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Fusion is hoping to use the Internet as an incubator for new comedy concepts.
The cable network plans to launch digital studio F-Comedy to produce a range of projects, including short-form content, long-form series and comedy news. To do this, Fusion is partnering with New York-based improv comedy group Upright Citizens Brigade, YouTube and others.
All content from F-Comedy will live on the studio’s YouTube channel and will be crafted with social distribution in mind, says Fusion chief digital officer Daniel Eilemberg.
“One of the things that’s important to us is to identify young talent, formats and concepts that have the ability to build an audience and a community in the digital space before we place bigger bets,” he continues. “Digital is a great place to do that because you can really test things and measure the reaction of people. It gives you the ability to create a lot more content.”
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F-Comedy has nabbed a one-year residency at production facility YouTube Space LA, where it will collaborate with top creators from the streamer and gain access to equipment, sound stages and post-production tools. The studio has also pacted with Upright Citizens Brigade to create content exclusively for the F-Comedy platform.
As Fusion chief strategy officer Boris Gartner explains, a piece of content could “start on social and then move to digital and then get a home in linear. A creator doesn’t have to go pitch it to different companies each time. We have all those capabilities internally.”
Other partners include comedy talent incubator WIT.tv and New York’s The Stand comedy club. Meanwhile, 3 Arts Management will advise F-Comedy.
Fusion has built a roster of comedy offerings that include The Chris Gethard Show and Paul F. Tompkins‘ No, You Shut Up.
“What we’re hoping to develop are formats that can be serialized and replicated,” says Eilemberg. “You should expect a strong focus on topicality, current events and what’s happening in the world right now. We want this to track back to what we’re doing at Fusion. We think there’s an incredible opportunity to really tackle current events through the lens of humor.”
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