Paramount+ takes streaming rights to ‘South Park’ in Canada

South Park

Paramount+ has become the exclusive home of long-running adult animated comedy series South Park in Canada.

As of 1 September, the service will now house all 315 episodes, movies and specials, including season 26, which was released earlier this year, as well as future instalments.

The show had previously been available on Bell Media-owned streamer Crave until last year, with the latest season only available via PVOD until now. South Park is not the only long-running scripted title that Paramount+ in Canada has scooped up from Bell Media in recent weeks, with the service also taking exclusive streaming rights to the Star Trek franchise in the country.

“Even with its American origin, South Park holds a special place in Canada’s heart,” said Katrina Kowalski, head of content, Paramount+ & Pluto TV, Canada. “For more than 20 years, its boundary-pushing, cultural commentary has been watercooler chatter for millions of viewers. We could not be more pleased to be the Canadian home of this one-of-a-kind series.”

The Trey Parker and Matt Stone-created series originally launched on Comedy Central in 1997, with the MTV Entertainment Studios’ deal with the creators having extended the show through to 2027 and a 30th season, as well as 14 specials exclusive to Paramount+.

However, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery are currently embroiled in a legal dispute over the show, with Warner Bros. Discovery seeking damages of around $200m after filing a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in February claiming that Paramount had breached contract by airing episodes of the show when exclusive rights had been sold to HBO Max.

Paramount Global launched a countersuit in April, seeking “to recover all of the unpaid license fees, totaling more than $52m to date, based upon WarnerMedia’s blatant breaches of the Term Sheet” indicating that it did not believe the HBO Max owner would pay the outstanding costs.