Solow also makes clear that the development of *Star Trek* was a collective effort — that it involved his own work, Katz’s work, Justman’s work, and the work of the network executives at NBC who advocated for the show within their own institution. Roddenberry’s creative vision was essential. The institutional apparatus that brought that vision to production was a network of people working within specific organizational constraints, and the story cannot be reduced to any single protagonist.
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## Star Trek After Desilu: The Franchise That Built on the Foundation
When *Star Trek* entered syndication in 1969, the audience that found it was not the same audience that had watched it on NBC. The show’s weekly ratings had been a source of ongoing concern throughout its network run. The syndication audience was different: more selective, more engaged, more interested in the show’s ideas rather than simply in its surface entertainment value.
The syndication phenomenon of the early-to-mid 1970s built the audience that made the franchise possible. By the mid-1970s, *Star Trek* was airing in over 200 markets worldwide. The fan conventions that had been modest affairs in the late 1960s had grown into large organized events. The network of fan publications — fanzines, newsletters, discussion groups — had developed a infrastructure for fan engagement that had no precedent in the history of American television.
This infrastructure was what sustained the demand for more *Star Trek*. When Paramount began developing new content — first an animated series in 1973, then a proposed revival series in the late 1970s, then the decision to make *Star Trek: The Motion Picture* (1979) — they were responding to a fan demand that had been built in syndication on the foundation of 79 episodes made at Desilu.