Last year, Netflix lost Friends and now Hulu is losing South Park. The streaming wars are heating up.
With so many new streaming options to choose from, both Netflix and Hulu face serious competition, and here is a look at where South Park is headed, as well as what this means for the future of these services.
Why is South Park leaving Hulu?
The news that South Park is leaving Hulu is not new. Much like when Friends left Netflix, the announcement was made in advance but many fans were still taken by surprise when it happened.
South Park officially leaves the Hulu streaming service on June 23. The very next day, South Park arrives on HBO Max.
The reason for this is simple. South Park is a Comedy Central series and HBO struck up a massive deal with the network to stream all 23 seasons of the show for more than $500 million.
This deal will also include the next three seasons of South Park, which was announced in 2019. The biggest news here is that fans won’t have to wait until the end of the season to get episodes on HBO Max.
Much like Hulu, HBO Max will have episodes available almost immediately after they air. Each new episode of the upcoming seasons will be uploaded and ready to stream just 24 hours after the new episodes hit Comedy Central.
“Audiences have connected with Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny — either alive or dead — for over 20 years,” Kevin Reilly, chief content officer at HBO Max and president at TBS, TNT and truTV, said at the time of the deal.
“We look forward to connecting these characters to new audiences on HBO Max.”
What this means for HBO Max
There is one serious problem right now for HBO Max.
People who stream TV on Roku or Amazon Firesticks are unable to watch the network on their TVs. Furthermore, with HBO eliminating HBO Go, this means the network will be unavailable to up to 70 percent of streamers.
However, HBO Max is building a library that will be well worth the money when they finally go wide.
South Park joins Friends and The Big Bang Theory as HBO Max exclusives now, which puts three of the top-rated and most-viewed television comedies on its streaming service.
For people who don’t mind watching television on their computers or on their smartphones, South Park will be on HBO Max next week. For those who watch Hulu, make sure to binge it while you can.
South Park is the only reason I use hulu , guess i’m jumping ship with matt and trey
noooo :((((
I had an HBO Now subscription. I cancelled it, as I felt cheated when HBO executives decided not to release HBO MAX on Roku, even though, their words, they can easily do so in a pinch, Folks should boycott HBO until they put their user base over profits.