By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Stan, Kyle and the rest of the potty-mouthed, pint-sized gang on cable network Comedy Central's animated hit "South Park" may soon be staying up past their bedtimes on broadcast television.
The Viacom Inc.-owned cable network and the creators of its signature show, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have struck a deal with distributor Debmar Studios to sell reruns of the show into syndication on late-night TV.
Financial terms of the deal, announced on Tuesday, were not disclosed. But Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety said potential earnings from "South Park" during its first four years in syndication could reach $100 million, making it the highest-grossing series to come off cable.
The subversive cartoon comedy, which this season drew the writing talents of "All in the Family" creator Norman Lear, would be one of the first scripted shows to make its way into daily broadcast syndication from the world of basic cable.
Debmar president Mort Marcus, a former TV executive at Walt Disney Co., acknowledged that the main hurdle he faces in selling "South Park" is possible hesitancy over the four-letter words that flow from the mouths of the show's crudely drawn grade-school protagonists.
Eight or nine episodes probably contain a profanity quotient that is too high for syndication, he said. But the rest of more than 100 episodes available for sale are "perfectly suitable for broadcast, and where there's a bad word, we're going to clean it up," he said.
BLEEP, BLEEP
Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox said the cable network itself routinely bleeps out the hard-core four-letter words. Lesser vulgarity like "damn" and "ass" have already crept into the lexicon of prime-time network TV and are not expected to pose a problem for late-night syndication.
In any event, viewers should not look forward to anything like the profanity that figured prominently in the 1999 big-screen musical adaptation, "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," which featured such songs as "Uncle Fukka" and "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch."
"Any episode that is similar to that we would pull out of the mix," said Marcus, former president of Disney's Buena Vista Television. He added that broadcast standards overall have loosened up considerably since "South Park" caused a stir with its foul-talking young characters six years ago.
"In 1997, we were blown away by the rawness of it, but if you watch it today, I don't think you'd feel that way," he said. "The bar's been lowered pretty substantially."
Marcus and Comedy Central executives are touting the show's potent ratings among young adult males, an especially key demographic among late night viewers.
"South Park" has remained the highest-rated show on Comedy Central since its debut in August 1997, averaging nearly 3 million viewers in its current season.
A recently commissioned Nielsen Media Research study found that the show consistently finished No. 1 against broadcast competition in most of the top 20 TV markets, including New York and Los Angeles, in the battle for male viewers aged 18 to 34.
Built around the misadventures of four elementary school kids -- Stan, Kyle, Cartman and accident-prone Kenny -- the series logged its 100th episode in April, a rare milestone on cable, where few original programs have run long enough or become popular enough to be viable in syndication.
