Fusion launched F-Comedy today, a digital comedy studio in collaboration with YouTube. They’ll tap YouTube creators and established comedy pros, like talent from the Upright Citizen’s Brigade to produce “topical short-form content for a young, multicultural audience that could be developed into other formats including long-form comedy series, comedy news-talk shows and more.” Fusion will distribute it across their digital, social, cable and OTT platforms as well as on the F-Comedy YouTube channel.
Fusion’s always been into comedy, with shows like No, You Shut Up and the Chris Gethard Show, which premiered last month. It’s already getting rave reviews. Vice wrote that, “[Gethard] is poised to shake up late night the same way David Letterman did more than 33 years ago.”
Fusion CEO Isaac Lee said in an official statement that:
We have understood from the beginning that comedy and satire are incredibly powerful tools to connect with our target audience and that it must be at the core of our content offering. We know that traditional methods of identifying talent and delivering content are changing every day, and our comedy studio brings together leaders in comedy and short-form storytelling arenas to generate content that informs and provokes while also being highly entertaining.
3 Arts Entertainment will advise the F-Comedy studio, which has produced Silicon Valley, Broad City, The Mindy Project, and Parks and Recreation as well as managing top comedic talent including Louis C.K., Amy Poehler, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, Tina Fey, among others.
The studio will use the YouTube spaces in Los Angeles, for studios, YouTube consultants, and post-production facilities.