Funny money

Comedy – TV’s final frontier – has a reputation for being a difficult genre, but this could be changing. Jesse Whittock reports on companies trying to make a global business out of laughs.

Comedy doesn’t travel. Indeed, jokes rarely translate away from the culture of their conception, and of all the TV genres comedy is seen as the least international.

But there’s a growing sense that comedy is shaking off the shackles of localism. It seems that for television, as Ondrej Zach, senior VP of programming and acquisitions for HBO Central Europe argues, “humour can be universal.”

The evidence that a global comedy TV market is emerging is stacking up. Last year, Hat Trick Productions’ scripted series Episodes was a three-way coproduction including UK pubcaster the BBC and US cablenet Showtime. The BBC also hooked up with another stateside cablenet, Viacom-owned Logo, to coproduce new episodes of 1990s hit Absolutely Fabulous.

Comedy formats, too, are finding traction globally. Belgian hidden-camera format Benidorm Bastards has been racking up local adaptations in recent years, including new ones from NBC in the US and BBC1 in the UK, and it will be known in both as Off Their Rockers.

So does this present niche comedy channels with the opportunity to reach younger and hungrier audiences? And if so, will they grow big enough to provide an alternative to the leading consumption methods of illegal downloads and imported DVDs?

Sally Basmajian, VP and general manager of Canada’s Bell Media/CTV, says The Comedy Network, which she oversees, is experiencing unprecedented ratings growth. “We have an amazing and incredibly quickly growing network. Our numbers for the fall are really exciting and we’re up substantially on September and October of 2010.”

Basmajian points to new series Picnicface, from Breakthrough Entertainment, and Corner Gas, which ran on the channel between 2004 and 2009 and sold to broadcasters around the world, as drivers of that growth (52% up year-on-year in September and October 2011). Furthermore, she notes that when the channel ran its feed of The Comedy Central Roast featuring Charlie Sheen, it was Canadian speciality TV’s biggest ever non-sporting broadcast.

It’s a similar story at Comedy Central UK, according to MD Jill Offman. “I started at the channel four years ago when it was Paramount Comedy, which was much loved but very much known for repeats. It became Comedy Central about 18 months ago with the really specific focus of becoming not just a channel but also a brand that 16 to 34s are really into.”

Offman says Comedy Central’s ratings gradually increased following its rebrand, until it “flattened out” earlier this year. Ratings have since spiked again with the arrival of Ashton Kutcher to Two and a Half Men in September, replacing the irrepressible Sheen, who left earlier this year as a result of clashes with showrunner Chuck Lorre.

Turning Comedy Central into a global brand has become a key driver in parent Viacom International Media Networks’ expansion strategy. The broadcaster plans to turn it into the world’s premiere niche comedy destination using a global and local – ‘glocal’ – content strategy.

But Steve North, general manager of UK rival multichannel network Dave, says: “The challenge Viacom and Comedy Central are going to have is that comedy is quite culturally referenced and part of a society’s way of looking at things and dealing with things.

“Some comedians are political, others are sociological but both have a great deal in common with their audiences. That’s the challenge and stand-up in particular is very hard to move across boundaries.”

North notes the US is the “anomaly” in this theory and adds that Dave has bought shows such as NBCUniversal International Television’s USA Network comedy drama Suits, which will air early this year on the male-skewed entertainment channel.

Furthermore, stateside content is the backbone of local thematic pay-TV nets’ programming. Jukka Raatikainen, director of programming for pay-TV at Finnish channel operator MTV3, says comedy channel MTV3 Komedia carries content that is “about 80% from the US and 20% Scandinavian.” Most of this is acquired through deals Swedish sister company TV4 has with US studios and includes schedule drivers such as NBC’s 30 Rock. Raatikainen would like more local flavour but the economics don’t add up. “There are a lot of Finnish series in our archive that we’d like to put on but it’s not a decision you make in 10 minutes,” he explains.

Half of Finland’s population has no access to the Bonnier Broadcasting-owned comedy channel as it has no terrestrial licence. “There is a question of whether it is worth doing a thematic channel or is it better to build a channel with slots for drama, comedy and other things,” says Raatikainen.

Both Raatikainen and HBO Central Europe exec Zach agree humour can be international but both note its limitations. Zach says “it’s not rocket science” to understand that programmes produced in local languages have “stronger appeal,” even though dubbed US shows like Hung and Curb Your Enthusiasm are channel drivers for HBO Comedy. Ultimately, “HBO is all about quality programming,” he says.

In Hungary, HBO is currently rolling out Tarsas Jetak, a local version of Armoza Formats’ Israeli black comedy format Shall We Kiss. The show follows a man who goes on a date with a girl he fell in love with at school but during the evening hears that his sister has committed suicide.

The show debuts in Hungary on the main HBO pay channel. But Zach adds local niche network HBO Comedy is also “very popular” with audiences and says he can’t explain why there aren’t many more niche nets in the region.

Similarly, in Canada, “there aren’t many others in the Canadian comedy space,” says Comedy Network’s Basmajian. “We’re also fortunate because we’ve got a smaller digital channel, Comedy Gold, where we can put all the great hits from 15 years ago. We’re the only ones deliberately going after the comedy niche.”

In the UK, the competition is fiercer. Though UKTV-owned Dave isn’t entirely a thematic network, North notes upscale intelligent comedy “is very much at the heart of what we do.”

Local commissions have become a key factor in its growth through shows such as factual-comedy hybrid Jo Brand’s Big Splash, gameshow Al Murray’s Compete for the Meat and comic panel series Argumental. The key is creating content “every bit as good as a terrestrial show from BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 or Channel 5. We can match those levels of production,” North argues.

Furthermore, according to Comedy Central’s Offman: “There is this thing in the UK where you are not considered a proper channel – no matter how brilliant your shows are or excellent your communications are – unless you make content. We’ve been told that time and time again.”

Comedy Central UK has just launched its first scripted series, sex-themed sitcom Threesome, produced by Big Talk Productions. “Threesome is a big punt into the wild blue yonder, to commission scripted comedy on a pay-only TV channel. We’re the first to have done that,” claims Offman.

She says the show is “deliberately” UK-centric and gives a resounding thumbs-down to its international chances. “I’m from Canada and it would not make the air for love nor money there. It’s not just the slightly filthy humour, it’s that all of the humour, the demographic and everything about it is for Comedy Central UK.”

This local approach is specific to Comedy Central UK as the channel this year launched a major PR offensive surrounding its acquisition of exclusive local broadcast rights to Warner Bros’ sitcom Friends, previously aired on diginet E4. More often than not, though, Comedy Central will commission globally facing content, she adds.

In Eastern Europe, having a major TV brand like Comedy Central or HBO behind you can push a thematic channel’s growth, says Zach. “For HBO Comedy, it helps to emphasise the wide choice of programming our subscribers can watch,” he says.

But according to Offman, there are very few universal truths known to comedy channel controllers. She, as a former Discovery Networks programme VP, does offer the knowledge that comedy suffers from a lack of content in comparison to other genres. “There is no limit to the amount of factual supply. Comedy is so specific and requires so many experts with so much experience that there is a limited amount. That goes for the UK, the US and elsewhere,” she says.

Meanwhile, MTV3 Komedia’s Raatikainen says scheduling regular changes to a channel’s content helps to retain audience. “We often make changes so that when people go there they can find something new. Comedy is a standalone genre – you can easily watch for 30 minutes or an hour and then go and do something else.”

Basmajian, meanwhile, argues the comedy genre has come into its own and defining it as “niche” disregards its current popularity. “Comedy Network used to be watched by primarily younger males but now we have a great diverse variety of programming and women viewers are starting to watch in greater numbers,” she explains.

So if comedy hasn’t travelled in the past, perhaps that’s because the wrong routes have been taken. Comedy channel controllers are certainly starting to think so.