Viacom Inc., the parent of Comedy Central, has locked up another four years of the animated hit "South Park," according to The New York Times. Not only is Viacom reportedly paying co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker $75 million, but the media giant is also bending some of the hard and fast rules of the media business by giving Stone and Parker a piece of the back-end, including a 50/50 split of the ad-revenue, as well as part of the profits from DVDs, merchandising and syndication.

For those of us who follow tech dealmaking, the agreement is also of interest in its move to jump-start a new digital initiative around the series' Web site southparkstudios.com. The Web site — which now sports plenty of background on the show, but which lacks the clips available on comedycentral.com  — will be transformed into a "hub to spread 'South Park'-related material across the Net, mobile platforms and video games," according to the Times, as well as "new comedy concepts that could one day mature into TV series of their own."

Viacom's sharing the wealth with Stone and Parker — and betting they'll add significantly to the hundreds of millions of dollars the pair has already earned the company — brings into stark relief just how shaken up the media industry has become. The coming transformation of South Park Studios is another step in Viacom's drive to get better control over its content on the Web following its $1 billion lawsuit against Google Inc.'s YouTube and its content distribution deal with Internet television service Joost Operations SA.

For more insight on Viacom's moves in the digital world, be sure to attend Tech Confidential's Convergence 2.0 conference Sept. 17, when Michael D. Fricklas, Viacom's executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, will be a keynote interview. — George White

See TheDeal's March 13 story on Viacom suing Google
See TheDeal's June 15 special report on Convergence
See more on the Convergence 2.0 conference

Tags: South Park, Viacom