South Park Season 27 Premiere Crushes Ailing “Rick and Morty” in Overnight Ratings

South Park season 27 viewership surges with biggest season premiere share on Comedy Central since 1999, up +68% vs. last season premiere, and nearly 6M cross-platform viewers across Paramount+ and Comedy Central. In addition, the viral premiere dominated Wednesday as the #1 telecast across all cable. South Park earned its most social episode ever, while #SouthPark trended on X for over 12 hours, ranking #1 for 5 hours. Tune-in tonight, July 30^th, for an encore airing of the premiere episode, “Sermon on the ‘Mount,” with a new episode airing Wednesday, August 6 at 10 p.m. ET on Comedy Central and next day on Paramount+.

Full ratings information below:

• South Park S27 premiere scored 5.9M cross-platform viewers across Paramount+ and Comedy Central
• Earned its biggest linear season premiere share since 1999
  • Up +68% vs. S26 premiere (9.20 vs. 5.48)
• Best season premiere rating since 2022
  • Up +15% vs. S26 premiere (0.996 vs. 0.866)
• #1 telecast across all cable on Wednesday
• South Park S27 debut was a hit on social
  • #1 most social episode ever for South Park
  • #1 most social program across all TV on Wednesday
  • #SouthPark trended on X for over 12 hours, ranking #1 for 5 hours

Meanwhile, we just ended the eighth season of Rick and Morty which bombed in the cable ratings overnight. The show kicked off its season with an average that’s below 400,000 viewers in the overnight rating in the first four weeks, another drop off of the show’s just north of 400,000 viewers average last season which was already its lowest. In fact, numbers for Rick and Morty are so low that TV Ratings Guide isn’t even tracking anymore as they usually stop tracking overnights for series whose viewership dips below 300,000 viewers which seems to be where the show will end up by the end of the year.

Even with the show kicking off the eighth season with slightly more critical acclaim audiences are continuing to clamor for Justin Roiland’s return to the show with the audience ratings in the shitter according to Collider. Internationally the show does well because non-English speaking countries didn’t change the voice actors for their principle characters which is why Rick and Morty does better overseas, but since there is no next-day streaming strategy for Rick and Morty in the United States, the show’s sole metric, cable ratings, are telling. Moreover, even Justin Roiland’s replacement actors, Ian and Henry, have admitted that they can’t replicate Justin’s talents.

That’s the difference between a network standing behind their talents during controversy(Comedy Central) and not standing behind their talents during controversy (Adult Swim).