South Park: WB Discovery Sues Paramount/Series Creators

We’ve hinted around this notion for a few years now, and it seems to now have come to fruition. WB Discovery has filed a $200 million lawsuit against Paramount Global and the creators of South Park due to the fact that the feel slighted on the amount of content that has gone over to HBO MAX since their deal was signed in 2019.

In early October 2019, industry rumors suggested that the streaming rights for South Park were being offered to various services, creating an intense bidding war that was estimated to be as high as US$500 million. HBO and South Park Digital Studios announced that HBO had secured a multi-year deal for the exclusive streaming rights for South Park on their HBO Max service starting June 24, 2020. While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Variety reported the deal fell between US$500 million and US$550 million. Beginning with season 25 in 2022, HBO Max posts new episodes next day after their Comedy Central airing. Once that deal expires in 2025, Paramount+ will become the exclusive streaming home. In addition, the season 27 episodes in 2024 would stream first on Paramount+ before hitting HBO Max.

Paramount claims that WB Discovery hasn’t even made any of the payments on the aforementioned amount to which WBD retorts being left out on the “made for TV” movies and the fact that the first ten seasons of South Park were still made available on AVOD services like Pluto, loopholes for the exclusivity of the series being on a SVOD. It should be noted, new episodes of South Park do NOT stream on any premium services except HBO MAX, with even the most recent announcements of new episodes from Comedy Central noting that new episodes stream on Comedy Central’s website which is technically streaming on demand and requires a cable login to access. It should also be noted that HBO MAX has removed select episodes of South Park from its streamers for more political reasons.

WB Discovery claims that Paramount has been able to grow its streamer exponentially as a result of these moves. This despite the fact that Justwatch recently reported that HBO MAX actually has the better market share.

Our Take

HBO MAX just sacrificed its adult animation answer to South Park, and I think they are just feeling salty about it. They don’t have a case.

Update 7/16: Both sides are still going at it.