You thought Spotify’s $100M check to Joe Rogan or Netflix paying $500M for Seinfeld was huge?? Consider this: ViacomCBS just dropped $900M to keep South Park going. 🤯 💰
ViacomCBS’s new deal with South Park‘s creators welcomes a number of new projects related to the show. Among them are 14 made-for-streaming movies on Viacom’s Paramount+ streaming service, not to mention six more South Park seasons to air on Comedy Central.
South Park, which lives on ViacomCBS’s Comedy Central network, has long-been one of the network’s strongest shows. The show has aired since August 1997, and its TV reruns are a lucrative line of income. According to a Los Angeles Times article, Viacom made hundreds of millions in 2019 by selling rerun rights on past episodes to other networks.
TV networks are looking a little different these days, though. They’re not down for the count, but cable viewership is dropping at the expense of streaming memberships—ViacomCBS’s expensive commitment looks like an effort to push Paramount+ using one of the network’s most successful franchises. ViacomCBS has roughly 42M subscribers across Paramount+ and other streaming services, including BET+ and Showtime.
$VIAC rose 7.12% today.