It’s the end of an era; after a whopping 23 years of shocking viewers and giving us loads of laughs, SBS has today officially cancelled cult comedy, South Park.
The adult and, at times, controversial animated series by Trey Parker and Matt Stone has been a major part of the Aussie network’s programming for 23 seasons since they acquired South Park back in the ’90s.
According to TV Blackbox, SBS has released a statement confirming the news, which read:
“After 23 years, SBS made the decision to let South Park go, mmkay,” it began.
“The edgy, irreverent and often controversial series broke new ground when SBS premiered the cult phenomenon in the late nineties, opening Australian audiences up to a type of humour we’d never experienced before. We look forward to breaking new ground with some original content propositions for SBS VICELAND.”
At the time of acquiring the show, SBS Commissioning Editor of the time, Mark Atkin, said that no other networks except SBS were willing to take on the groundbreaking and foul-mouthed show, which would later prove to be wildly popular.
“Comedy Central couldn’t get meetings with 10, with Seven, nobody would return their calls. It’s not like a lot of people were putting their hands up,” he explained.
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“After that when all the other networks started knocking and they could have sold the program on to someone else, probably for more money, they decided to stick with SBS because we’d worked with them when nobody else would take their calls.”
He continued, “Everybody was talking about it and all these people who had never watched SBS before started tuning in, and through that finding out what else was on the network.”
Atkin added that while they received complaints about the show, there was nothing sufficient to warrant pulling it from the air.
South Park season 23 is set to premiere in the U.S. on September 30th, but it is not known when it will premiere in Australia, though it will now find a new free-to-air home on 10’s new 10Shake, which is set to launch September 27th.
