Comedy Central’s South Park marathon — the eight-day wall-to-wall run of over 250 episodes from September 6-13 — was up 21% vs the same period a year ago.
Helped in no small part by the marathon, the Wednesday Season 21 South Park premiere, which aired immediately following its conclusion, drew 1.7 million total viewers and a 1.36 Live+same day rating in adults 18-49 making it the top show on cable on Wednesday. It also was the highest-rated premiere in 2017 among adults 18-49 and adults 18-34 for any primetime comedy across all of ad-supported cable, according to the network.
The Season 21 premiere was also essentially flat (-3%) from last season’s opener, which was heavily promoted as marking the animated series’ 20th anniversary. It also boosted the season premiere ratings of lead-out, Broad City.
The South Park marathon drew more than 10 million unique viewers, with over seven million video views and 500K engagements generated via social posts across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
As usual, the Emmy and Peabody-winning animated series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone tackled current controversy in its premiere episode titled “White People Renovating Houses.” In one scene, tiki torch-toting white nationalists, who bore striking resemblance to those who participated in the Charlottesville march chanted “You will not replace us!” and held signs reading “You took our jobs!”
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