Thursday, March 15, 2018

Comedy Central International commissions 6 digital short form originals, including a 2nd season of the South African YouTube personality Josh Pieters' show, Josh Investigates.


Viacom's Comedy Central International is expanding its digital programme offering with 6 new short-form originals for YouTube and social media, including a second season of the South African YouTube personality Josh Pieters' show Josh Investigates.

"What works for us is content that speaks to that 18 to 34 audience. One of the areas that works for our audience, and resonates in multiple territories, is sketch," says Claire McArdle, vice president of comedy for Comedy Central International.

The South African YouTube personality Josh Pieters will be back for a second season of Josh Investigates in which he will explore such topics as feminism, artificial intelligence and whether anyone really cares about politics.

The team behind the online sketch comedy series Comic Relief Originals will produce Modern Horror Stories, a mixture of spoofs, satire and parody sketches skewering contemporary problems.

The London-based stand-up comedian Sofie Hagen will do Sofie’s Sex Stories, where she sits in her bedroom with her funny friends to talk about their sexual escapades, with the stories humorously retold through various mediums, including a puppet show and animation.

The British comedian Sophie Ducker is seen in What I Wish I’d Said, in which comedians get to re-live an embarrassing moment, but this time find the perfect response.

The standup comedian Fin Taylor anchors a political game show Fin Taylor Plays Bullshit Bingo, where he deflates the overheated rhetoric around issues of the day, from Brexit to clean eating. He’ll travel to locations and interview individuals who don’t realize they’re contestants, and call them out on their performance.

Made Up News is an antidote to the news industry’s credibility gap. It features trustworthy news anchors, correspondents and guests discussing the day’s biggest headlines, with experts and fake-news experts going head to head in an attempt to get to the heart of the story.