Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Media: South Park creators raise the bar (THEY WIN!)

Interesting Tidbit.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker, co-creators of "South Park,” the animated Comedy Central show have actually freed the entire television industry from a previously thorny problem.

For decades and decades, actors (and writers and directors) did not get ANY money from residual showings of their work on TV. It was only (?) the late 1960's that actors started to get money when their show was re-shown.

But now Matt and Trey have broken the bank. It turns out that 11 years ago, a clause in the original contract reserved to the show’s creators a slice of any revenue generated apart from actual broadcast on Comedy Central. At the time, it was unclear where any of that extra revenue might come from.

Today that clause , that the pair’s lawyer, Kevin Morris, insisted on, saying that any “South Park” revenue not derived specifically from broadcast on the cable channel would go into the pot for calculating the men’s share of back-end profits, has liberated them.


I predict that this will become a new television standard clause. (NY Times Editorial)


The specifics: A new digital animation studio led by Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker along the lines of a similar one at Nickelodeon, called SouthParkStudios.com, will be housed in the show’s animation studio in Culver City, Calif. It is intended to be an incubator not only for new applications for characters the likes of Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny, but for new comedy concepts that could one day mature into TV series of their own.
The deal, signed Friday, begins with a three-year extension of the show and its creators’ contracts through a 15th season, in the year 2011, and gives Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker sizable raises, both in their salaries and in their guaranteed advances against back-end profits from DVDs, merchandising, syndication and international sales.
(NY Times Story HERE:)


All in all this really IS a landshaking deal for the television industry!

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2008 Haiku: Impeach Cheney; Pelosi Pardons ; Democracy Restored-- Pass it on

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