Sketch comedy & sitcom creator trends TV producers should know about
Comedy has long been a staple of social video since it emerged in the mid-2000s, as making people laugh with skits or stunts has long been a way to go viral and build an audience. Rather than the broader comedy genre, this post is looking at the narrower sub-group of sketch comedy and sitcoms on YouTube and other social platforms.
The history of scripted comedy on YouTube is similar to that of drama: it has been a slower and more tricky proposition to land thanks to higher costs when compared with factual or personal reality content that has dominated the platform. Plus, as anyone who has dabbled with standup can attest, being able to make people laugh is one of the hardest things to pull off, and so in general, scripted comedy has not been as active as other creator categories.
I’ve written previously about online scripted content in general, both covering the history of the genre, as well as current trends:
Back to sketch comedy and sitcoms. Over the last 10 years, there have been two significant developments that have influenced the nature of the scripted comedy market: firstly the growth of social platforms as a showcase for comedy performers and secondly the rise of podcasting.
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