First they laugh, then they follow: Comedy’s vertical TV opportunity

With its skits, anecdotes, and punchlines, comedy lends itself well to short-form video. Now that streaming services have built the vertical feed infrastructure, they can leverage original, premium, short-form comedy to draw in new audiences for vertical TV. 

Comedy’s social-first talent pipeline

Comedic content thrives online, often driving both online engagement and offline, water-cooler conversations. A rising class of comedy creators has built their brands around this: Delaney Rowe (delaneysayshello on TikTok), Henry Rowley (@henryrowleyy), and Jack Shep (@jackshepbaby) post impressions, skits, and POVs, designed with a social media audience in mind. The characters and formats they find success with can be repeated with new angles, meaning each video can stand alone while contributing to a wider body of work, allowing these creators to build their recognisable niches and brands. Going direct to audiences and posting reactively is a compelling alternative to the stand-up circuit, where breaking through can take years. 

SNL UK was quick to recognise social media as a reservoir of young comedy talent. The success of the show can be attributed in part to its digital-first approach, both in its production and its casting. The show places established comedy talent alongside content creators, with two of the main stars, Jack Shep and Al Nash, best known for their TikTok videos. Social media is a training ground for young comedy talent to refine their style, and allows them to build a portfolio that demonstrates their repeated success among their target audience. 

The vertical feed opportunity

Netflix, Disney, and Prime now all have vertical video feeds, building TikTok-style, algorithm-driven scrolling into their own apps, although not yet available in every market. So far, the feeds have primarily been used as marketing engines, clipping the most engaging snippets of TV and films to encourage viewers to seek out the content in full. 

But there’s an opportunity for vertical TV to become an entertainment medium in its own right. Comedy, which as a genre is already successfully straddling both social media and traditional TV, is the perfect gateway to do this. Comedy skits are designed to be delivered in short bursts and to work as standalone content, which makes them ideal for the vertical feed. Social media has already found success with this, now it’s time for vertical TV to do the same. 

Mocking microdramas

Vertical comedy is already proving a success. In September, Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show launched its second season of “Who Billionaire? Me Billionaire”, their parody of low-budget, melodramatic microdramas complete with revenge plots, cliffhangers, and over-the-top delivery. The vertical, short-form format allowed the series to not only air as a segment on the show, but also be released on Peacock’s vertical feed and go live on The Tonight Show’s social media channels. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show’s first season amassed 27 million views. This success demonstrates why streaming platforms should be leveraging comedy to turbo-charge their vertical feeds. The very act of spoofing microdramas demonstrates vertical TV’s ability to go beyond the genre it is most known for. 

Comedy could draw new audiences to vertical TV

The Tonight Show may have used the microdrama format mockingly, but its success shows the broader potential for sketch shows and comedy to draw new audiences to vertical TV. For Gen Z, entertainment starts on their phone, where young comedy talent is building their TikTok audiences. Social media has demonstrated the audience demand for short-form comedy. Some of that attention could be brought over to vertical feeds on streaming platforms if high-quality comedy content is made there.

Entertainment companies have access to big budgets, professional studios, teams of writers, and back catalogues of comedy IP. These can all be leveraged to create first-class, short-form comedy for vertical feeds that will build loyalty among the next generation of viewers.