Comedy Central: “We try to own everything.”

Posted by Maximum Fun on 8th May 2006

There’s a remarkable piece in the Wall Street Journal today about the growing diversification of Comedy Central. The channel (owned by MTV Networks / Viacom) has expanded from simply being a cable channel to being a record company, non-traditional media content provider, and tour manager.

In a way, it’s good news: the power of Viacom is getting behind comedy. It’s also bad news, however, as Comedy Central extends it’s hegemony in the comedy (and particularly standup comedy) media world.

It’s clear that channel boss Doug Herzog’s goal is to make CC the go-to brand for comedy entertainment. As he says in the article, “A guy can tell a joke Sunday night at the comedy club, and we can deliver it to our audience in six different ways the next day.”

What Comedy Central is offering here is “a brand and a platform.” One of the central problems in the standup business is this: most people like good comedy, but they aren’t familiar with the talent the way they might be with a band or a TV star. Getting familiar with a comic usually means seeing their act — and once you’ve seen it, well, you’ve seen it already. So why go see them?

So the brand platform (not to be confused with the brand and platform) becomes important — if people trust the club they’re going to, or “Comedy Central Presents,” or “Blue Collar Comedy” or whatever, then they can go see something (or buy something) without seeing it first free and ruining the joke.

But it worries me nonetheless… mostly because there’s not another brand to compete.