I resented SuperDeluxe from day one because they gave comedians the false impression that the web is a fantasy world where you can earn lots of money on videos that, in any other case, would make little money if any. It created an unearned, temporary sense of competition with CollegeHumor, and in the end really just hurt and confused everyone. I’m glad they’re gone!
I believe Turner had earned the right to compete with CH. After all they were responsible for producing Space Ghost - Coast to Coast, Brak Show, Sealab, and Aqua Teen. I’d say they had the experience to create killer comedy on the internet. In fact, they did just that. What Connected Ventures understood better than Turner was how to interact with their core demographic to find out how to keep them. After all, it’s not CHTV that makes College Humor possible, Hotlinks, pictures of nearly naked girls, just the whole nature of College Humor as a digest instead of a video network makes that a reality. Super Deluxe was awesome, but the old media doesn’t fully understand the internet yet. It wasn’t a false reality, people are making tons of cash from comedy on the internet (CV is a good example of that, I know the whole team isn’t insanely rich but the core group did pretty fucking good.) I take internet comedy very personally because it is what I am currently investing in heavily.
I spoke with Tim and Eric’s business manager today and his sentiment was “Don’t expect to earn a profit from your business for 5 years, now if you can operate for 5 years - you’re doing a lot right and the future is bright for you… but if you’re operating expecting a huge payout immediately you’re on the wrong side of the media.” College Humor was around for a while before they turned a profit too.
I was happy for Super Deluxe to exist and entertain me, I will miss them. It is true and sad that many pople lost their jobs today, people I am close to. I think what this will end up doing is force people to create their own avenues for their own brand of comedy. What CV did worked in that they started small and built their way to understand things on a bigger level (motion picture deal). What Turner did was try to understand the smaller scope from the top down, and it takes people that know what they’re doing on the internet to pull it off.
As far as I know, MyDamnChannel, Cracked, and FunnyorDie are all doing really well for themselves - also, most markets are taking a plunge right now, so for there to be able to be a CHTV in the first place is awesome. We’ll see what happens.