According to Extremetech.com, MTV Networks, part of Viacom and the parent company of Comedy Central, plans to put every clip from the show South Park online and available to any viewer at no cost. Since Trey Parker and Matt Stone have already worked out a deal with the parent company to get a piece of South Park's online presence, they should be making a hefty chunk of money out of this (assuming the online episodes will work on an advertising model).Actually, it's probably easier to do this with South Park than with many shows out there. Since the show is written and run by the creators and no other actors are involved, there is no confusion about who gets the royalties (well, they and the parent company). Obviously, the Internet is the future of entertainment and I've said before, while I don't think the Internet will replace television, it makes a great supplement.
This is a smart business move by the company, although it does seem slightly late in the game. People have been downloading episodes online anyway, albeit illegally. Making the episodes legally available could only help increase the popularity of the show because the casual viewer would watch the episodes on demand (from whatever country they're in) and the hardcore fan (like myself) will still buy the DVDs just to hear Trey and Matt do five-minute commentary on each episode.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-30-2007 @ 11:07AM
Joey Geraci said...
The commentary doesn't fill the length of the episode?
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11-30-2007 @ 12:11PM
Pierce said...
Every viewer as in the United States or world wide?
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11-30-2007 @ 12:43PM
James said...
What! Thats awesome!!!!
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11-30-2007 @ 1:25PM
Ravi said...
Is this the first time a show still on the air is putting every episode on the Internet for free (and legally) ?
I know AOL has their in2TV or something project, but thats mostly cancelled shows, I believe.
I hope this trend continues, especially with the likes of Hulu and Joost out there just waiting for more and better content.
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12-01-2007 @ 1:23AM
Nathaniel said...
Well, that article was a little ambiguous... it doesn't make it quite clear whether they'll be offering lots and lots of clips or the full episodes. If it's just clips, I really, really, really don't give a crap. I don't watch clips, unless I happen to be looking for a particularly funny moment of something. But if it's full-length episodes, and every single one, then I'll applaud them for their progress.
Note that the example given, The Daily Show, is all clips... even if all clips happens to mean most of every episode, it doesn't mean 100%, and it doesn't mean set up to watch the whole episode in order.
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12-01-2007 @ 11:08PM
Mike said...
Ravi, Viacom did the same thing with the daily show about a month ago. It dosn't surprise me, since, there are tons of websites that have all of them streaming illegally anyway..
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