Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick attend the Paley Center for Media special retrospective honoring 20 seasons of ‘South Park’ at the Paley Center for Media on September 1, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California.
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The invention of Warner Bros sued Paramount Global looking to enforce the streaming rights of “South Park,” setting the stage for a legal battle between the two media behemoths as the streaming battle intensifies.
On Monday, Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against Paramount, South Park Digital Studios and MTV Entertainment seeking hundreds of millions of dollars for what it considers breach of contract.
Warner said it agreed in 2019 to pay more than $500 million, or about $1.69 million per episode, to license “South Park,” the long-running cartoon featuring naughty elementary school kids that has aired on the cable network -TV Paramount Comedy Central for decades, for its own streaming platform HBO Max.
During the bidding process for the rights to “South Park”, the filing said, Paramount allegedly asked whether Warner Bros. Discovery would consider sharing the rights to the show for Paramount’s own streaming service.
“Warner/HBO dismissed the proposition as a ‘non-starter,'” according to the lawsuit.
However, Warner claimed in its lawsuit that Paramount went back on its contract and retained the “South Park” specials and other related content. The suit points to Paramount’s new streaming service, Paramount+, as the reason.
A Paramount spokesperson denied the claims made by Warner in the lawsuit on Friday, adding that Warner had stopped paying licensing fees.
“We believe these claims are without merit and look forward to pursuing them through the legal process,” a Paramount spokesperson said in a statement. “We also note that Paramount continues to fulfill the parties’ contract by sending new episodes of South Park to HBO Max, despite the fact that Warner Bros. Discovery has failed and refused to pay the license fee owed to Paramount for the episodes that have already been sent, and HBO Max continues to stream.”
Although the agreement calls for HBO Max to receive the first episode of the latest season of “South Park” in 2020, Paramount said it notified Warner in March that it would halt production of the season due to the pandemic.
Warner then said that “South Park” and its creators are moving forward with the production of other types of content, such as two pandemic-themed specials that air between September 2020 and March 2021.
Warner said the scheme was underway when Paramount subsidiary MTV signed an agreement with the creator of “South Park” in 2021, which calls for exclusive content for Paramount +, reportedly worth $900 million.
“We believe that Paramount and South Park Digital Studios embarked on a multi-year scheme of unfair and deceptive trade practices, in clear and repeated violation of our contract, which clearly grants HBO Max exclusive streaming rights to our existing library and new content. from popular animation.comedy South Park“said a spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery in a statement on Friday.
The show comes as streaming services have been competing for customers and looking to make a profit in the future. Media companies have spent billions of dollars on content to attract subscribers, and have recently begun to cut costs as increased competition slows subscriber growth.
This week Warner Bros. Discovery reported a large loss in quarterly earnings as the company faces a softening advertising market, which has weighed on revenue. The company said it added 1.1 million global streaming subscribers, bringing the total to 96.1 million for services including HBO Max and Discovery+. Losses for the streaming business also narrowed to $217 million for the period, “an improvement of $511 million year over year.”
Warner Bros. Discovery plans to launch a combined HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming service this spring.
Meanwhile, Paramount said last week that Paramount+ reached 56 million subscribers in its most recent quarter. The company plans to increase the price of its streaming service when it merges Paramount+ and Showtime later this year. Paramount also said it was affected by a tough advertising market.