Comedy Central Upgrading Video Technology to Include Embedding and Syndication

Posted on November 4, 2006

Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Comedy Central is launching an upgraded video platform this month that will allow video clips to be syndicated on websites with embedded code. The video clips will contain advertisements. Comedy Central's video platform is called MotherLoad.

"We are trying to create the best experience for the users and putting the content into their hands," said Michele Ganeless, executive vp and general manager at Comedy Central, attributing the site's changes to feedback from users and results of usability studies done by the network.
While content grabbed by users for their own use will still include attached advertising, Ganeless said the network is still working out the details when it comes to handling advertising revenue.
"We are working out a model to incorporate users into the process and finding the best way possible to get our content where they want it," she said.
Beth Lewand, vp digital media programming and production at Comedy Central, said that while the network has been tweaking and modifying MotherLoad throughout the past year with design and functionality changes, the biggest impact will come from the syndication aspect.
"It's a way of giving our audience more control over how they use our content and video," Lewand 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."

If true, this would be a smart move by Comedy Central. It would allow Comedy Central to benefit from the growing number of people who want to watch video clips online. They will need to be prepared for a significant bandwidth increase once bloggers and website owners start embedding their clips. The Hollywood Reporter article also says the new video platform Comedy Central is working on has nothing to do with Comedy Central clips being pulled from YouTube.com.