Comedy Central website deletes music video and content archives

Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central

The move comes after Paramount Global took MTV News and CMT archives offline.

Comedy Central’s extensive website content repository – dating back 25 years – has been removed by parent company Paramount Global, in a bid to push fans towards Paramount+.

The site, at comecentral.com, previously hosted clips from every episode of “The Daily Show” since 1999, as well as segments from the full 11 seasons of Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report,” among other video content . Thousands of “Daily Show” clips remain free to watch on YouTube, but those only date back to 2015.

The decision to remove Comedy Central’s content comes after Paramount also removed the entire MTV News archive from the Internet on Monday, along with articles from CMT.

On Wednesday, Comedy Central’s archived materials disappeared from its website. A notice on the site states: “Although episodes of most Comedy Central series are no longer available on this website, you can watch Comedy Central through your television provider. You can also sign up for Paramount+ to watch many seasons of Comedy Central shows.

In a statement provided to Varietya Paramount Global representative said: “As part of broader changes to the Paramount website, we have introduced more streamlined versions of our sites, driving fans to Paramount+ to watch their favorite shows. »

While the Comedy Central site directs fans to Paramount+ to find programming, many older episodes of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” are not available on the streamer, as LateNighter reports. Clips and full episodes of series such as “The Opposition With Jordan Klepper,” “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore,” “@midnight,” hosted by Chris Hardwick, and “Lights Out With David Spade” have also disappeared from comedycentral. com. according to LateNighter.

Paramount Global is in a difficult financial situation, facing declining revenues from its traditional television business while Paramount+ – although growing rapidly – ​​remains in the red. After merger and acquisition talks with Skydance Media collapsed earlier this month, Paramount Global’s three co-CEOs laid out a strategy of job cuts, potential asset sales to pay down debt and a possible joint venture for its streaming business.