Universal Comedy AVOD
Comedy content strategy for YouTube & Facebook
Over 100 hours of external comedy content acquired non-exclusively for publication
Partnerships with live and sketch providers to widen on-channel content types
Like many video publishers across the COVID period, Universal Comedy saw steep spikes in viewing on its commercialized YouTube and Facebook channels. The channel reports into the Universal Pictures Content Group, the same team who in years gone by produced and sold bucket-loads of stand-up DVDs. Unsurprisingly, the channels are full of clipped stand-up from their extensive archive and a handful of others they had licensed since. But their archive was inevitably finite, and so they faced a potentially huge drop-off in engagement without fresh content.
I was hired on a part time basis as a consultant to keep the channels thriving post-lockdown, which meant in the first instance acquiring as much stand-up material as I could on a non-exclusive basis. Drawing on my network in the comedy community, I set up acquisition deals with Next Up, UTC and US comedy distributor 800 Pound Gorilla, bringing in around 100 hours of material new to the channel. In addition I formulated a strategy that aimed to reduce the channel’s reliance on stand-up, and set up content trials with sketch producers The Comedy Crowd.
Take a look at the channels here: