Comedy site and YouTube channel, CollegeHumor, is seeing massive layoffs. The layoffs, which has left nearly all CollegeHumor staff unemployed, is due to its parent company, InterActiveCorp, cutting financing of the project. The concept is disheartening to what fanbase they still cling onto. The site has slowly been getting less and less traffic, with much of its traffic coming from people directing searching for the platform themselves, according to Alexa.
IAC dropped the ball and left the site and its subsidiaries like Dorkly, Drawfee, and Dropout in the hands of COO Sam Reich. With this second chance, Reich hopes to save not only CollegeHumor, but also Dorkly and Drawfee, and Dropout, their premium streaming service which offers Dimension 20, Breaking News, Um, and other shows exclusive to it.
So, bad news – with a twist.
⁰IAC, our parent company, has made the difficult decision to no longer finance us. Today, 100+ brilliant people lost their jobs, some of whom are my dear, dear friends. Hire them. (thread)
— Sam Reich (@samreich) January 8, 2020
Reich has been open that he can’t operate it exactly the same without the backing of a parent such as IAC. Likely because they were taking the brunt of the hit when it came to their website’s declining revenue, though, supposedly, they were starting to become profitable.
“Of course, I can’t keep it going like you’re used to. While we were on the way to becoming profitable, we were nonetheless losing money — and I myself have no money to be able to lose.”
The plan
Reich went on to say he aims to have all CHMedia’s subsidiaries and the main company saved within six months, even if that means taking “bold new creative directions” in order to survive.
“In these six months, I hope to be able to save Dropout, CollegeHumor, Drawfee, Dorkly, and many of our shows. Some will need to take on bold new creative directions in order to survive. You may not agree with all of them. And this won’t be the last time I ask for your support.”
He did assure fans he would try his hardest to stay true to the talent, though.
“I will, however, do my very best to stay true to the talent, shows, fans, and principles that got us where we are today.”
The lengthy Twitter thread closed off with a joke.
“We dropped out once before; we can do it again. Independent comedy lives on — just now more independent (gulp) than ever before.”
It wasn’t like the signs weren’t there, in January 2019, sister site Dorkly opted to cease publishing articles or comics as the site’s operation costs were growing and its ad revenue was lowering.
Now, if you go to CollegeHumor’s website, you’ll be redirected to its YouTube channel.
