Comedy Central

[steveh]

Comedy Central's had a bit of a shake-up following its owner Viacom remerging with CBS and finally deciding to do something about streaming.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/17/business/media/comedy-central-tv-streaming.html
https://www.vulture.com/article/comedy-central-reinvention-chris-mccarthy-profile.html

Most of the previous management and the development team have gone and instead it's under the control of the president of MTV. He now plans to aim it at under 25s, cutting back on sitcoms and instead doing cheaper new unscripted shows, reboots of old hits in the same way that MTV has recently had success with (hence the return of Beavis and Butthead, Clone High and a Daria spin-off) and low-budget comedy movies. It will now apparently be less of a channel and more of a brand they can use across different services.

The number of good shows from the channel has been sliding for some time, but this doesn't sound like it gives much hope that there will be innovative new stuff like Broad City or Corporate. In the UK I can't remember the last time Comedy Central did a show that wasn't just a cheap point a camera at a stand-up comedian job.

[notjosh]

I'm not sure if this will affect the UK channel, but it's similar to what has already happened here with Ben Frow (Channel 5 controller) taking over last year and putting an end to all new commissions.

They haven't had a very good record when it comes to commissions, though it's not through lack of trying. Quite a few sitcoms have come and gone over the years without notice (Big Bad World, I Live With Models, Brotherhood, Give Out Girls), with the most successful probably being Threesome (which you still probably haven't heard of). But generally speaking the company is far too hands-on and risk-averse to ever let anything genuinely funny be commissioned. I posted elsewhere about them rejecting a Brian Butterfield script as the lead character was too old, with a senior member of staff wondering whether he could be played by a YouTuber instead.

In recent years they have had a bit more success with non-scripted commissions, with Drunk History and Roast Battle doing a decent job with their target audience. The latter wasn't to my taste, but to their credit it didn't pull any punches. Perhaps in time they could have had their own Nathan For You, but ultimately it's always just felt like a regional branch of Viacom International Media Networks Inc Ltd™®©.

[SavageHedgehog]

"Aimed at under-25s"

"Beavis & Butthead, Daria and Clone High reboots"

[steveh]

They're being reimagined "with meta-themes relatable to both new and old fans – Gen X parents and their Gen Z kids" according to the press release.

[Huxleys Babkins]

They're being reimagined "with meta-themes relatable to both new and old fans – Gen X parents and their Gen Z kids" according to the press release.

@beavis and @butthead

[up_the_hampipe]

Removing Kent Alterman seems like a big mistake. Hearing comics actually talk positively about a television exec is a rare thing, but he seemed to have an understanding of comedy and comedians that helped the network grow.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

They're being reimagined "with meta-themes relatable to both new and old fans – Gen X parents and their Gen Z kids" according to the press release.

yea or make new shows

"meta-themes relatable to both new and old fans" where you mean kids and parents doesn't really work for teenagers and their parents on account of the former thinking anything the latter likes is lame. You can do it for Pixar movies and cartoons for young kids so that Mam and Dad have something to chuckle at when they have to sit through Hey Kids Buy This Plastic Bullshit for the millionth time

of course MTV tried making new shows in the early 2000s and most of them never got past the first season for various reasons, so...

[QDRPHNC]

They're going to try to do an Adult Swim thing. Which is ironic.

[SavageHedgehog]

Amazingly, they're planning to make a new Ren and Stimpy too, even though the creator (who will not be involved) was revealed as a child groomer a couple of years ago, and (like Beavis and Butthead) it already had an unsuccessful reboot in relatively recent memory.

[Alberon]

Fucking ridiculous. It's like having a channel's big idea when I was in my early twenties being reimagining the Flintstones.

[thr0b]

Just to make you fee old, it's almost two full decades since the last revival of Ren & Stimpy.