Star Trek, Behind The Scenes

The first new Star Trek was Star Trek: The Animated Series. The series was produced by Filmation in association with Paramount Television and ran for two seasons on Saturday mornings from 1973 to 1974 on NBC, airing a total of twenty-two half-hour episodes. Although short lived, as is typical for animated productions in that timeslot during the period, the series garnered the franchise's only "Best Series" Emmy Award, as opposed to its later technical ones.
The popularity of the syndicated Star Trek led Paramount Pictures and Roddenberry to begin developing a new Star Trek: Phase II series in May 1975. Work on the series came to an end when the proposed Paramount Television Service folded.
Following the success of the science fiction movies Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the planned pilot episode of Phase II was adapted into the feature film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The film was released in North America on December 7, 1979, with mixed reviews from critics. The film earned $139 million worldwide, which fell short of studio expectations but was enough for Paramount to propose a sequel. The studio forced Roddenberry to relinquish creative control of future sequels. In total, six Star Trek feature films were produced between 1979 and 1991.
In response to Star Trek's popularity in the movie theater, the franchise returned to television with Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) in 1987. The show was unusual in that it was broadcast as first-run syndication rather than on a major network. Paramount and the local stations split the advertising time.