  they make the content. We like, we've talked about that before.
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  Now, okay, what are some of the big players? You mentioned Game
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  of Thrones? Now, forgive my ignorance, is h can we talk about
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  what companies are associated with what other companies are well all the other little dolls
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  in that nesting doll, right, exactly exactly. So when we're talking about
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  Warner Brothers, what big not necessarily franchises, but what big companies were talking
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  about? We talked Warner Brothers. Yeah, Game of the owns what is
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  that the I think they just own HBO something. Yeah, they own HBO
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  anything on HBO. Okay, okay, that's kind of big. The Last
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  of Us Show franchise, Yeah, okay, franchise. I think I've heard
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  of that one too. Looney Tunes man, there's a few others. I
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  think they owned Hanna Barbara. I think they bought them out a long time
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  ago. Okay, well, okay, so I'm thinking you remember that Paramount
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  commercial where they were climbing the top of the mountain and it was like Door
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  the Explorer and Captain and the guys from n C I S and all that
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  kind of just imagine who's going to be on that mountain? Now there's gonna
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  be dragons flying around and you know the Marvin, the marsh control, Yeah,
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  right, all of it. So yeah, I mean it's it's gonna
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  be a lot of properties all under one umbrella. So I guess we'll see
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  what happens to us long term with this. Yeah, I don't know,
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  man, it's kind of hard to say definitively at this point, but it's
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  definitely something we'll keep tracking. Yeah, and let you guys know as it
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  moves along. Ask her anything else you want to bring up about the merger
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  or any other predictions you have for it. Part of me wonders how the
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  merger will affect the filming process and if we could see a turnover in creatives
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  on movies like the Section thirty one movie or the new Starfleet Academy show that
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  I don't know if it's confirmed yet, but they'll be talking about it.
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  Well, they had confirmed it that they were going to make it, and
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  they have a writer's room for it. Even what's her name? She plays
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  Mariner's Tony Tony knew some Yeah, Tony, Yeah, I remember that.
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  Yeah. Yeah, So I wonder if we would see, you know,
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  overturning creatives with that with Warner Brothers having their sort of money in the game.
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  Now, yeah, it's curious to see how that plays out, like
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  if their showrunners are going to you know, be involved in the process that
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  our showrunners are already in by ours. I'm talking about Star Trek obviously,
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  but yeah, also, how is this gonna affect you know, I pay
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  a certain amount per month for pair amount plus, but I also have HBO
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  or racks, so you know, are they going to come up with some
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  sort of tiered system or some sort of you know, bundle package whatever.
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  Yeah, I mean it's very early on for those discussions, but probably you
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  know, I'm also wondering now Star Trek legacy has been hanging out there right,
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  people have been talking about that whether or not that's going to actually happen.
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  I've kind of had this realization recently that I kind of think it is
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  going to happen, just because Terry Metallis is not yet officially signed on to
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  anything else that we know of, and that guy did such a great job
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  with The Cards season three, you would think that, you know, somebody
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  would have scooped him up by now if he wasn't already committed to Star trek
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  in some way, right, and hopefully everybody knows he did a good job.
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  Everybody important knows, like the exacts, right, Paramount and the execs
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  that Warner Brothers. You know, if that merger happens, yeah, hopefully
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  hopefully so it can go one up two ways. When you have a merger
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  like that come in, you know, you have these two companies come together,
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  and you've got a project that's sort of hanging in the balance. It
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  can get a the project can get a shove. Now the question is does
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  it get shoved off a cliff or does it get shoved into production? Well,
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  to give you an idea, like now that I'm thinking about it,
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  to give you an idea how quick things can get shoved. Right. When
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  when Discovery bought Warner Brothers, they were about two to three weeks away from
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  doing a Wonder Twins film, right, They had announced this and they even
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  have cast it. They announced who the caster was going to be, so
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  they were they like script was ready, they were going to go, right,
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  and then as soon as Discovery bottom, they immediately canceled that film.
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  Instead, We're not doing this thing, you know, so who knows what
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  that could mean for you know, Section thirty one or Star Trek Academy.
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  The other thing to consider is Discovery is has made their money with unscripted shows,
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  right, reality shows. That's that's their bread and butter, Right,
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  So could we see some sort of reality shows Star Trek not necessarily like following
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  people around or whatever, but maybe like I don't know, like a game
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  show like that the Game show. Yeah, so along those lines you know
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  here for that one. Yeah, I pictured like a sort of sci fi
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  nature show where someone walks through all the planets and Star Trek there you go.
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  Yeah, I would love that for some sort of like Unexplained universe kind
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  of show like you see on History Channel, but with like maybe Star Trek
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  actors you know, which you see on the hist reachannal and I think about
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  it, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I would love to
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  see Jonathan Frakes, you know, walk around with the camera again like he
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  did thirty years ago, and go backstage and talk about some of the behind
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  the scenes stuff. Yeah, that would be neat. That'd be really neat.
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  But yeah, yeah, that's basically where we're at right now. Guys.
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  With this, it's all kind of you know, speculative at this point,
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  but as tell us a little bit about Star Trek Daily News or daily
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  Start Trek News. Sorry, yeah, well we're we are part of the
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  Roddenberry podcast network. It's in the name we make. We released Star Trek
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  News daily except for weekends because we need a break sometimes, right, Yeah,
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  and that's we We tried to cover everything from toy releases to video games
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  to any book comic. Uh. Someone who works with us, Alex,
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  has like a massive spreadsheet of the release date of like every comic for the
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  things like that and that. That's pretty much how we get our news or
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  just through through the grapevine, right right, yeah? Yeah. Do you
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  I personally do not. I'm I'm a college student. I don't get that
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  kind of time, right, fair enough, Yeah, fair enough? Okay,
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  it's got anything else you want to ask? No, I think I'm
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  astro other than that, or where can folks find you on? All of
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  can go to our website and they're all linked there as well. Right on
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  awesome, can't wait to check it out. I love this community. It's
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  so awesome. It's really great. Well, Aster, thanks for joining us,
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  and thanks for being so flexible about the breaking news and all that.
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  Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, thank you, thanks me.
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  Yeah, well, thanks everybody for watching, and we'll see you guys
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