Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick attend The Paley Center for Media presents special retrospective event honoring 20 seasons of ‘South Park’ at The Paley Center for Media on September 1, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California.
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Warner Bros. Discovery sued Paramount Global seeking to implement the streaming rights of “South Park,” setting the stage for a legal battle between two media behemoths because the streaming wars intensify.
On Friday Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against Paramount, South Park Digital Studios and MTV Entertainment in search of a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of dollars for what it believes was a breach of contract.
Warner said it agreed in 2019 to pay greater than $500 million, or roughly $1.69 million per episode, to license “South Park,” the longstanding cartoon featuring bad-mouthed elementary school children that has been airing on Paramount’s cable-TV network Comedy Central for a long time, for its own streaming platform HBO Max.
Throughout the bidding process for the “South Park” rights, 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 rejected the proposition as a ‘non-starter,'” in accordance with the lawsuit.
Nevertheless, Warner alleged in its lawsuit that Paramount went back on its contract and withheld “South Park” specials and other related content. The suit points to Paramount’s own fledgling streaming service, Paramount+, as the explanation.
A Paramount spokesperson denied the claims made by Warner in Friday’s lawsuit, adding that Warner has stopped paying licensing fees.
“We imagine these claims are without merit and look ahead to demonstrating so through the legal process,” a Paramount spokesperson said in a press release. “We also note that Paramount continues to stick to the parties’ contract by delivering recent South Park episodes to HBO Max, despite the proven fact that Warner Bros. Discovery has failed and refused to pay license fees that it owes to Paramount for episodes which have already been delivered, and which HBO Max continues to stream.”
Although the agreement called for HBO Max to receive the primary episodes of the most recent season of “South Park” in 2020, Paramount said it notified Warner in March that it could halt production of the season in consequence of the pandemic
Warner then claims that “South Park” and its creators moved forward with the production of other sorts of content, corresponding to two pandemic-themed specials that aired between September 2020 and March 2021.
Warner further alleges the scheme was within the works when Paramount’s subsidiary MTV signed a cope with the “South Park” creators in 2021, which called for exclusive content for Paramount+, reportedly price $900 million.
“We imagine that Paramount and South Park Digital Studios launched into a multi-year scheme of unfair trade practices and deception, flagrantly and repeatedly breaching our contract, which clearly gave HBO Max exclusive streaming rights to the prevailing library and recent content from the favored animated comedy South Park,” a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said in a press release Friday.
The showdown comes as streaming services have been vying for subscribers and searching to achieve profitability within the near future. Media corporations have been spending billions of dollars on content to draw customers, and have recently begun cutting costs as increased competition has led to slowing subscriber growth.
This week Warner Bros. Discovery reported a giant loss in its quarterly earnings as the corporate faces a softening promoting market, which has weighed on its revenue. The corporate said, nevertheless, that it added 1.1 million global streaming subscribers, bringing its 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, “a $511 million year-over-year improvement.”
Warner Bros. Discovery plans to launch a combined HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming service this spring.
Meanwhile, Paramount said last week Paramount+ hit 56 million subscribers in its most up-to-date quarter. The corporate plans to extend the worth of its streaming service when it combines Paramount+ and Showtime later this yr. Paramount also said it was affected by the tough ad market.