South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have signed a revenue-sharing deal with executives at Viacom-owned Comedy Central, their long-time television network, according to a New York Times article on Sunday.
This continues a shake-up in the way big-media works, the latest in a trend giving more power to artists -- and less to the big media companies, as we wrote last week. Normally, television owners keep revenues, and separately negotiate payment with artists. In their deal, Parker and Stone get a cut of the proceeds from wherever the show appears -- be it on the net, mobile platforms or video games.
South Park is popular for skewering celebrities and status quo ideas. It has spread virally over the internet without Viacom getting paid -- most famously through free, full-length episodes. The show's libertarian creators have said they are in favor of free downloads of episodes because it helps more people watch the show-- which of course is contradicted by this latest deal.
It is a deal both parties describe as "attempting to leapfrog to the vanguard of Hollywood’s transition into Web." Or, as South Park's lawyer said, a demonstration to new video-entertainment start-ups (think YouTube et al.) that they'll have to pay premiums for top content creators.
Parker and Stone originally retained the rights to a percentage of revenue brought in by non-cable distribution channels -- the web, mobile devices and video games -- due to a subtle clause signed as part of a contract renewal between the parties during the dot-com bust years.
The caustic duo are guaranteed advances from profits on merchandise, DVDs, international sales and methods of syndication. The agreement will also include a talent studio called SouthParkStudios.com. The deal is worth $75 million to the two creators over the next four years, the article says; the show has already made hundreds of millions for Viacom.
Doug Herzog, president of MTV, was realistic:
"The landscape has shifted dramatically," Herzog said. "The way of the Web seems to be, there's a very low barrier to entry, so you don't need, necessarily, a major media company to be in business, or a movie studio, or whatever it is - you just need to be able to set up shop and go. You're seeing a lot of guys doing this, funnyordie.com being the best example." (Funnyordie.com was started this year by the comic actor Will Ferrell and his production partner, Adam McKay.)