• by Josh Lovison , April 6, 2007

Recently, Comedy Central televised its first episode of "SouthPark" in HD. The catch is that Comedy Central doesn't broadcast in HD.  Augmenting its traditional distribution channels of cable and satellite TV operators, Comedy Central partnered with the Xbox360 to deliver the episode, aptly entitled "Good Times With Weapons," in high definition. To the best of my knowledge, this makes "SouthPark" the first network TV show to bypass its traditional distributors to offer a superior product via digital distribution -- in this case, a major video game platform.

If so, it's a huge development, and I've been surprised there hasn't been more buzz surrounding it. There's been talk for a while about whether TV is a dying medium, and while I would never suggest that the content of TV is going to die off, I do think that what "South Park" did was certainly one of the notes in the death knell for TV's current distribution method, and may serve as notice to traditional TV outlets that they're also competing with a wide range of new digital media platforms.

If, through the likes of Apple TVs and Xbox360s, shows that don't air on one of the few HD channels available via cable and satellite operators are able to deliver their content in HD via nontraditional, digital, "on-demand" alternatives -- then traditional TV may become obsolete.

So I give a nod to "SouthPark" for being one of the evolutionary steps between TV 1.0 and TV 2.0.