New Comedy Central Tool Lets Users Syndicate Content

Filed in archive Internet TV on November 20, 2006

Comedy Central is revamping its broadband video platform, MotherLoad, this month with a new syndicated video player. Despite double-speak to the contrary, you can thank YouTube for this important change in strategy.

Just to spell it out in plain English: syndication capability means that Comedy Central is allowing users to grab and embed their favorite clips for posting on their own Web pages.

In order to make sure the site is widely compatible; they will use a Flash video format. This makes it fairly universal and more user-compatible on Macs and older PCs and for users with pop-up blockers.

While content grabbed by users for their own use will still include attached advertising, Michele Ganeless, executive vp and general manager at Comedy Central said the network is still working out the details when it comes to handling advertising revenue.

"It's a way of giving our audience more control over how they use our content and video," Beth Lewand, vp digital media programming and production, said. "It gives users the opportunity to play with our content -- to use it on their home pages and to bring it further out into the world."

The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Viacom's policy with respect to YouTube is unclear, despite this development.