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Television

'South Park' Nears $500-Million Deal for US Streaming Rights (latimes.com) 52

Posted by EditorDavid from the friendly-faces-everywhere dept.
An anonymous reader quotes the Los Angeles Times: "South Park" is the latest beneficiary of Hollywood's rerun mania. The show's creators and media giant Viacom Inc. expect to share between $450 million and $500 million by selling the streaming rights to the animated comedy, one of the longest-running TV series in U.S. history, according to people familiar with the matter. As many as a half-dozen companies are bidding for exclusive U.S. streaming rights to past episodes of the show, which has been available on Walt Disney Co.'s Hulu in recent years. Viacom and the show's creators hope to secure a new deal by the end of 2019 and could decide on the winning bidder as soon as this weekend, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are private.

The value of popular TV reruns has skyrocketed, fueled by new streaming platforms seeking programming that can attract subscribers and provide an edge over rivals. Viacom and "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone expect the multiyear deal to net more than double what Hulu paid in 2015.... One company that probably won't be bidding is Apple Inc., the people said. The tech giant has eschewed controversial programming that could damage its brand, and it's wary of offending China, where it sells a lot of iPhones. "South Park" was just banned in China after an episode mocked the country's censorship of Western movies and TV.
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'South Park' Nears $500-Million Deal for US Streaming Rights More

'South Park' Nears $500-Million Deal for US Streaming Rights

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  • Bad for consumers (Score:3)

    by esperto ( 3521901 ) on Saturday October 19, 2019 @06:49PM (#59325998)
    This is great for south park producers, but this trend of streaming companies paying hundreds of millions for exclusive rights only brings to consumers higher prices and the "necessity" of subscribing to more than one service.

    In the end the streaming companies will be the biggest losers, as consumers will probably go back to torrent as it is a free one-stop-shop for all TV/movies.

    • This is great for south park producers, but this trend of streaming companies paying hundreds of millions for exclusive rights only brings to consumers higher prices and the "necessity" of subscribing to more than one service.

      In the end the streaming companies will be the biggest losers, as consumers will probably go back to torrent as it is a free one-stop-shop for all TV/movies.

      No, most people don’t even know what is a torrent. They will do just share subscriptions more and more until they are not allowed anymore.

      • Most people don't NEED to know what a torrent is anymore. There are dozens of app front ends that provide a catalog and UI for torrent streams. Unless they want to download it permanently, the average Joe simply has to click a button.

      • Torrents have been cleaned up of content you have to pay for... P2P is near dead, it was replaced by the Client-Server model that was always there.

    • Then don't pay for expensive streaming service. If there is no must-have programming from a provider then take your business elsewhere.

      What I don't like is the handful of streaming companies insisting they understand hot new trends and over emphasize this 90's nostalgia for reruns. I think we can agree that the industry is more complex than a single trend and single demographic.

      What would have made sense is if different streaming services found their niche instead of fighting over the same content.

      And befor

    • If you just absolutely HAVE to constantly watch reruns of Friends, Southpark, The Office, Seinfeld, etc. then just buy it and you won't have to hop Services just to rewatch a show you've already seen a dozen times or more. For the rest of us those things are background noise when nothing else is on and the TV addiction still needs fed.

      • Blu-Ray box sets cost more than cable with on demand for a month... not to mention they throw in better Internet and a VoIP package for less than these things cost in the 90s.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • South Park has always been sensitive to current news, a package of reruns is nothing compared to each week's new episode.

        • South Park has always been sensitive to current news, a package of reruns is nothing compared to each week's new episode.

          Have all currently released seasons something like 300 episodes on disc and personally don't see this at all in older seasons. Cultural references were more about spoofs of other shows, movies, actors and misc famous people. Not so much current events for it to matter. This changes in later seasons.

          As for each week's episode they are only pumping out 10 shows a season currently. From what I've seen the older seasons are better than later ones.

          • The older seasons are definitely better than the newer seasons. Eric's voice is much higher in tone (I like his lower, rougher voice) and since they started using computers to do the animations it's not the same. Also I miss a lot of the older characters. Jimbo & Ned, Timmy, Clyde, etc. This new Tegrity motif is getting really old now. And 10 episodes a year is not enough. Shows made more than that back in the day. At least 13 or more a year.

    • I just subscribe to one at a time, but I don't like to talk to people about stuff that happened on television. Like, how fucking boring, let's talk about life. For those who want to talk about TV with their coworkers, this might not be an option, but letting TV dictate to you is bananas. Grow a pair (of whatever) and tell the TV what you want, not the other way around.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Consumers will do exactly what I have done, swap streaming services on rotation. Dropped Netflix for local yokel stan, probably going with them for a few months and then onto the someone else for a while before going back to Netflix. No problem what so ever, Disney is just waffling bullshit. The smart play is just to get it first, for say the first between one and say three years, after that exclusivity is nothing just rotation of streamers.

      Next up getting cheaper content. Look the idiots at Google told ev

      • Netflix got huge streaming (all reruns from human history) almost exclusively for 5 years. Now 1. That's wearing thin (even Buffy and Dexter start getting tired the 8th time through) and 2. Other competition forms. Some, like Netflix, with others' shows. Many, by the original content producers who realized the cash was far greater than their old school syndication models produced. I.e. cut out the middleman.

        But now everyone has to produce new stuff. Episodes, movies-of-the-week, it's all been done befo

  • Which is why I prefer to download the episodes and watch them when I want - to hell with such exclusivity. Not all of us can afford or even have the option to subscribe with these specific providers.
  • Yeah, Apple doesn't like South Park over China. The Apple End User License Agreement episode probably has nothing to do with their position. :-)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • No need to suck up to China. There is still plenty of money to be made if you make stuff that doesn’t suck. :D

  • Yawn (Score:3)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Saturday October 19, 2019 @07:36PM (#59326082)

    Media companies still don't get it. Nobody wants to pay fucking monthly rent to 4 different streaming services because the few decent shows/series are fractured and split between them, just like no one wants to pay $100 a month to have 500 channels because that's the only "package" that contains the 3 channels you are actually interested in. Give us a service where we can watch what we want to watch, and pay only for that content.

    Then they wonder where cord cutting comes from. The same will happen to streaming services.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Give us a service where we can watch what we want to watch, and pay only for that content.

      With no offense, that's pretty much exactly what we had with iTunes. If you wanted a song, you bought that song. If you wanted an album, you bought that album. Eventually as DRM-free files you could back up and convert and use offline and do all the "fair use" things you wanted with. It was the market that decided they'd rather rent access to a DRM-locked music library like Spotify. And to be honest I think it's the same way with TV and movies, people like the Netflix model. They don't want to buy shows per

      • You know well, though, that DRM isn't about being mean to backups and offline and media-shifting and fair use. Lack of DRM allows rampant copying.

  • South Park, is like just about every television show. After a couple years, it gets to be boring. I mean, how many times can you kill Kenny...or say TIMMMMYYYYY.
    • They've even made fun of themselves for that and they usually don't kill Kenny in the episodes anymore. I think the more recent seasons haven't been as good because they moved away from the original formula of the show and have tried to have season long narrative arcs. There's still some good episodes, but the average one isn't as good as some of the older seasons.

      I'm not really bothered by this at all since they still let you watch free episodes, including the mostly recently aired ones, on their own we
      • Exactly! I canâ(TM)t remember the last time they killed Kenny - or even seen him for more than a few seconds as a side kick, as well as Timmy. Theyâ(TM)ve gone way too political now which kind of sucks for us non-Americans as we really couldnâ(TM)t care less :/

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      The attraction of South Park and Simpsons is that they make it about today's culture, watching Simpsons from 10y ago doesn't make sense unless you lived and were an adult during that period.

      Sure there is still funny stuff but a lot of the jokes are in-jokes for the adults about current political and sociological things. It's similar to watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart or Jay Leno today, you just don't.

    • They had gotten stale a bit. But that is, what, nine years ago or something?
      You should watch them again. They are quite awesome again since at least a few years.

    • People barely even remember those ancient episodes anymore, grandpa.

  • They mocked more than just censorship (Score:4, Informative)

    by The Rizz ( 1319 ) on Saturday October 19, 2019 @08:51PM (#59326248)

    "South Park" was just banned in China after an episode mocked the country's censorship of Western movies and TV.

    If you watched the episode in question, they full-on went after China's prison system and human rights abuses, as well. If it had just been their censorship, I'm pretty sure the whole thing would have blown over pretty quickly, but showing horrendous prison conditions, callous executions of prisoners, people begging the party leaders for their lives, etc? That's what really got them banned.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by neubsi ( 1039512 )

      If you watched the episode in question, they full-on went after China's prison system and human rights abuses, as well. If it had just been their censorship, I'm pretty sure the whole thing would have blown over pretty quickly, but showing horrendous prison conditions, callous executions of prisoners, people begging the party leaders for their lives, etc? That's what really got them banned.

      Loved it, but still was missing their take on the organ harvesting, cant wait what trey and matt do with that. tegridy organs? lol

  • Whoever 'wins' will get ridiculed to no end in future episodes. Can't wait!

    • Presumably they learned their lesson of setting up a season long arc where Trump loses and goes underground, his voters left lying on the couch with nothing but member berries for solace.

      In that case it's less the politics than accidentally locking themselves in with a storyline they had to wrench around and flop the sides on, which didn't work so well.

  • For artificial scarcity.

    Illegal in any other industry. Where you are paid a value corresponding to the amount and skill of the work you did, and that's it.
    Except in the media "industry", where it is called a "property right", and they grab money for every use, for all eternity.

  • I mean, Pooh is supposed to be banned because he looks like their fearless leader, Xi.

    So, Randy Murdering Pooh is Randy Murdering Xi; the people of China loved it, so it's banned.

    Or did no one get that?

    • Banning something because you don't like political criticism and you're a dictator.

    • That's certainly one way to interpret it, but I think that's a bit of a stretch. Pooh != Xi just because of the resemblance, and Randy was trying to please the Chinese at the time.

      Pooh is banned. He is a symbol of censorship. Randy murdering Pooh is Randy carrying out "extreme censorship" to please the Chinese.

      The episode shows Chinese censorship in a negative light (essentially criticizing the Chinese government), that's all it took to get banned.

  • 3.50 (Score:2)

    by sad_ ( 7868 )

    where are these numbers coming from?
    $3.50 is more than enough.

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