If You Want To Stream ‘South Park,’ You Better Have Hulu Plus

It’s late at night and you want to laugh. You specifically want to laugh at a classic South Parkepisode. In the past, you could have found episodes on Netflix or Amazon Prime, but from now on, all 17 seasons of the raucous animated series will be streaming exclusively on Hulu Plus.

A press release from Hulu this morning announced that “It’s a South Park summer!” and that all of the seasons would be available “all summer long,” suggesting that their deal will only last a season. However, it’s already been publicly announced that Hulu’s exclusive content deal will last for the next three years.

The New York Times reports that Hulu and Comedy Central (and South Park creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone) are in the middle of an $80 million negotiation for the entire South Parkcatalogue. That sounds like a lot, but right now there are over 240 South Park episodes and there will be more. Parker and Stone will still be allowed to stream 30 specially selected episodes on their own site.

Why is Hulu dropping all this dough on one popular cartoon show? Well, it’s a sign of how hostile the battle for exclusive streaming rights is becoming. It’s been theorized that the only thing that can possibly cut into Netflix’s massive market share is stealing their rights to popular programming. Amazon has been slowly poaching the rights to popular streaming programs likeDownton Abbey and Hannibal from Netflix over the past year and Hulu has its claws in Bravo’s reality television slate and the Criterion collection.

But South Park‘s deal with Hulu isn’t just about taking Netflix down a peg; it’s also about Hulu establishing its own programming voice. Like Netflix, Hulu is attempting to get in on the original streaming programming game with animated series like The Awesomes and comedies likeQuick Draw. Obviously, Hulu is hoping that these programs will appeal to South Park‘s rabid fan base. So, South Park‘s move to Hulu isn’t just about the business of streaming. It’s about the branding of streaming.

You can watch all 17 seasons of South Park on Hulu.