South Park and Paramount Strike $1.5 Billion Deal

The journey towards the Wednesday night Season 27 premiere of South Park on Comedy Central has been a rough one. Comedy Central is owned by Paramount, the behemoth entertainment company that's being taken over by billionaire Larry Ellison's son David and his company Skydance, and two weeks ago South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone announced on X, "This merger is a shitshow and it's fucking up South Park. We are in the studio working on new episodes and we hope the fans get to see them somehow," in response to news that the Season 27 premiere would be delayed for two weeks.

But the Los Angeles Times reports that a deal was struck on Monday to keep the launch date on track and to bring the 26 seasons of reruns to Paramount's streaming service, Paramount+, for the first time in the U.S., and restore the reruns to Paramount+ internationally.

The Times reports the five-year deal is worth $1.5 billion for streaming rights alone. Presumably, those archived seasons will soon disappear from HBO Max and reappear on Paramount+, as the HBO Max deal ended in late June. Season 27 is set to premiere Wednesday, July 23, on Comedy Central at 8 p.m.

Meanwhile, reruns of South Park disappeared for international audiences earlier this month due to the dispute between Paramount and the South Park team, sparking ire from fans outside of the United States.

Parker and Stone are scheduled to appear on an adult animation panel at San Diego's Comic-Con convention on Thursday, and the Times reports that "Paramount and Skydance also wanted to avoid any public relations fiascoes when Stone and Parker take the stage Thursday."

The five-year deal is half of what Parker and Stone were originally seeking for the streaming rights — a ten-year, $3 billion deal.

Paramount recently spent $16 million settling a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump for supposedly editing a 60 Minutes interview with then-presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris to favor Harris's message. In the wake of the suit, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned and CBS News president Wendy McMahon was forced out. Paramount noted that the settlement did not include an apology, according to the New York Times.