International fans of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny were left reeling last week after South Park was pulled off streaming service Paramount+ amid an ongoing licensing dispute between the show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Comedy Central’s parent company, Paramount Global.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Paramount+’s international license to stream episodes of the long-running animated series has expired, forcing the streamer to pull the show off its global service. Outside the U.S., Paramount+ is available in the English-speaking territories of Canada, Australia, the U.K. and Ireland; in France, Italy and German-speaking Europe; and across Latin America.
Threads on the South Park subreddit and social media have lit up with foul-mouthed complaints from international fans, most of them directed at Paramount and David Ellison’s Skydance Media, whose $8 billion buyout of Paramount is at the heart of the South Park dispute.
“wtf. 100 % cancelling my subscription now,” noted user @emale27. “The only reason I had Paramount+ was to watch South Park. I just canceled,” concurred @jaywinner.
“How does one go about setting Paramount on fire?’” asked @Acceptable-Bid-1019, prompting another user, @probably420stoned to quip: “They’ve basically just done this themselves.”
Amid threats to cancel their Paramount+ subscriptions, devotees of the long-running animated series from Canada, Australia, France, Germany and elsewhere traded tips on how to watch the show, legally or otherwise, from their respective territories.
Paramount+ still has the rights to stream South Park specials internationally. South Park remains on the air on Paramount’s Comedy Central channels worldwide, whose footprint spans most of Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand. Paramount’s ad-supported streaming service Pluto.TV also carries the show in several territories, including Canada, Latin America and select European countries. Back episodes are available for purchase on other services, including Apple TV and Amazon Prime. In some territories, including Germany and the Latin American region, back episodes are available to stream, ad-supported, on a stand-alone South Park website.
That fragmented global access was not what Paramount had in mind ahead of the season 27 premiere of South Park, which is set to bow on Comedy Central in the U.S. on July 23, two weeks later than originally planned.
Negotiations over a South Park streaming deal, to replace its now-expired five-year pact with Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max, have stalled amid Paramount’s protracted sale to Skydance.
As first reported by The Hollywood Reporter last month, Parker and Stone, through their Park County business entity, threatened legal action against Paramount. Park County accuses incoming president Jeff Shell, currently chairman of sports and media at Skydance investor Redbird Capital Partners, of interfering with their contract negotiations with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and Netflix to modify certain terms “to benefit Paramount at the expense” of Park County. It pointed to Shell pushing WBD to give Paramount+ an exclusive 12-month window for new episodes of the show and to shorten the term of the licensing deal from 10 to five years.
A representative for Skydance released a statement dismissing the allegations. “Any accusation that Jeff Shell tried to lower the price or devalue the franchise in any way is not only nonsensical but patently false,” the statement reads. “Under the terms of the transaction agreement, Skydance has the right to approve material contracts.”
Paramount has two years left on its $900 million licensing deal for South Park but without unified international streaming rights, many global fans of the potty-mouthed kids from Colorado will remain frustrated.
But that doesn’t mean they’ve lost their sense of humor.
“The silver lining of tall this merger crap,” noted @Kalse1229 on the South Park subreddit, “is that it’s gonna make for an excellent South Park takedown.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Paramount Global for comment.