South Park is finally going to Paramount+ in the U.S.. Paramount Global’s streamer has reached an agreement with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone‘s company Park County on a five-year global licensing deal, sources confirm to Deadline. The pact, which is still being finalized, is believed to be exclusive and include the next five seasons — consisting of 10 episodes each — as well as the show’s extensive library, sources said. According the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the news, it is valued at $300 a year or $1.5B total.
The deal is expected to be signed before Season 27 of South Park premieres on Comedy Central on July 23. A day later, Parker and Stone are scheduled for a Comic-Con panel in Hall H.
The two sides have separately been negotiating a renewal of Parker and Stone’s previous $900 million overall deal, signed in 2021 that was to keep South Park on Comedy Central with new episodes through 2027. According to sources, Paramount and the duo are closing in on a new, five-year overall deal that will replace the existing one, kicking in now to align with the new South Park streaming deal.
Reps for Paramount declined comment.
Paramount Global always planned to put South Park, one of its marquee IP titles, on its streaming platform in the U.S. after its $500M five-year exclusive streaming deal with Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max expired in late June.
“And starting this July, [South Park] will be coming to Paramount+ in the U.S.,” the company’s co-CEO Chris McCarthy, who oversees Comedy Central and streaming, said during the earnings call in May.
But negotiations between the company, which co-owns the joint venture behind the animated hit, South Park Digital Studios, with Parker and Stone who run it, and the duo became acrimonious at least in part because of Paramount’s pending acquisition by Skydance, resulting in Parker and Stone threatening legal action against Paramount’s incoming owner and President Jeff Shell alleging interference in the streaming rights negotiations. The letter claimed that there were outside offers for 10-year streaming licensing agreements while Skydance & Co. pushed for a 5-year term.
As part of the standoff, South Park earlier this month was taken off Paramount+ internationally a couple of weeks after the license deal had expired. But it had remained on HBO Max in the U.S. as WBD Discovery had engaged in talks about extending the domestic licensing agreement on a non-exclusive basis. As of this morning, South Park was still available on HBO Max amid talk of last-minute back channeling; The show is expected to be phased out in the coming hours as it transitions to Paramount+.
Amid the uncertainty over the streaming deal, South Park‘s Season 27 premiere, originally slated for July 9, was pushed to July 23.
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