[SouthParkStudios/Ars Technica] South Park is Moving to Hulu Service, No More Unlimited Streaming

[EChondo]

http://southpark.cc.com/blog
 

Today, Hulu announced it will be the exclusive streaming home for all seasons of Comedy Central’s Emmy and Peabody Award-winning “South Park“!

 
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/07/south-park-to-move-behind-hulus-paywall-and-end-free-streaming/
 

Since 2008, fans of the Comedy Central cartoon South Park have been able to stream the show’s entire library (minus a few permanently redacted episodes) from the South Park Studios site. But according to a new post on the show's official blog, this fan-friendly unlimited streaming arrangement will soon be ending: South Park is moving to Hulu. Folks who want to watch more than a limited selection of old South Park episodes will either have to resort to physical media or begin paying $7.99 per month to subscribe to Hulu Plus.

Under what the blog post describes as an "exclusive, multi-year" agreement, the current offering of streamable South Park episodes will remain available until September 24 at both the show’s official site and also on Hulu. After September 24—the start of the show’s 18th season—new episodes will be available to both standard Hulu and Hulu Plus customers the day after they air (Variety’s writeup says that the official South Park Studios site will also have next-day streaming, but that isn’t mentioned in the blog post).

The big change is the paywalling of past episodes. After September 24, free Hulu users and visitors to the show’s official site will only be able to watch "a revolving selection of free episodes." Unlimited access—which today is free—will only be available for Hulu Plus users.

In fact, the move to Hulu has already happened. Visitors streaming episodes from southparkstudios.com or southpark.cc.com will see a large branding banner on those sites, welcoming them to "the all new SouthParkStudios powered by hulu." The blog post explains that Hulu is already responsible for "the video and advertising experience on SouthPark.cc.com."

The show’s creators call the move "a natural partnership." In a statement attached to the bottom of the blog post, Matt Parker and Trey Stone are jointly quoted as saying that they are "excited that the entire library will be available on Hulu and that the best technology around will power South Park Digital Studios."

 

What a total fuck up. Excuse my language, but this is an absolute terrible move. Do you want people to torrent your beloved show? Because this is exactly how you get people to start torrenting your show.

 

I for one, will find all of the seasons possible on DVD/Blu-ray and rip them for local storage. I cannot fathom what went through their heads when deciding this, oh wait, I know: $$$.

[AlwaysFSX]

When good ideas backfire! Add South Park to that list...

[JAKEBAB]

Yay now u can't watch a show without an ad every 10 seconds lol

[Kilerbomb]

Dammit I was really enjoying the unlimited streaming. Now I won't be able to watch Southpark.

 

I guess I'll have to binge on Southark to catch up to the latest episode before the streaming goes down. Unless they already took it down, which would suck.

 

EDIT: Bastards already switched it to Hulu, which detects the use of Adblock. Welp, now I guess I have to sit through a 3min ad every 5 minutes.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Kilerbomb

[Nyxathid]

Dammit I was really enjoying the unlimited streaming. Now I won't be able to watch Southpark.

 

I guess I'll have to binge on Southark to catch up to the latest episode before the streaming goes down. Unless they already took it down, which would suck.

 

EDIT: Bastards already switched it to Hulu, which detects the use of Adblock. Welp, now I guess I have to sit through a 3min ad every 5 minutes.

 

Ow , well that will do the trick 

[Accursed Entity]

I always used torrents for the episodes anyway, then buy the season when its released. I freaking love the series, have all the seasons to date, also have toys, calendars, games and a tattoo coming soon.

[EChondo]

EDIT: Bastards already switched it to Hulu, which detects the use of Adblock. Welp, now I guess I have to sit through a 3min ad every 5 minutes.

The website turned to absolute crap too. Horrible UI and layout, everything is riddled with bugs! The Hulu player is one of the worst I've ever had to deal with.

 

What a bunch of idiots for doing this.

[Misanthrope]

I'd be outraged and boiling with rage!.....If I gave a shit about this stupid show. Seriously that crap got old during the fucking 90s

[Sack]

Sooo, is this only for the US? because we don't get Hulu in the rest of the world, we also don't get the latest episodes (or season for that matter) on the offcial southpark page

[Accursed Entity]

I'd be outraged and boiling with rage!.....If I gave a shit about this stupid show. Seriously that crap got old during the fucking 90s

 

Why are you reading South Park news? I'm not flaming you for not liking the show, the series has been in a lot of controversies since it began so is expected to have a lot of haters. But you with that language... just relax, you can express your dislike without acting like that in every thread. Happy life bro and chill out 

[jmaster299]

Yeah, how dare a company not give you 100% free access to their product......





Seriously, grow the fuck up. They have an absolute right to make money from their show. You should be down on your knees thanking them that they let you access it for free for as long as they have. If you want to keep the show off Hulu, I suggest you come up with the several million dollars that Hulu offered and out bid them.

[Misanthrope]

Why are you reading South Park news? I'm not flaming you for not liking the show, the series has been in a lot of controversies since it began so is expected to have a lot of haters. But you with that language... just relax, you can express your dislike without acting like that in every thread. Happy life bro and chill out 

 

Actually I don't mind the controversy: I just think it's the ONLY thing that it has going for it and only some of the times and while it was still new during the first couple of years or so. I just think it's not actually funny at all save very few occasions. And I'm not particularly mad or anything that's just the way I fucking talk most of the time. 

[TAK]

.

[Misanthrope]

Yeah, how dare a company not give you 100% free access to their product......

Seriously, grow the fuck up. They have an absolute right to make money from their show. You should be down on your knees thanking them that they let you access it for free for as long as they have. If you want to keep the show off Hulu, I suggest you come up with the several million dollars that Hulu offered and out bid them.

 

Actually you bring us to a very good point: While the show was making enough money with Cable (and syndication? Not sure if it's on OTA tv there) then of course putting it on the internet only help them actually promote the show. But a lot has changed during the last 2 decades and now streaming services are becoming the norm and more widely used than even regular TV and cable (to the dismay of both TV and Cable companies) so it's only natural that their revenue would diminish. This is even more important for such and old show.

 

The only true gripe is the fact that it's no longer available on Netflix (I just checked because I thought it was there at some point) which pretty much guarantees that international audiences will be forced to pirate it. If they were truly smart they would have gone with a service like Netflix that's more prepared to do business worldwide and at least somehow friendly to international customers, not a bunch of douchebags that intentionally try to block VPNs and tell the rest of the world "Fuck you, we don't want your money" 

 

Hell even youtube would have likely gladly offer them a partnership and they could have been getting a very decent amount with revenues and stuff.

[Guest]

@Misanthrope @TAK

 

Very tough, much fury, such bro.

 

 

 

But really if ever an idea was AIDS, this was it.

[ObeseWalrus]

Well I can't watch south park in Denmark any more since Hulu is not here and South Park studios will be shut down

[jmaster299]

Actually you bring us to a very good point: While the show was making enough money with Cable (and syndication? Not sure if it's on OTA tv there) then of course putting it on the internet only help them actually promote the show. But a lot has changed during the last 2 decades and now streaming services are becoming the norm and more widely used than even regular TV and cable (to the dismay of both TV and Cable companies) so it's only natural that their revenue would diminish. This is even more important for such and old show.

 

The only true gripe is the fact that it's no longer available on Netflix (I just checked because I thought it was there at some point) which pretty much guarantees that international audiences will be forced to pirate it. If they were truly smart they would have gone with a service like Netflix that's more prepared to do business worldwide and at least somehow friendly to international customers, not a bunch of douchebags that intentionally try to block VPNs and tell the rest of the world "Fuck you, we don't want your money" 

 

Hell even youtube would have likely gladly offer them a partnership and they could have been getting a very decent amount with revenues and stuff.

Yeah, but it not being on Netflix is not necessarily 100% of the fault of Comedy Central, or whoever holds the rights to the show. Netflix is known for not giving a shit about letting content contracts expire, even for popular shows or movies. Also, the risk of piracy can never be used as the deciding factor for how content is delivered. If that were to happen, it means the hackers have won. Game of Thrones is the most pirated show on the planet, but that hasn't changed anything and HBO knows that a certain percentage of those pirating the show will eventually become paying customers.

Moving South Park to Hulu does not hurt them at all. Not one tiny bit. They weren't making money off of it by letting everyone stream it for free before, but now they have guaranteed revenue from Hulu. They aren't losing any money by some people choosing to pirate the show instead now, because those people were never paying customers in the first place.

[totjup5]

Well this fucking sucks. I canceled my hulu account because that was the only show I watched and it was free on south park studios website anyway. Hulu is fucking terrible. It's ridiculous to me that on a service that I have to pay for I still have to have my content interrupted by idiotic ads for worthless hulu exclusive shows.

[totjup5]

Yeah, but it not being on Netflix is not necessarily 100% of the fault of Comedy Central, or whoever holds the rights to the show. Netflix is known for not giving a shit about letting content contracts expire, even for popular shows or movies. Also, the risk of piracy can never be used as the deciding factor for how content is delivered. If that were to happen, it means the hackers have won. Game of Thrones is the most pirated show on the planet, but that hasn't changed anything and HBO knows that a certain percentage of those pirating the show will eventually become paying customers.

Moving South Park to Hulu does not hurt them at all. Not one tiny bit. They weren't making money off of it by letting everyone stream it for free before, but now they have guaranteed revenue from Hulu. They aren't losing any money by some people choosing to pirate the show instead now, because those people were never paying customers in the first place.

They actually were making money off letting people stream it. It was ad supported.

[Mister Snow]

Oh well, now I will have to torrent it like most regular shows.

[Misanthrope]

Yeah, but it not being on Netflix is not necessarily 100% of the fault of Comedy Central, or whoever holds the rights to the show. Netflix is known for not giving a shit about letting content contracts expire, even for popular shows or movies. Also, the risk of piracy can never be used as the deciding factor for how content is delivered. If that were to happen, it means the hackers have won. Game of Thrones is the most pirated show on the planet, but that hasn't changed anything and HBO knows that a certain percentage of those pirating the show will eventually become paying customers.

Moving South Park to Hulu does not hurt them at all. Not one tiny bit. They weren't making money off of it by letting everyone stream it for free before, but now they have guaranteed revenue from Hulu. They aren't losing any money by some people choosing to pirate the show instead now, because those people were never paying customers in the first place.

 

I don't disagree, however I wouldn't be sure to call out Netflix as just "not giving a shit". Honestly, we don't know much about their licensing deals but from what we do know, I bet it's more of an unwillingness to be price gauged and fucked over on the licensing more than anything. Let's not forget that a lot of companies are launching their own competing services and a lot of them bring that oh so wonderful policy of exclusivity deals and paying premium for licensing certain content. 

It would be like me saying "Valve doesn't gives a shit about losing publishers" when in reality EA just had a vested interesting in forcing people into Origin and they probably asked Valve for unreasonable terms to get out.

[jmaster299]

They actually were making money off letting people stream it. It was ad supported.

Ads that people can block and that don't bring in real revenue.

 

 

I don't disagree, however I wouldn't be sure to call out Netflix as just "not giving a shit". Honestly, we don't know much about their licensing deals but from what we do know, I bet it's more of an unwillingness to be price gauged and fucked over on the licensing more than anything. Let's not forget that a lot of companies are launching their own competing services and a lot of them bring that oh so wonderful policy of exclusivity deals and paying premium for licensing certain content. 

It would be like me saying "Valve doesn't gives a shit about losing publishers" when in reality EA just had a vested interesting in forcing people into Origin and they probably asked Valve for unreasonable terms to get out.

 

I don't have a link, because I don't feel like spending the time to dig one up, but there has been multiple cases of content getting pulled from Netflix when the content owner was willing and able to meet Netflix's needs. Netflix isn't the wholly innocent little guy, like so many people get tricked into believing. Netflix tries to control pricing with an iron fist, no different than iTunes. Part of the problem is Netflix was able to negotiate deals that were completely one sided in their favor because content owners underestimated how popular the service would become. When the time came to renew those contracts, Netflix said "fuck you" to the content owners and refused to pay more. 

[Misanthrope]

I do not doubt that about Netflix either, fair enough. However I think we can all agree that while this negotiations remain under heavy NDAs we just really don't know enough to say who's the bigger asshole overall.

And none of this addresses the fact that Netflix has at least tried to negotiate some international licensing and even if the content is severely limited for their abroad service it's more than what Hulu offers for international customers which is fucking nothing.

[jmaster299]

I do not doubt that about Netflix either, fair enough. However I think we can all agree that while this negotiations remain under heavy NDAs we just really don't know enough to say who's the bigger asshole overall.

And none of this addresses the fact that Netflix has at least tried to negotiate some international licensing and even if the content is severely limited for their abroad service it's more than what Hulu offers for international customers which is fucking nothing.

But that's not all the fault of Hulu either. The laws in each different country are a complex mess that some companies just don't want to deal with, or lack the resources to deal with. Who you should really be angry at is the law makers in other countries that make it difficult for companies to offer their services there. Hulu is a much different platform than Netflix is, with both free and paid service options, both of which run targets ads. Beyond the legal issues, Hulu would need to find ad partners in each and everyone of those other countries for their business model to work.

[Misanthrope]

But that's not all the fault of Hulu either. 

 

Yes it is because Netflix can do it: What's good for the goose is good for the gander.