The Comedy Central Digital Team set out to create repeatable formats that would be highly engaging stories to drive views and subscriber growth, and when possible, a unique and interesting vehicle for talent-focused content.
At the end of 2020, Comedy Central launched its "Animated" social channels with a focus on adult animation to better support our linear efforts in the category. Tales from the Trip was an existing digital series that we migrated to these new channels as an anchor social franchise to help drive growth.
The Comedy Central Digital Team partners with comedians, actors, musicians, and other influencers to tell stories from their most memorable trips. A team of talented animators then brings these stories to life.
Finding the right stories, and influencers who are comfortable sharing these stories, can be a unique challenge. We're thoughtful about this content, ensuring that there are no hard drugs and if so, there is a message about avoidance and not glamorizing them.
Tales from the Trip is one of our most successful franchises, driving views across platform and engaging memorable talent including Steve-O and Jim Belushi. It's also been a major source of organic growth for the Animated channels, with YouTube currently at 312K subscribers. New episodes of Tales from the Trip drove 14.7M views across platforms in 2022. Overall, the series has driven a total of 20M+ views and 70M+ minutes watched on the Animated YouTube channel.
