Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. has sued Paramount Global, saying its competitor aired new episodes of the popular animated comedy series "South Park" after Warner paid for exclusive rights.
Warner says it signed a contract in 2019 that paid more than $500 million for the rights to existing and new episodes of the irrelevant show, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in New York State Supreme Court.
HBO Max, Warner's streaming platform, was set to receive the first episodes of a new "South Park" season in 2020. But the company was informed that the pandemic was halted, the lawsuit says.
The company alleges South Park Digital Studios, which produces the show and is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, offered Paramount two pandemic-themed specials, despite Warner's exclusive rights to the show through 2025. , which aired them in September 2020 and March 2021.
The lawsuit claims that the pandemic special should have been offered to Warner under the initial contract. The move, called "verbal trickery" in the lawsuit, drew fans of the show to the competing Paramount platform. The lawsuit states that almost all of South Park's episodes premiere on Comedy Central, one of Paramount's cable channels.
Show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who launched the show in 1997 and have overseen the franchise, were not named in the lawsuit.
Getting streaming rights for "South Park" is a competitive process as the potentially lucrative market attracts more customers, advertisers and a loyal fan base that Warner's lawsuit says consists mostly of young adults.
The 24-page court filing also cited a $900 million deal through 2021 between the Paramount subsidiary and South Park Digital Studios for exclusive content on the Paramount Plus streaming service, which launched the same year.
Warner claims that the deal between Paramount, its subsidiary MTV Entertainment Studios, and South Park Digital Studios was a deliberate "scheme" to divert as much new South Park content as possible to Paramount Plus, that nascent streaming platform. to boost."
Warner paid $1,687,500 per episode and alleged that it had not yet received all the episodes covered by the contract, resulting in losses of more than $200 million.
Paramount Global did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment on the lawsuit.
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