Ratings
What was the premiere date for South Park's 14th season?
South Park
When "South Park" debuted, it was a huge ratings success for Comedy Central and is seen as being largely responsible for the success of the channel, with Herzog crediting it for putting the network "on the map". The show's first episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", earned a Nielsen rating of 1.3 (980,000 viewers), at the time considered high for a cable program. The show instantly generated buzz among television viewers, and mass viewing parties began assembling on college campuses. By the time the eighth episode "Starvin' Marvin" aired three months after the show debuted, ratings and viewership had tripled, and "South Park" was already the most successful show in Comedy Central's history. When the tenth episode "Damien" aired the following February, viewership increased another 33 percent. The episode earned a 6.4 rating, which at the time was over 10 times the average rating earned by a cable show aired in prime time. The ratings peaked with the second episode of season two, "Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut", which aired on April 22, 1998. The episode earned an 8.2 rating (6.2 million viewers) and, at the time, set a record as the highest-rated non-sports show in basic cable history. During the spring of 1998, eight of the ten highest-rated shows on basic cable were "South Park" episodes. The success of "South Park" prompted more cable companies to carry Comedy Central and led it to its becoming one of the fastest-growing cable channels. The number of households that had Comedy Central jumped from 9.1 million in 1997 to 50 million in June 1998. When the show debuted, the most Comedy Central had earned for a 30-second commercial was US$7,500. Within a year, advertisers were paying an average of US$40,000 for 30 seconds of advertising time during airings of "South Park" in its second season, while some paid as much as US$80,000. By the third season (1999), the series' ratings began to decrease. The third season premiere episode drew 3.4 million viewers, a dramatic drop from the 5.5 million of the previous season's premiere. Stone and Parker attributed this drop in the show's ratings to the media hype that surrounded the show in the previous year, adding that the third season ratings reflected the show's "true" fan base. The show's ratings dropped further in its fourth season (2000), with episodes averaging just above 1.5 million viewers. The ratings eventually increased, and seasons five through nine consistently averaged about 3 million viewers per episode. Though its viewership is lower than it was at the height of its popularity in its earliest seasons, "South Park" remains one of the highest-rated series on Comedy Central. The season 14 (2010) premiere gained 3.7 million viewers, the show's highest-rated season premiere since 1998.