Valleywag: Comedy Central

Stephen Colbert blogs about his Twitters

Owen Thomas — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:00:00 PST

Whenever I read a Twitter, part of me wonders if the person who sent it has any actual work to do. Jon Stewart, cohosting Comedy Central's election-night coverage, wondered the same thing about cohost Stephen Colbert.

South Park kills 10 YouTube memes for good

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:40:00 PDT

Viacom continues to pursue a $1 billion lawsuit against Google's YouTube for allowing video piracy. On Viacom's Comedy Central, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone aren't helping their corporate parent's legal case. In last night's episode, Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny asked themselves "How Do We Make Money on the Internet?" and predictably, they find it difficult — just like YouTube. This leads to a South Park scene straight out of Viacom CEO Philippe Daumann's dreams as, one by one, the viral-video sensations that made YouTube so big are destroyed. Here's the scene in two clips, and all the popular videos it refers to:

The viral videos, by order of appearance:

"Chocolate Rain" Original Song by Tay Zonday

Samwell - "What What (In the Butt)"

Tron Guy

Numa Numa

Star Wars Kid

Sneezing Panda

Dramatic Gopher

Chris Crocker - LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

Hahaha (laughing baby)

Afro Ninja

Viacom, Google show indecision in legal battle

Owen Thomas — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:38:08 PDT

It's not odd at all for a media company to plug its properties on others. So there's nothing inherently surprising in video ads for Comedy Central's "Indecision 2008" appearing on political blog Talking Points Memo. Unless, that is, you're aware of the troublesome legal history between Viacom, the ad's purchaser, and Google, the company which placed the ad on Talking Points.

Viacom and Google, last year, had agreed to experiment with distributing videos on Google's AdSense network, the system that Talking Points and other blogs use to carry ads. That trial, a Google spokesman told me earlier this year, had run its course and wasn't renewed — unsurprising, as Google and Viacom revved up legal hostilities over charges of copyright infringement on Google's YouTube video site. That raises the question: Is this a one-off ad placement — or a sign of detente between the online-video powers.

Viacom dupes its own video cliphouse

Chris Mohney — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:20:38 PST

With most clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report deleted from Youtube, what's left? Viacom doesn't care, as they're already pre-selling the expanded capabilities of Comedycentral.com at the Media Summit conference. CC-hosted clips already have embed capabilities, allowing users to slap the clips on MySpace or blogs, Youtube-style. Of course, you don't get to pick what clips are available, nor can you avoid the occasional bumper ad. Expect to see more of those ads, in fact — otherwise, what's the advantage of spending money to host your own content?