In January 2020, CollegeHumor faced severe layoffs due to financial issues, reducing its staff from around 100 to less than 10. The company struggled with profitability despite various ventures and a significant viewership decline. Initially successful with edgy, college-focused content, CollegeHumor's monetization challenges led to the launch of a subscription service, Dropout TV. However, parent company IAC withdrew funding in 2020, prompting a major downsizing but not a complete shutdown of operations. Despite the setbacks, CollegeHumor continues to produce content with a significantly reduced team.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. In January 2020, a news article reported that almost everyone at CollegeHumor lost their jobs.
2. CollegeHumor reduced its staff from around 100 people to less than 10.
3. The layoff was due to financial troubles and the channel not being profitable.
4. CollegeHumor was founded as a separate website in 1999.
5. The website saw massive success between 2000 and 2006 with a large following of college kids.
6. The website's content was dedicated to the goofy things that college kids find funny.
7. In 2006, CollegeHumor was acquired by IAC (InterActiveCorp) for $20 million.
8. After the acquisition, CollegeHumor expanded its content to include original videos.
9. The channel's YouTube account, CollegeHumor TV (CHTV), was launched in 2006.
10. By 2009, CollegeHumor's YouTube channel had gained over 500,000 subscribers.
11. By 2014, CollegeHumor was ranked as NewRockstar's 76th greatest channel of all time.
12. The channel's growth was driven by professionally produced skits and likable, relatable characters.
13. In 2018, CollegeHumor revealed that it was severely hurting the channel's profits due to the adpocalypse.
14. CollegeHumor launched a third-party subscription website called Dropout in 2018.
15. In January 2020, IAC pulled its funding from CollegeHumor, resulting in the layoff of over 100 employees.
16. CollegeHumor's director, Sam Reich, announced that he would take over as the majority owner of the company.
17. Despite the layoff, CollegeHumor's viewership remained steady, with the channel gaining over 468 million views in the 12 months after the layoff.
18. The channel's content shift to only uploading "No Laugh Newsroom" videos in the last six months has led to a decline in viewership.
19. CollegeHumor still gets reasonable views given the size of their channel and team.