Not many showrunners will take a paycheck for more than a billion dollars and then turn around to ruthlessly rip into their employer. But that’s exactly what Matt Stone and Trey Parker did with “South Park” last week during its Season 27 premiere.
Last Wednesday morning, Paramount Global, Park County and South Park Digital Studios extended their overall deal for five years and 50 episodes, a move that was reportedly worth $1.5 billion. Hours after the announcement, “South Park” returned with an episode that mocked Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump over “60 Minutes,” the claims Paramount will be giving Trump millions of dollars of PSAs, the company’s Skydance merger, the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” and the president himself. It was a brutal, surreal takedown.
But right now, Paramount needs “South Park” more than “South Park” needs it.
During a time when linear viewership continues to plummet, it’s not a great time to be Paramount. Nielsen reported in May that the overall percentage of streaming TV viewership was more than cable and broadcast combined — the two spaces where a majority of Paramount’s assets live. In the first quarter of 2025, revenue from Paramount’s TV networks fell 13% year-over-year, hitting $4.5 billion, and ad revenue from TV fell 21%. That latter drop was explained by the fact that Paramount had the Super Bowl last year. As for the company’s streaming division, Paramount+ is still losing money. The streamer lost $109 million in the first quarter of 2025, an improvement from $263 million a year ago.
This is all to say that Paramount needs a surefire win, which is where “South Park” comes in.
“When you think of Paramount, it is hard to find something that has that longevity but also that cultural relevance,” Alicia Weaver, vice president of Media Activation at Mediassociates, told TheWrap.
In the years to come, “South Park” will serve as a case study in the importance of owning digital rights. A now-questionable deal made almost two decades ago is responsible for giving series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker more ownership over their series than nearly any other creator in Hollywood. It’s that deal paired with the show’s vast and beloved library, its cultural power and Paramount’s need for buzzy and profitable IP while closing its Skydance merger that delivered Stone and Parker their staggering payday.
“South Park” has the track record to back up the notion this wild valuation may be worth it. During a time when “South Park” wasn’t releasing new episodes, it was still the 20th most-streamed series overall in the first half of 2025, according to Nielsen. During that period, the show was responsible for 10.5 billion minutes viewed. With its buzzy return, viewership for the entire library is likely only going to increase. Popularity for Season 27 jumped by 638% in the U.S. compared to last season, according to data from JustWatch. The streaming guide also found that global viewership in the show jumped by 258%.
“It makes sense for Paramount to be signing this deal and bringing this IP back in house at this moment,” Weaver said.
Chris McCarthy, outgoing co-CEO of Paramount Global and President of Showtime/MTV Entertainment, lauded the deal in a statement: “We’re thrilled that Comedy Central and now Paramount+ globally will be the home to ‘South Park’ for years to come and our thanks to the Skydance team for their vital partnership in making this happen.”
As for Stone and Parker, the duo have taken the new deal and reaction to the premiere in stride. Speaking at a Comic-Con panel on Friday — the duo’s first public appearance since the episode aired — Parker deadpanned, “We’re terribly sorry” and nodded in silence as the audience roared with laughter.
“South Park” is taking a planned hiatus this week, but will return on Aug. 6 — the day before the Paramount-Skydance merger officially closes — with another episode featuring Trump and Satan.
Paramount declined to comment on this story.
How “South Park” secured that $1.5 billion payday
It all started in 2007. Only two years after the launch of YouTube, “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker negotiated an ad-sharing deal with their longtime attorney Kevin Morris that netted them roughly 50% of all “South Park” digital revenue with the other half going to Comedy Central.
In the early 2000s, few people understood just how valuable digital rights would become. And out of all the major media companies, Comedy Central’s parent company Viacom was especially averse to the new format. In 2007 — the same year as Parker and Stone’s deal — Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube over copyright infringement in a fight the two settled out of court seven years later. That legal battle meant that Viacom, known for younger skewing networks like Comedy Central, MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon, spent several years largely ignoring a platform that was resonating with its core viewers.
While all of this was unfolding, “South Park” was making good use of its digital rights. Starting in 2008, Parker, Stone and Viacom made every episode available to watch online for free on South Park Studios, an ad-supported streaming website. The series’ exclusive streaming rights then went to Hulu and in 2014, the streamer paid a then-record $192 million over five years to extend the deal.
But the serious money didn’t come until 2019. That’s when WarnerMedia purchased the domestic streaming rights to the show in a deal reportedly worth $500 million. That was followed two years later by a massive deal with ViacomCBS for $900 million, which included a renewal through 2027 as well as 14 specials that would exclusively live on Paramount+. That move led to an ongoing legal battle between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount over whether those 14 specials, two truncated seasons of the show and a delayed season constituted a breach of their streaming contract.
It’s the streaming rights deal, not the renewal deal, that was on the table earlier this summer. When Paramount Global — now the parent company of Comedy Central — sold the streaming rights to WarnerMedia, Paramount didn’t have a solid streaming offering other than the often ignored CBS All Access. That’s not the case in 2025, when Paramount+ is fighting to become a major streamer.
“We’re only seeing these valuations go in one direction, which is exponentially higher,” Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau, told TheWrap when asked about industry trends about IP rights.
Parker and Stone originally contacted Paramount months before their streaming deal was up, offering to commit to another decade. Around the same time, Paramount co-CEO Chris McCarthy and COO Keyes Hill-Edgar came up with a plan to continue on with the show while hopefully ending the WBD lawsuit, proposing a deal where “South Park” would be available on both Paramount+ and HBO Max. According to Bloomberg, the proposed deal was that Paramount pay $50 million to settle the WBD lawsuit and HBO Max increase its offer to stream “South Park” to $105 million a year for the next 10 years. But thanks to a clause in its merger agreement, Skydance had the ability to approve this deal, and owner David Ellison was not on board.
Skydance stepped in, asking WBD if they would be interested in a five-year deal, eyeing a $250 million-a-year deal from Netflix and encouraging Paramount test how much “South Park” was actually worth. That notoriously infuriated Stone and Parker, who threatened to take legal action against incoming Paramount president Jeff Shell for interfering.
Throughout this entire messy process, Stone and Parker have wanted their show to stream on multiple platforms — namely, Paramount+ and HBO Max — and a commitment to 10 more years. They got five years, an exclusive streaming rights agreement with Paramount for $300 million and an overall deal of $250 million a year. It’s not everything the duo wanted, but it is a ton of money.
“The extension of their deal goes hand-in-hand with the streaming deal,” a former Paramount insider told TheWrap. “You need to make sure those guys are going to be around to make new episodes.”
Controversy is part of the brand
Betting on more “South Park” does mean investing in one of the most savage satire machines ever. Paramount, Skydance and Trump saw that firsthand during the Season 27 premiere of the show, which featured a PSA of a naked Trump and his talking penis as well as Jesus Christ warning the town that Paramount is going to cancel them like they did to Colbert’s “Late Show.” The most scathing moments from the episode were posted on YouTube by South Park Studios, another flex of their digital power.
The White House quickly responded to the episode, calling the show “fourth-rate.”
Despite the social media shock over the episode, this is what “South Park” does. Five episodes are unavailable to stream because they depict the Prophet Muhammad. Season 11’s “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson” repeatedly used the n-word to explore what it’s like to be targeted by the slur. A Season 23 episode about Hollywood censoring movies for China, which was cheekily named “Band in China,” was indeed banned in China. The list goes on.
“Their political leanings remain obscure, intentionally,” said the insider. “Everybody’s fair game to them, and Donald Trump’s just a big, easy target.”
“South Park” has mocked Trump in the past. In 2015, the show introduced the teacher Mr. Garrison as its Trump stand-in, a presidential candidate who promised to “f–k to death” all his political rivals. Originally, Stone and Parker chose to delay this current season to avoid covering the 2024 election, stating that they’re tired of satirizing Trump. “I don’t know what more we could possibly say about Trump,” Parker told Vanity Fair at the time.
Clearly, they found a new angle.
Though they may infuriate Trump, controversial episodes like Season 27’s “Sermon on the Mount” are integral to the show’s value. “South Park” has been around since 1997. Besides “The Simpsons,” there are few shows that have the same lasting impact.
And though content-wise, Stone and Parker have a reputation for making waves, as show creators they’re reliable. “They’re very consistent in the way they operate. They’re not wild cards,” the Paramount insider said. “We always ended up paying them because they were worth it.”
It’s all about IP valuation
The increased rights around “South Park” continues a trend of Hollywood valuing tried-and-true IP. WBD head David Zaslav has been open about his intention to lean into and exploit his company’s IP, a promise that’s been borne out through James Gunn’s DC universe and HBO’s upcoming “Harry Potter” show.
The list of the most-watched shows in 2025 so far is littered with properties that are 10 years or older with hundreds episodes at their disposal. “Bluey,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “NCIS,” “Family Guy” and “Bob’s Burgers” all make the top five list. The top grossing movies of the year tell an even clearer story with a live-action remake (“Lilo & Stitch”), a movie based on a beloved video game (“A Minecraft Movie”) and the seventh movie in a franchise (“Jurassic World Rebirth”) occupying the top three spots.
“The Paramount-Skydance deal reflects a broader shift: Legacy media companies are consolidating to compete at scale, often doubling down on blockbuster IP,” Vikrant Mathur, co-founder of Future Today, said in a statement.
The numbers back this up. Parrot Analytics found that of the 100 most in-demand titles, around 40 to 50% of the top 100 TV shows and 70 to 80% of the top 100 movies are based on pre-existing IP.
“[Long-running shows like ‘South Park’] help to bring value to these parent companies by being seen as that long-term home for exclusive content,” Weaver said. “It’s that symbiotic relationship between utilizing linear TV and streaming to really create longevity.”
