Oct 21, 2019

Bidding War for 'South Park' Streaming Rights Could Reach $500 Million

The most heated battles for TV rerun streaming rights have been fought over live-action shows ("Friends," "The Office," and "My Neighbor Seinfeld"), but now animation is heating up as well. As many as six companies are currently bidding for exclusive U.S. streaming rights to Viacom's "South Park" series.

Bloomberg reports that the show's vast back catalog (South Park surpassed 300 episodes earlier this month) could fetch $450 million to $500 million. This price would be a significant increase from the show's three-year, $192 million deal with Hulu in 2015.

According to reports, Netflix dropped out of the bidding, but likely bidders include Warner Media's HBO Max, NBC's Peacock, and Amazon. Hulu, which is wholly controlled by the Walt Disney Company, also hopes to keep its programming on its platform. Meanwhile, Bloomberg suggests that Apple's streaming service will not bid for the air rights out of caution about "angering China, which sells a lot of iPhones." South Park was recently banned in the country.

This is also a rare case where the creators of a corporate animation project stand to benefit financially from its success. This is because in a surprising deal negotiated in 2007 by "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, they split all non-television revenues, including "South Park" merchandise, video games, theatrical releases, and, perhaps most importantly today, streaming rights. The reason is that it called for a 50-50 split of everything. When Parker and Stone launched their own studio in 2013, it was valued at $300 million, but it is safe to say that the studio will be worth far more after this streaming deal is finalized.