Warner Bros. is suing Paramount over ‘South Park’ streaming rights

Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO Max, is suing competitor Paramount for not delivering on promises made in a deal between the two companies regarding the Comedy Central show ‘South Park’.

The $500 million licensing deal, made in 2019, gave HBO Max streaming rights to the show. Warner Bros. is now alleging that Paramount has not delivered the promised new content that was to air on HBO Max. They also allege that Paramount is undermining HBO Max’s ‘South Park’ streaming numbers by diverting users to Paramount+ instead.

Not delivering on content promises

The original deal, made in October 2019 between Paramount and HBO Max’s then-parent company, AT&T, was made in anticipation of HBO Max’s launch in May 2020.

But as a result of the pandemic in March 2020, production of the new episodes was halted. In the original agreement, HBO Max was promised three new seasons of 10 episodes each, but only received eight episodes for two delivered seasons, two episodes for the first season, and six for the second. The third promised season only has six episodes, again falling short of what was outlined in the deal.

Then, in March 2021, Paramount launched their own streaming platform, Paramount+, which Warner Bros. alleges Paramount had been planning all along to divert users towards in order to watch ‘South Park’.

Later that year, in August, a $900 million deal between MTV, a subsidiary of Paramount, and ‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone was signed, which involved the creation of 14 made-for-streaming movies that would premiere on Paramount+. The deal, according to the official press release, would also extend South Park on Comedy Central through to the year 2027 until its 30th season.

Claims of “verbal trickery”

The 24-page court filing also claims that Paramount engaged in “verbal trickery” and “grammatical sleight-of-hand,” regarding the use of the words “films”, and “movies” in the MTV deal rather than “episodes” in order to avoid giving the specials to HBO Max instead.

“We believe that Paramount and South Park Digital Studios embarked on 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 existing library and new content from the popular animated comedy South Park,” HBO Max said in a statement.

Paramount representatives have responded by saying: “We believe these claims are without merit and look forward to demonstrating so through the legal process.”

Paramount also claims that: “Warner Bros. Discovery has failed and refused to pay license fees that it owes to Paramount for episodes that have already been delivered, and which HBO Max continues to stream.”