Warner Bros Discovery Inc. sued Paramount Global, saying the competitor aired new episodes of the popular animated comedy series “South Park” after Warner paid for the exclusive rights.
Warner says it has signed a contract in 2019 paying more than $500 million for the rights to existing and new episodes of the indecent show, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in New York State Supreme Court.
HBO Max, Warner’s streaming platform, was scheduled to receive the first episode of the new “South Park” season in 2020. But the company was notified of the pandemic halting production, the lawsuit said.
Although Warner has exclusive rights to the show until 2025, the company claims South Park Digital Studios, which produces the show and is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, offered two pandemic-themed specials to Paramount, which aired in September 2020 and March 2021.
The lawsuit says the pandemic special should have been offered to Warner under the initial contract. The move, called “verbal deception” in the lawsuit, drove fans of the show to rival Paramount’s platform. Nearly all episodes of South Park aired on Comedy Central, one of Paramount’s cable channels, the lawsuit said.
Show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who launched the show in 1997 and oversee the franchise, were not named in the lawsuit.
Acquiring the streaming rights to “South Park” is a competitive process because of the potentially lucrative market that could attract more subscribers, advertisers and loyal fans, which Warner’s lawsuit says are mostly made up of young adults.
The 24-page court filing also mentions a $900 million deal in 2021 between Paramount subsidiary and South Park Digital Studios for exclusive content on the Paramount Plus streaming service, which launched the same year.
Warner said the deal was a deliberate “scheme” between Paramount, its subsidiary MTV Entertainment Studios and South Park Digital Studios to “move new South Park content to Paramount Plus to enhance the new streaming platform.”
Warner paid $1,687,500 per episode and claimed it had not received all the episodes covered by the contract, resulting in more than $200 million in damages.
Paramount Global did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment on the lawsuit.
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