NEW YORK (AP) – Warner Bros Discovery Inc is suing Paramount Global, saying its competitor aired new episodes of the popular animated comedy series South Park after Warner paid for exclusive rights.
Warner said it signed a contract in 2019 paying more than USD500 million for the rights to existing and new episodes of the irreverent show, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday in New York State Supreme Court.
HBO Max, Warner’s streaming platform, was scheduled to receive the first episodes of a new South Park season in 2020. But the company was informed the pandemic halted production, the lawsuit said.
In spite of Warner’s exclusive rights to the show until 2025, the company alleges South Park Digital Studios, which produces the shows and is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, offered two pandemic-themed specials to Paramount, which aired them in September 2020 and March 2021.
The lawsuit claimed the pandemic specials should have been offered to Warner under the initial contract. The move, called “verbal trickery” in the lawsuit, drove the show’s fans to the competing Paramount platform. Nearly all South Park episodes premiere on Comedy Central, one of Paramount’s cable channels, the lawsuit said.
Show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who launched the show in 1997 and oversee the franchise, were not named in the lawsuit.
Gaining streaming rights to South Park is a competitive process because of the potentially lucrative market attracting more subscribers, advertisers and a loyal fan base that Warner’s lawsuit said consists mostly of young adults.
