'South Park' creators reach $1.5-billion streaming deal with Paramount
The creators of Comedy Central's "South Park" reached a breakthrough Monday in the tense negotiations over the streaming rights of the long-running satirical cartoon.
Paramount agreed to buy the global streaming rights for "South Park" to bring the show to the company's digital service, Paramount+, for the first time in the U.S., according to three people close to the negotiations who were not authorized to comment.
The deal with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, through their Park County production company, values the global streaming rights at $300 million a year, according to two of the people close to the agreement, who could not discuss the matter publicly because the deal is not final.
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The five-year deal means the show will fetch $1.5 billion for streaming alone.
The sum preserves the show's status as one of the world's most valuable TV franchises.
As part of the deal, Park County agreed to produce 10 episodes a year.
Paramount was eager to bring the cartoon home. In 2019, previous corporate managers licensed "South Park" to rival HBO Max as Paramount's streaming service was still in development. But that decision left Paramount+ out in the cold — much like the fictional mountain town of South Park, Colo.
The HBO Max deal expired in late June.
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Paramount this spring offered HBO Max and its parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, an option to co-license the show, which would have given Kenny, Kyle, Stan and Cartman a home on two streaming services: Paramount+ and HBO Max.
But over the weekend and on Monday, the talks with Warner Bros. Discovery collapsed, prompting Paramount to go it alone, according to one of the knowledgeable sources.
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Both sides were motivated to reach a deal before Wednesday, when Paramount's Comedy Central channel kicks off the 27th season of "South Park." The premiere date had already been postponed once amid behind-the-scenes drama as Paramount prepares to be sold to David Ellison's Skydance Media.
Paramount and Skydance also wanted to avoid any public relations fiascoes when Stone and Parker take the stage Thursday at fan-fest Comic-Con in San Diego.
Thanks to an arrangement dating back to 2007, Park County is entitled to nearly half of the show's streaming revenue through a joint venture with Paramount called South Park Digital Studios. The revenue sharing arrangement should enable Paramount to eventually recoup about half of the licensing fee that it agreed to pay for streaming rights.
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Months of deal talks were complicated by Paramount's pending sale to Skydance.
In addition, the two sides have separately been negotiating a new overall deal for Parker and Stone, to renew their previous $900 million pact that kept the show on Comedy Central with new episodes through 2027.
Parker and Stone's team are seeking a higher valuation in order to produce new seasons.
Skydance has the authority to approve major Paramount transactions, as part of an arrangement it struck last year with the company's board.
Initially, Park County asked for a 10-year deal but Skydance balked, insisting on a shorter span given the uncertain television landscape.
The high-stakes negotiations became strained last week, prompting Park County to enlist bulldog litigators Stuart Liner and Bryan Freedman to prepare a lawsuit targeting Paramount and Skydance, two sources said.
But, by week's end, the talks were back on track. The various sides agreed on a five-year term rather than a 10-year span.
Skydance signed off on the transaction, the sources said.
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Parker and Stone's longtime attorney, Kevin Morris, and Keith Pizzi, Park County's Chief Executive, spearheaded negotiations for the creators. Keyes Hill-Edgar, chief operating officer of Paramount's media networks unit, shepherded Paramount's side.
Skydance's Ellison and Jeff Shell, a senior executive at RedBird Capital Partners, which is part of the Skydance team, were heavily involved in the negotiations to bring the show to Paramount+.
The companies declined to comment Monday.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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