COMEDY CENTRAL has created COMEDY CENTRAL Live Entertainment, a new business division that will focus on building upon its leadership position in the live comedy industry through stand-up tours, comedy festivals, performance DVDs and CDs. Mitch Fried will head up the new division as senior vice president.
One of the first projects to be developed under this new division, COMEDY CENTRAL has signed a deal with comedian Stephen Lynch, who starred in Broadway’s The Wedding Singer and has been featured in two COMEDY CENTRAL Presents half-hour specials, that will encompass a major-market U.S. stand-up tour and, in a first for COMEDY CENTRAL Live, an international stand-up tour that will visit London, Ireland, Sweden, Holland and more. The deal also includes a one-hour stand-up special with Lynch that will premiere on COMEDY CENTRAL before being released, unedited, on DVD via COMEDY CENTRAL Home Entertainment.
COMEDY CENTRAL Live! stand-up tours have sold over 1.5 million tickets to performances at theaters, colleges and casinos nationwide, generating over $60 million in box office receipts. Over the past six years, COMEDY CENTRAL Live! has nurtured talent and produced stand-up tours from the small scale of the free stage on Lincoln Road at the South Beach Comedy Festival, featuring up-and-coming comedians, to college tours with more established talent like Mike Birbiglia, Greg Giraldo and Christian Finnegan to nationwide tours with the likes of Lewis Black, Jim Gaffigan, Brian Regan, Wanda Sykes, Dave Attell, Dave Chappelle and Carlos Mencia, whose last tour sold over 300,000 tickets and grossed over $10 million.
