‘South Park’ Scores Big on Streaming; ‘Unicorn’ Lands in the Middle of the Pack

In the ever-shifting landscape of television viewership, Comedy Central’s South Park continues to defy age and convention, while HBO’s Death of a Unicorn finds a more modest audience in a competitive field.

According to new insights from Samba TV, which uses AI-powered analytics to track media consumption, the Season 27 premiere of South Park drew 1.8 million U.S. households during the Live + 4 Day (L+4D) viewing window across Comedy Central and Paramount+. Interestingly, a majority of that viewership came after the initial premiere buzz had passed: just 45 percent of households tuned in within the first two days (July 23–24), while the remaining 55 percent caught up between July 25 and July 27—an indication that word-of-mouth remains a powerful force for the long-running animated satire.

Geographically, South Park’s reach was most pronounced in the Pacific Northwest and the Rocky Mountain region. Among the top 25 U.S. media markets, Denver over-indexed the most, with viewership 122 percent above the national average. Portland and Seattle followed, at 111 percent and 80 percent above average, respectively.

Meanwhile, HBO’s dark comedy Death of a Unicorn attracted 680,000 U.S. households during the Live + 2 Day (L+2D) window on HBO and HBO Max. The performance places it squarely between two recent HBO releases: Cleaner, which drew 499,000 households in the same window, and Sinners, which more than doubled Unicorn’s reach with 1.4 million viewers.

That puts Death of a Unicorn 36 percent ahead of Cleaner but trailing Sinners by 50 percent—a respectable showing, though not a breakout. The data suggest that while Unicorn found its niche, it may face challenges competing for attention in a crowded streaming environment where word-of-mouth and brand familiarity play an increasingly decisive role.

As studios continue to bet on legacy franchises and genre experimentation, viewership trends like these offer a snapshot of how audiences are dividing their time—and how new titles measure up against trusted mainstays.

Courtesy of Samba TV, a leading innovator in AI-powered media analytics