‘South Park’ Creators Seal $1.5B Paramount Deal

Paramount was eager to bring the cartoon home. In 2019, previous corporate managers licensed "South Park" to rival HBO Max as Paramount's streaming service was still in development. But that decision left Paramount+ out in the cold — much like the fictional mountain town of South Park, Colo.

Paramount this spring offered HBO Max and its parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, an option to co-license the show, which would have given Kenny, Kyle, Stan and Cartman a home on two streaming services: Paramount+ and HBO Max.

Paramount and Skydance also wanted to avoid any public relations fiascoes when Stone and Parker take the stage Thursday at fan-fest Comic-Con in San Diego.

Thanks to an arrangement dating back to 2007, Park County is entitled to nearly half of the show's streaming revenue through a joint venture with Paramount called South Park Digital Studios. The revenue sharing arrangement should enable Paramount to eventually recoup about half of the licensing fee that it agreed to pay for streaming rights.

Months of deal talks were complicated by Paramount's pending sale to Skydance.

In addition, the two sides have separately been negotiating a new overall deal for Parker and Stone, to renew their previous $900 million pact that kept the show on Comedy Central with new episodes through 2027.

Parker and Stone's team are seeking a higher valuation in order to produce new seasons.

Skydance has the authority to approve major Paramount transactions, as part of an arrangement it struck last year with the company's board.

Initially, Park County asked for a 10-year deal but Skydance balked, insisting on a shorter span given the uncertain television landscape.

The high-stakes negotiations became strained last week, prompting Park County to enlist bulldog litigators Stuart Liner and Bryan Freedman to prepare a lawsuit targeting Paramount and Skydance, two sources said.

Parker and Stone's longtime attorney, Kevin Morris, and Keith Pizzi, Park County's Chief Executive, spearheaded negotiations for the creators. Keyes Hill-Edgar, chief operating officer of Paramount's media networks unit, shepherded Paramount's side.

Skydance's Ellison and Jeff Shell, a senior executive at RedBird Capital Partners, which is part of the Skydance team, were heavily involved in the negotiations to bring the show to Paramount+.