Creators, Comedy Central Bow New 'South Park' Site
Beta Version Already Counted 1 Million Streams Of Complete Episodes
By Multi Channel News Staff -- Multichannel News, 3/25/2008 6:38:00 AM
South Park Digital Studios LLC, the joint venture between the show’s creators and Comedy Central, today officially launched the new southparkstudios.com, home to free, full-length streaming episodes and clips from the 12 seasons of the acclaimed series.
Officials said the site, which launched in beta version March 19, already has drawn 3 million page views, 2 million video plays and more and 1 million streams of complete episodes from creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
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 series episode. Of all 169 installments, 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 accessible for seven days. These episodes then will return to the site permanently 30 days after they premiere.The site 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 video content, southparkstudios.com worked with 65 Media to create the South Park avatar generator. Users can make themselves into a South Park character with the application and choose from millions of combinations to create their perfect self portrait in that world. To date 35,000 avatars have been created.
The site is trying to work through contractual provisions to make episodes available around the globe.
“One goal in moving forward is to make every episode of South Park available world-wide,” said Anne Garefino, general manager of South Park Digital Studios, in a statement. “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.”
Noted MTVN Networks’ Entertainment Group president Doug Herzog: “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. 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 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."
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