While the media moguls in Sun Valley, Idaho, jockeyed for parking spaces for their aircraft and hunted for havens in a consolidating content world, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the boy-men behind South Park, were in Los Angeles, proving again that if you make content people love, it doesn't matter how many paradigms shift.
On stage with Hulu at the Television Critics' Association's twice-yearly convention, Stone and Parker announced a three-year deal that gives the service exclusive rights to stream the huge back catalogue of South Park, which now consists of more than 240 episodes, as well as the current season's episodes immediately after they are broadcast on Comedy Central.
The deal, worth more than $80 million according to a source involved in the negotiations, means Kenny and the boys will continue to frolic for years to come.
With Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo and others seeking to build non-cable services that are part of the living room, leverage accrues to content makers with track records of garnering big audiences over time. Syndication, once a television backwater, has blossomed across platforms. A lot of buyers are desperately looking for content to fill the stream and encourage subscriptions, which means it’s turning into a costly gunfight.
(NYT)
