It was the show, not the brand name, that caused the lost viewers....
By gggie

I watched every episode of the first two seasons, and there was not a single one - NOT A SINGLE ONE - that I thought was enjoyable or worthy of star trek standards. The writing was piss-poor and the story ideas were, at best, lame and uninteresting. Even worse, the show did absolutely nothing to advance or contribute to the star trek mythology - at most, it completely fucked it up (wasn't the first contact with Klingons supposed to be some sort of huge misunderstanding, grounded in the complex differences between the two cultures, that kicked off a decades-long war? This stupid show relegated that into Archer and the enterprise doing one unambiguously nice thing for the Klingons after another, and the highly-stereotyped Klingons snarling and being bitchy in response. What a fucking waste. They had a chance to show how one of the most interesting conflicts in Star Trek history unfolded, and instead they made it into the most moronic, dumbed-down, cartoon-like interaction imaginable. The people who did DS9's Dominion War could have done this right. But not the people who thought the only real problem with Voyager half-way through the show's run was that the actresses' breast sizes were too small...)

People haven't jumped ship from this series because they are tired of the Star Trek brand name - they fled in terror because the first two seasons absolutely sucked (even made Voyager look good in comparison). People didn't want their good feelings about the franchise ruined by the continuing shit-a-tude that was this most recent series (they left because precisely because they were so fond of the brand, not because they were tired of it). The only reason I kept watching, (despite the fact that after every single episode in the first two seasons, I would wonder aloud, "Why the fuck am I watching this awful show?"), is that I was holding on to the unlikely hope that the show would turn around, and start being something more of the quality of TNG or DS9 (pretty much the reason I kept watching Voyager too...). The third season, surprisingly, wasn't half bad - not up to Trek glory of the best of TNG or DS9, but definitely some enjoyable, interesting episodes came out this season (mostly written by the fresh blood that was finally brought on board, like Manny Cotto) - but I can hardly blame the people who left the show earlier for losing faith...