TORONTO and NEW YORK – CTVglobemedia already airs The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on two of its platforms (the main network and The Comedy Network), so it only makes sense to expand that even more.
Today, CTV signed an important multi-platform content deal with Viacom’s Comedy Central, which will see the Canadian broadcaster gain control of Comedy Central’s full library for broadcast, broadband, video on demand, mobile and any other platform there is.
(Ed Note: One would hope this leads to further deals with other Viacom properties, like CBS, where CTV might gain the multiplatform rights for CBS’s CSI franchise, for example.)
What today’s announcement means is that Comedy Central shows like the two mentioned above, along with other popular fare like South Park, Mind of Mencia, Reno 911 and The Sarah Silverman Program are CTV’s to use and exploit – and monetize – in Canada on any screen upon which Canadians can watch video.
Another cool part of the deal will see all Canadian-based web traffic to Comedy Central’s on-line presence geo-gated and re-directed to The Comedy Network’s www.thecomedynetwork.ca. These assets include: www.comedycentral.com, www.southparkstudios.com, www.jokes.com, and www.colbertnation.com.
Financial terms of the multi-million-dollar deal were not disclosed.
Further highlights of the deal from the press release:
• Television — Exclusive access to all Comedy Central programming, including more than 200 hours of current Comedy Central branded original programs, such as the full roster of episodes from "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report" and "South Park." In addition, CTV secures the rights for the complete Comedy Central back catalog of programs.
• Online and Broadband — Exclusive online and broadband rights to full episodes, plus all clips, shorts, wallpapers, ring-tones and other online content created for "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report," "South Park" along with other current series and the Comedy Central back catalog, plus all original broadband and online content created for comedycentral.com, where cleared for Canada.
• Video-on-Demand — Exclusive rights to "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report" and "South Park" along with other current series and back catalog programs where cleared for Canada.
• Mobile — Exclusive rights to full episodes of "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report" and "South Park" along with other current series and back catalog programs, plus all clips, shorts, wallpapers, ring-tones and other online content created for these programs, access to more than one thousand clips and all other Comedy Central mobile content cleared for use in Canada.
www.ctv.ca
www.thecomedynetwork.ca
www.comedycentral.com
