The much-hyped 27th season premiere of South Park brought in a big audience for Comedy Central and Paramount+.
In the three days after its July 23 premiere, the episode — which among other things depicted President Donald Trump in bed with Satan — gathered 5.9 million cross-platform viewers, including on-air replays. That’s a 68 percent improvement on the season 26 premiere back in February 2023.
The season premiere was pushed back two weeks from its original date as South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone worked out a massive new deal with Paramount Global that includes the show’s library moving from HBO Max to Paramount+ and next-day streaming of new episodes on Paramount+. The latter aspect of the deal helped fuel the big tune-in; on Comedy Central, South Park drew 430,000 viewers for its initial airing, less than 10 percent of the three-day total.
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The premiere, titled “Sermon on the ‘Mount,” also finds Trump threatening to sue the town of South Park for $5 billion, then settling for $3.5 million and a promise to produce “pro-Trump messaging” — a live-action deepfake at the end of the episode — in an echo of CBS’ 60 Minutes settlement with the president and, at least according to Trump, a side agreement that the network will air public service announcements in line with the administration.
Following the premiere, South Park is taking a week off — a repeat of “Sermon on the ‘Mount” is set to air Wednesday night — before resuming new episodes on Aug. 6.