South Park's raunchy season premiere breaks a record dating back to 1999
The 27th season premiere of the animated series attracted 5.9 million viewers across the Comedy Central cable channel and the Paramount+ streaming service last week, parent company Paramount said Wednesday.
That's the 'best season premiere rating since 2022,' Paramount noted — a notable data point given the general downward trajectory of basic cable channels like Comedy Central. The channel also said 'South Park' enjoyed its biggest share of the cable audience for a season premiere episode since 1999.
The show, historically an equal-opportunity offender, garnered attention for its ruthless and profane commentary about the president, which likely drove additional streaming viewership during the three day period that Paramount touted.
After the show depicted Trump in bed with Satan and ridiculed the president's genitalia, the Trump White House said 'this show hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.'
Trump himself shrugged off the televised satire, which stood out in part because Paramount also recently agreed to pay $16 million toward his future presidential library to resolve his legally dubious lawsuit against CBS News.
Trump loyalists at the FCC agreed to bless Paramount's pending merger with Skydance Media days after the settlement was finalized — though the officials involved said the merger review process was unrelated.
'South Park' called out its parent company both for agreeing to settle the lawsuit and separately for canceling 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.'
Trump has recently celebrated the end of Colbert's show and expressed hope that his other late-night critics on TV will also be cancelled.
In one of those posts, he wrote, 'Show biz and television is a very simple business. If you get ratings, you can say or do anything. If you don't, you always become a victim.'
In the digital age, TV channels measure success through ratings, subscriptions and associated metrics like social media virality.
On Wednesday Comedy Central boasted that last week's season premiere was the 'most social episode' of 'South Park' ever, and the 'most social program across all TV' last Wednesday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Turns out it wasn't a scheduling conflict.
Bill Hader has revealed that his absence at the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary special was not due to a scheduling conflict, as claimed by his publicist at the time, but because of his long-running struggles with anxiety. 'Andy [Samberg] called me and was like, 'Hey, so we're doing this short about how, you know, everybody had anxiety...'' Hader recalled. 'And when he told me that, I was like, 'I don't know if I want to do that.'' Hader continued, 'He's like, 'Why?' And I'm like, 'Because I'm anxious. I don't want to do it.''
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US axes mRNA vaccine contracts, casting safety doubts
President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday announced it would terminate 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, questioning the safety of a technology credited with helping end the Covid pandemic and saving millions of lives. The announcement, made by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., marks his latest effort to weave vaccine skepticism into the core of US government policy. "We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted," Kennedy said in a statement. The health department's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is "terminating 22 mRNA vaccine development investments because the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu," he added. "We're shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate." The changes affect Moderna's mRNA bird flu vaccine -- a move the company itself disclosed in May -- as well as numerous other programs, including "rejection or cancellation of multiple pre-award solicitations" from pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Sanofi. In total, the affected projects are worth "nearly $500 million," the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said. Certain late-stage projects were excluded from the move "to preserve prior taxpayer investment." "Let me be absolutely clear: HHS supports safe, effective vaccines for every American who wants them," Secretary Kennedy said. "That's why we're moving beyond the limitations of mRNA and investing in better solutions." Since taking office, Kennedy, who spent two decades sowing misinformation around immunization, has overseen a major overhaul of US health policy -- firing, for example, a panel of vaccine experts that advise the government and replacing them with his own appointees. In its first meeting, the new panel promptly voted to ban a longstanding vaccine preservative targeted by the anti-vaccine movement, despite its strong safety record. He has also ordered a sweeping new study on the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism. Unlike traditional vaccines, which often use weakened or inactivated forms of the target virus or bacteria, mRNA shots deliver genetic instructions into the host's cells, prompting them to produce a harmless decoy of the pathogen and train the immune system to fight the real thing. Though in development for decades, mRNA vaccines were propelled from lab benches to widespread use through President Trump's Operation Warp Speed -- a public-private partnership led by BARDA that poured billions into companies to accelerate development. The technology's pioneers, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, were awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work contributing "to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times." ia/jgc
CNBC
27 minutes ago
- CNBC
CNBC Daily Open: Trump's interview suggests he's not backing down from his policies
U.S. President Donald Trump joined CNBC's "Squawk Box" Tuesday for a lengthy interview that touched on tariffs, the Federal Reserve, the state of Russia's economy and being rejected as a customer by JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. For those pressed on time and want a very broad TL;DR: Trump appears to be digging in on his policies. With modified country-specific "reciprocal" tariffs due to start Aug. 7 — and duties on India to be raised within the next 24 hours, according to Trump's comments during the interview — the Trump administration seems to be turning its attention to sectoral ones. Trump told CNBC that he will announce his tariff plan for semiconductors "within the next week or so." Additionally, he will impose "a small tariff" on pharmaceutical imports before ratcheting it up to 250% within a year and a half. The U.S. president doesn't look like he's backing down from his feud with the central bank, either. Days after the Fed chose to hold interest rates, Trump discussed his potential candidates to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair. Among those contenders are former Governor Kevin Warsh and Kevin Hassett, the National Economic Council director. "Both Kevins are very good," Trump said. Whichever Kevin — or "other people that are very good, too," in Trump's words — assumes the role when Powell's term ends in May 2026 (or is truncated earlier, depending on Trump's moves), they would have to help prop up an economy that seems to be slowing, as indicated by July's startling jobs report and ISM Services index. Semiconductor tariffs in the works. In an interview with CNBC, Trump said he will announce new tariffs on semiconductors as soon as next week. He also said he'd impose a "small tariff" on pharmaceuticals before raising it to as high as 250%. Trump has four candidates for Fed chair. While the president didn't reveal their identities, he said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has taken himself out of consideration. Major U.S. stock indexes pull back. Stocks retreated Tuesday on ISM data that indicated the services sector nearly shrank in July. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index added 0.15%, but European semiconductor stocks fell on Trump's tariff comment. AMD's earnings fall short of expectations. That's despite the chipmaker reporting second-quarter revenue that beat Wall Street estimates. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices lost more than 6% in extended trading. [PRO] Topping expectations might not be enough. Even though the S&P 500 is on track for second-quarter earnings growth of almost double digits, compared with a year earlier, investors are giving a muted response, according to Goldman Sachs. Russia's economy 'stinks,' Trump says, and lower oil prices will stop its warmachine The rift between Moscow and Washington looks set to deepen. "Putin will stop killing people if you get energy down another $10 a barrel. He's going to have no choice because his economy stinks," Trump, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. The comments come after relations between Moscow and Washington, which remained cordial at the start of Trump's second term in office despite the ongoing war, soured in recent weeks.
