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Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures. China is a huge market for Paramount's films. Paramount has previously explored a 49% s
by toomanyrichies 7y ago
Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures. China is a huge market for Paramount's films. Paramount has previously explored a 49% sale to China's Wanda Group, and they currently have extensive financial backing from the Shanghai Film Group Corp.[2]
If they wanted to, it's well within the purview of the CCP to apply pressure to Paramount's ability to finance its films or distribute those films in China (a huge source of international box office receipts), until such time as Paramount reigns in Trey and Matt.
Note that I wouldn't support such a move, and they strike me as the type of creators who would happily walk away from their cash cow rather than self-censor. I just mean this is one possible endgame.
[1] https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/viacom-explores-sale-majority-stake-china-channels-1203106962/ https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/viacom-explores-sale-majori...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/paramount-pictures-gets-a-1-billion-infusion-from-china-1484868302 https://www.wsj.com/articles/paramount-pictures-gets-a-1-bil...
- SmirkingRevenge 7y agoInteresting corporate taxonomy there. On the other hand, if China is willing to cancel something as big as the NBA at the drop of a hat (or tweet, as it were), it really highlights the risks of doing business with China in a very stark way. Nothing is to big to fail if you offend the party. You operate at their whims. Transgress, and its lights out. Too many of these kinds of reactions could backfire (one would hope).
- Florin_Andrei 7y agoI thought all that was common knowledge.
- atroche 7y agoFWIW I hadn't heard of the NBA thing until this. Maybe because I'm Australian and the NBA isn't as huge a deal here.
- turk73 7y agoSelf-censorship is still censorship. If these companies crater to the least common denominator, then free speech in the West is also doomed. We can't allow that to happen. Putting profits ahead of everything else is a sure way to go broke because it sacrifices quality and every other good for the sake of short-term profit. We saw Disney do this with Star Wars, trying to pander to Asian audiences and failing miserably. Now Disney has alienated their original fan base. Soon, nobody is going to care about anything Star Wars. Disney needs to smarten up. Every company that thinks they can do business with communists needs to smarten up. Realize that you compromise your ethics completely and whatever short term gains you think you are making are eventually eaten away by the sheer clown world lunacy that is communism. Places like China can never right themselves simply because basic truths are banned from being discussed. How do they then move forward as a society? They don't, they can only move backwards.
- anonymousab 7y agoIf it is more profitable for free speech to be doomed, then it will be doomed.
- mey 7y agoMore accurately, we shouldn't rely on corporations to ensure free speech.
- jnsaff2 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
- mac01021 7y agoWhat did Disney do with star wars to pander to asian audiences?
- dagw 7y agoGave an Asian actress in a minor role "too much" screen time. Apparently.
- avocado4 7y agoWhy does South Park need Comedy Central anymore? Just distribute it online.
- inlined 7y agoI would be surprised if the team has the rights to continue elsewhere.
- drewmol 7y agoI agree South Park could probably move elsewhere after their contract is over (goes through 2022). They were disallowed from showing a cartoon depiction of the muslim prophet Muhammad by Comedy Central in the past and did not leave, they did however make an episode poking fun at the censorship which included a cartoon Jesus deficating on a burning American flag.
- greggman2 7y agoThey also have an older episode with Muhammad in it from before it was considered controversial to have such a thing (It's been censored since then) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends
- quotz 7y agoIts scary how much communism is affecting our daily lives, even if we live far away from it...
- ajmurmann 7y agoIs it really communism at this point? There definitely is a lot of capitalism and fascism happening there. It's really about the party and it's leaders and they'll adopt whatever economic or social policy to further the party and its leaders' power and riches.
- kzzzznot 7y ago“State capitalism” is a term I’ve heard used which makes sense to me.
- quotz 7y agopropaganda is a term i've heard too
- Kaiyou 7y agoIsn't that what communism in practice is? Or are you on the "real communism has never been tried" side of things?
- ajuc 7y agoUSSR and its sphere of influence was communism in practice. You couldn't create a company, you weren't allowed to do anything for money without state permission (and mostly there was no permission). Prices and number of things produced were decided by the ruling party. It failed almost universally. China today is less "communist" economically than most of EU.
- ncmncm 7y agoCapitalism, communism, fascism, they are all distractions from facts on the ground. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia resembled nothing so much as one another.
- Iv 7y agoThey used to think that economic freedom would be the trojan horse for social freedoms. Quite the opposite I see.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoAgreed. But it's reins in, not reigns in.
- ncmncm 7y agoRight: reins control horses. Reigns are what kings have. (And rains make flowers.) Those are nouns, but they all verb.
- toomanyrichies 7y agoWhoops, good catch. Also technically I should have said “until Viacom reins them in”, not Paramount.