Hard to believe it all started with this Christmas short made in '92.
YouTube: kratkefilmy
That is only the DVDs. Most episodes of Season 8 etc. have an M rating and Half in Season 21 have MA15+, the other half M.
I agree. I think in the late 1990s/early 2000s South Park was the highest rating show on the network, but not now as it is put into graveyard on a Sunday morning on Viceland. I remember reading a article that when SBS picked up South Park, the ratings jumped dramatically and it even helped other shows on SBS.
In 2025 when all South Park content goes onto Paramount+ behind a paywall it will be a very sad day, as South Park is part of SBS’s history and helped save the network.
South Park is one of my favourite shows along with The Simpsons and Family Guy. I hope it goes on for a long time yet, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
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I don’t really buy the suggestion that South Park “saved” the network. The biggest threat to SBS has been attempts to merge it with ABC and I don’t think South Park had any part in swaying that decision to stop it happening.
It is true that it did a lot to bring younger viewers to the network and through the profit in advertising revenue sold from the show, it funded other programs like drama series Going Home. So it certainly had a significant impact but I wouldn’t say it “saved” SBS.
There is a segment about South Park’s contribution to SBS in its 2000 special 20/20 Vision (starts at 1:08:59)
YouTube: Peter Cramer
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I remembered that South Park was so massive by season 2, that gossip magazine NW even produced a special issue on the show, so that its target audience would know what’s going on.
I used to be a big fan of South Park, I watched every episode of the first five seasons plus the movie Bigger, Longer and Uncut in cinemas. Then I stopped watching until I heard 10 Shake had picked up the rights to the show. I saw the two vaccination specials, and noticed a lot has changed.
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It’s easy to underestimate its effect. It was HUGE when I was in school, there’s no way people my age would even know of SBS programs without it.
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Nobody has denied that.
Many of you who would’ve watched Video Hits in the '90s up to its axing in 2011 will/may remember that the show ran some competitions promoting featured artists.
I liked how the voiceover said “get mum or dad’s ok”, as I think young kids or teenagers would’ve been keen to enter these competitions with the prizes at stake.
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Yeah… it really did elevate SBS and help promote other programs to a mainstream audience. 1998/99 I remember kids and teenagers wearing South Park T shirts everywhere.
Phil Baildon (now at Nine News and ACA as voiceover) and Daniel Rafferty (now the voice of the Harvey Norman ads) were the voiceovers of these competitions. Ten made a lot of money out of the 0055/1900 numbers viewers called, it was a big revenue earner. This was also the time when mobile phone ringtone ads were on high rotation on music video shows and channels such as MTV, VH1, Channel [V] and MAX. Southern Cross Austereo had their own music video shows on its SC10 channels as well, they also made money out of it.
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I remember i was living near Canberra at the time and if you were watching TV after midnight almost every ad was for a ring tone you could download.
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Ah, Aren’t those a relic of the 2000s, Once the 2010s hit and everyone started to get smartphones those companies all pretty much vanished overnight.
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And every Foxtel channel was full of these ads as well. I had to disconnect my Foxtel in 2005 because of the high rotation of these ads (I’m not paying to watch FTA-style cluttered ads). Even watching the AFL on Fox Footy at a pub you couldn’t escape these ads as well. I even saw ringtone ads on CNBC and Sky Racing of all channels!
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I remember those Jamster ads with the Crazy Frog in it when I was around 5 or 6 years old. Guess at my age, I would find it very annoying. Imagine getting an expensive phone bill on those Ringtones and Wallpapers.
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After the ringtone ad fad died away Foxtel had life insurance companies as its main advertisers, nowadays the ads on high rotation on Foxtel are mainly the Australian Government (but fewer of these ads now since the Liberals lost the federal election), Harvey Norman, other NewsCorp businesses, life insurance companies and other top 10 advertisers.
Strange a few weeks ago I watched the Brisbane Lions v Essendon game on Kayo, and there was an ad for New Holland farm machinery shown in metropolitan Melbourne (I was actually in Geelong at my parents’ place, normally classed as metro).
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Foxtel & Kayo ads are national aren’t they? If the business sells machinery nationally then it makes sense.
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I think Kayo inserts local ads, hence all the break filler.
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Kayo inserts ads per state.
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Aren’t the ads personalised?
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I’ve seen that scene on YouTube.
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