CTCS 191 Paper
Joshua Berg
CTCS 191 Critical Paper Assignment
Anna Hughes
April 10, 2013
Comedy Central:
Having the Last Laugh Comedy Central has always been a channel that enjoys pushing societies limits. Devoting itself to an all-comedy line-up, Comedy Central has had success picking up shows too controversial for mainstream television, such as South Park, while remaining part of the Viacom Conglomerate (ATI, 22). Receiving almost constant criticism from parental groups, Comedy Central has unique promotion strategy; the channel markets itself as mature, vulgar, and provocative, which has stirred interest and excitement by its main demographic, the sought over 18-49 year old males (Middlebury). Comedy Central has been an outlet that doesn’t rely of mass-demographics and broad appeal, and is willing to try new, incendiary ideas, and therefore, often presents shows that are barely edited. While content presented on Comedy Central is too edgy for some, Comedy Central pushes the boundaries on controversial content to capture its target audience (Szalai).
Initially created by Time Warner under the name, “The Comedy Channel”, Comedy Central has undergone many changes in its twenty-one year history. In an effort to compete with The Comedy Channel, Viacom founded Ha!, which focused mostly on syndicated comedy shows, which Viacom already owned licenses from one of its other channels, Nick at Nite, as well as original comedy skits and stand-up performances. Through a partnership, Time Warner and Viacom combined their channels to create CTV: The Comedy Network. The name was changed shortly after to Comedy Central in an effort to avoid legal battles with a Canadian Network also using the “CTV” abbreviation (Reuters). In 2003, Viacom purchased Time Warner’s stake in the channel to gain sole ownership of the channel (Comedy Central Website)(Reuters). Currently Comedy Central is owned by Viacom through it’s MTV Networks Division, a subsidiary company of Viacom which runs many
CTCS 191 Critical Paper Assignment
Anna Hughes
April 10, 2013
Comedy Central:
Having the Last Laugh Comedy Central has always been a channel that enjoys pushing societies limits. Devoting itself to an all-comedy line-up, Comedy Central has had success picking up shows too controversial for mainstream television, such as South Park, while remaining part of the Viacom Conglomerate (ATI, 22). Receiving almost constant criticism from parental groups, Comedy Central has unique promotion strategy; the channel markets itself as mature, vulgar, and provocative, which has stirred interest and excitement by its main demographic, the sought over 18-49 year old males (Middlebury). Comedy Central has been an outlet that doesn’t rely of mass-demographics and broad appeal, and is willing to try new, incendiary ideas, and therefore, often presents shows that are barely edited. While content presented on Comedy Central is too edgy for some, Comedy Central pushes the boundaries on controversial content to capture its target audience (Szalai).
Initially created by Time Warner under the name, “The Comedy Channel”, Comedy Central has undergone many changes in its twenty-one year history. In an effort to compete with The Comedy Channel, Viacom founded Ha!, which focused mostly on syndicated comedy shows, which Viacom already owned licenses from one of its other channels, Nick at Nite, as well as original comedy skits and stand-up performances. Through a partnership, Time Warner and Viacom combined their channels to create CTV: The Comedy Network. The name was changed shortly after to Comedy Central in an effort to avoid legal battles with a Canadian Network also using the “CTV” abbreviation (Reuters). In 2003, Viacom purchased Time Warner’s stake in the channel to gain sole ownership of the channel (Comedy Central Website)(Reuters). Currently Comedy Central is owned by Viacom through it’s MTV Networks Division, a subsidiary company of Viacom which runs many
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