South Park Gets on Board with Free Content

March 27, 2008 – 9:19 am

By Matt Clark

South Park has followed in the footsteps of jackass by providing free online content to fans. South Park Studio allows fans to watch any episode of the show free online, thanks to a deal between show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Comedy Central’s parent company, Viacom, as reported by Wired News.

This is technically a re-launch of the site. South Park Studio has been up and running since last summer, but without the free online content.

As I said when jackassworld first launched, the free model works for younger audiences. jackass went through the growing pain of an emerging medium while South Park was able to sit back and watch. As a result, South Park seems to have avoided many of the mistakes jackass made.

South Park Studio allows fans to engage with games, forums, news, updates, stills and mobile content. South Park Studio has also teamed up with 65 Media to offer the Official Avatar Generator, where users can choose from millions of combinations to create South Park characters in their likeness.

Fans can also get information on characters, go behind the scenes and get updates from the production crew. South Park Studio offers engaging content through personalization and participation. So far, Comedy Central has reported that the site has received over three million page views, over two million video plays and more than a million streams of full episodes.

By marketing online via free content, South Park will be able to strengthen their following and raise their bottom line. Most companies utilize YouTube for their online video marketing, but by creating their own portal, South Park is able to direct their marketing efforts and results. The site is supported by embedded ads, mobile downloads and a South Park store. Comedy Central and Trey Parker and Matt Stone will split all ad revenue fifty-fifty.

This isn’t the first time Comedy Central has created an online portal for its video content. In the earlier days of YouTube, Clips of the Daily Show were some of the most popular on the site. In response, Comedy Central created the comprehensive TheDailyShow.com, which has live streams of every episode hosted by Jon Stewart.

Thanks to the writers’ strike, shows had to make a big online push. We should be seeing a strong rollout of similar projects from all of the major networks. An interesting question is what will happen to video sites such as YouTube, Alluc and others? Obviously YouTube won’t die out, but will this create a shift in online digital marketing? Will smaller entertainment shops, such as musicians, YouTube stars and comedy groups create their own site to market through and drive revenue?

No matter what, I think everyone will still use sites like YouTube to drive traffic to their own Web sites.