Who watches Comedy Central?

1. Who watches Comedy Central? The style of performance-based comedy is ever changing. There was a time when comedy shows were synonymous with slapstick dramas. People used to laugh their hearts out at the weird antics of the performers. Then came the era of situational comedies, which made the slapstick comedy dramas look over the top. With time, people started loving situational comedies and a number of quality sitcoms came up on television. The content became sharper and more intelligent, blurring the lines between clean humour and socio-political satire. But, as we all know, no genre can hold its position for more than two decades. At present, the dominant genre in the world of comedy is stand-up comic sketches. With the advent of internet and social media, stand-up comedians from all around the world got the opportunity to reach out to mass audiences, thereby popularising the whole genre. Indian television remained ignorant regarding the rise of stand-up comedy on the internet and was busy churning out situation comedies, which eventually could not meet the desired success. However, Viacom 18 discovered this change of preference of comedy-loving audience and started focusing on developing a platform for stand-up comedy on television. The launch of Comedy Central marks the accomplishment of Viacom 18’s endeavour. There is no denying that Viacom 18 is the largest entertainment network India. Since the launch of Colors, which is undoubtedly the most popular general entertainment channel of India, Viacom 18 has not stop and today, it runs the lead channels in every genre. Needless to say, comedy is a genre which had been neglected in Indian television since the beginning. It is true that there have been some brilliant comedy shows over the years, but all of them were aired on the general entertainment channels. With Comedy Central, the genre got its very own existence on the Indian television. Though the channel targets the English-speaking audience, many of its shows are loved by the non- English speaking audience too. In the last few years, the channel has commissioned several wonderful comedy shows for people of all ages. As mentioned earlier too, the secret behind the success of Comedy Central is definitely the stand-up comedy sketches. A number of stand-up comedians managed to come into the scene with the help of this channel. Last year, Viacom18 launched a reality show called Comedy Central Chuckle Festival, so as to promote the channel. The festival in itself became quite popular, with hundreds of stand- up comedians from different parts of the country registering themselves as participants. The festival has been much appreciated for its concept as well as format.