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The future of online entertainment
"SOUTH PARK" CREATORS TREY PARKER AND MATT STONELink
AND COMEDY CENTRAL LAUNCH THE ALL-NEW SOUTHPARKSTUDIOS.COM
NEW SITE FEATURES FULL EPISODES AND CLIPS
FROM THE ENTIRE 12 SEASONS OF
THE EMMY AND PEABODY AWARD-WINNING ANIMATED SERIES
NEW YORK, March 25, 2008 -- South Park Digital Studios LLC, the joint venture between "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and COMEDY CENTRAL, a division of MTVN Entertainment Group, a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), announced today the launch of the new southparkstudios.com, which will feature free, streaming, full-length episodes and clips from the entire 12 seasons of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning animated series. The site which rolled out a beta version last Wednesday has already received over three million page views, over two million video plays, and more than a million streams of full episodes.
"The 'South Park' phenomenon began as a viral video clip. Now it continues its digital and creative leadership with the launch of an extensive site devoted entirely to 'South Park,'" said Doug Herzog, president, MTV Networks' Entertainment Group. "Southparkstudios.com is a true representation of Matt and Trey's vision and is the ultimate online destination for 'South Park' fans – allowing them full access to every 'South Park' episode ever created."
When asked about the launch of the new site, Stone and Parker said, "We got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time so we gave ourselves a legal alternative."
Anne Garefino, General Manager of South Park Digital Studios, had this to say about the future of southparkstudios.com, "One goal in moving forward is to make every episode of 'South Park' available world-wide. Currently, full episodes are not available in the UK, Australia and a few other foreign territories but we're not far off from making that happen. We have some contractual issues to sift through but we're getting there."
Southparkstudios.com will offer fans an all new "South Park" digital experience. The new site, which was designed by a creative team from "South Park" in conjunction with Schematic, a WWP Digital Company, invites fans to watch full episodes and clips of every "South Park" episode. Of all 169 episodes in the "South Park" Library, 168 are available today. Due to contractual obligations, all new episodes will be available as soon as possible after they premiere on COMEDY CENTRAL and remain available for seven days. These episodes will return to the site permanently 30 days after they premiere. Southparkstudios.com also features extensive video and behind-the-scenes information from all 12 seasons allowing users to see all their favorite "South Park" moments, comment on them and share them with friends.
In addition to the wealth of video content, southparkstudios.com worked with 65 Media to create the South Park Avatar Generator. Users can make themselves into a "South Park" character (Canadians included) with the Official Avatar Generator. They can pick from millions of combinations to create their perfect self portrait in the "South Park" world. To date 35,000 Avatars have been created.
"The interesting part of designing for 'South Park' is to remember that while it is a cartoon, it is not a show, or a site, for kids," said Andrew Solmssen, General Manager and EVP, Schematic. "'South Park' wanted a site that was as clean and well designed as anything on the Web, so that it would showcase and put the proper emphasis on the show content."
Toyota and Virgin are the launch sponsors for the new southparkstudios.com.
So, what do you guys think about this? I've visited the website and it's great. No ads during the shows and it's clean and quick.
Comments
What do I think about it? It's fantastic, and Trey and Matt are absolutely awesome to do this. There isn't much more to it than that. Some people may claim that this is the sort of push "new media" needs, but I don't think this will affect anything because there isn't money making involved. Trey and Matt are just being generous.
I don't agree with that there isn't any money being made here, the ads alone will provide some revenue, not to mention the media coverage on South Park, MTV, Trey and Matt.
I think I remember an interview, or some told me this, where Trey and Matt where asked about people pirating their show, and their answer was that they didn't give a shit how you do it, they just want people to watch their show.