MW 'South Park' deal signals at least one bit of Paramount sale chaos is resolved

By Lukas I. Alpert

Paramount has reportedly reached a 5-year, $1.5 billion streaming deal with the show's creators, after the company's incoming owners sought to rework an earlier agreement

Looks like they didn't kill Kenny after all.

Paramount Global (PARA) has reached a five-year, $1.5 billion global streaming deal with the creators of the long-running animated hit "South Park," according to the Los Angeles Times.

The reported agreement comes after weeks of tension between the two sides that had delayed the premiere of the show's 27th season. It also comes amid broader unrest at the company as it seeks to close its sale to David Ellison's Skydance Media.

The deal grants Paramount full streaming rights across the globe for the show, which has aired on the company's Comedy Central channel since the program launched in 1997, the report said. Previously, U.S. streaming rights for "South Park" were held by Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (WBD), while Paramount held the international streaming rights plus the rights to air the show on Comedy Central.

A new deal with "South Park" signals that at least one bit of chaos around Paramount's sale has been resolved.

The spat between Paramount and the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, began when Skydance balked at a framework for a broader 10-year, $3 billion deal agreed upon by Paramount's current owners.

That angered Parker and Stone, who accused Paramount of tampering with negotiations with other companies and brought in lawyers. That led to a two-week delay to the premiere of the show's upcoming season.

Skydance, which is still awaiting regulatory approval to close its $8 billion acquisition of Paramount, has signaled that it has different priorities than the company's current ownership.

"This merger is a s-show and it's f-ing up 'South Park.' We are at the studio working on new episodes and we hope the fans get to see them somehow,'" Parker and Stone wrote in a post on X on July 2.

Paramount's stock rose 0.4% in morning trading. It has run up 25.1% in 2025, while the S&P 500 index SPX has gained 7%.

The Paramount sale has been under heavy political pressure, leading the company to agree to a $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over a lawsuit he filed arguing that Paramount's CBS news division had deceptively edited an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during last year's election.

Legal experts had widely deemed the lawsuit baseless, and the company's move to reach a settlement angered many at CBS. It also led to the resignation of the head of CBS News and the executive producer of its flagship program "60 Minutes," both of whom cited corporate tampering as the reason for their departures.

Just last week, Paramount announced it was canceling CBS's top-rated late-night show, "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," just days after its host called the settlement a "big fat bribe."

Paramount said the cancellation was "purely a financial decision," but the move led many to speculate that it was driven by politics as well, as Colbert had been a frequent critic of Trump on air.

-Lukas I. Alpert

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July 22, 2025 11:08 ET (15:08 GMT)

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