The Battle for “South Park”
On February 20th, 2023 media giant Warner Bros Discovery, owner of Discovery + and HBOMax, filed a lawsuit against fellow media titan Paramount Global, formerly known as Viacom CBS. The lawsuit is over the rights to the popular animated sitcom “South Park”. Warner Bros is alleging a breach of contract against Paramount, who promised exclusivity to the cartoon for Warner Bros on its HBOMax platform. In 2019 Warner Bros paid $500 million for the rights to “South Park”, or $1.69 million per episode according to CNBC. During the negotiations for the show, Paramount allegedly asked Warner Bros if they would share the rights to new content from “South Park”, Warner Bros said this was a ‘nonstarter’. However, Paramount has created new “South Park” specials and movies without releasing them to Warner Bros, hence Warner Bros filed for damages. The amount of the lawsuit is currently unclear, but Warner Bros says it is at a $200 million loss for “South Park”. The “South Park” creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, struck a deal with Paramount Global in 2021 to create fourteen “South Park” movies and six new seasons of the show for $900 million.
By Zachary Elias ‘23