Comedy Is Paramount

CBS All Access, the streaming service like Disney+, but using the ViacomCBS catalogue, is soon to be rebranded as Paramount+. This put me in mind of The Paramount Comedy Channel, because I’m stuck firmly in the 1990s.

When the channel first launched, it was simply called The Paramount Channel, and like its streaming progeny, it featured a broad sampling of the Viacom offerings -sitcoms, drama, and movies.

Just from that opening night launch though, its clear that the channel was skewing towards its comedy output. It aired an episode of Pig Sty that first night.

So, two years later, in 1997, the shift was made fully, and it became The Paramount Comedy Channel.

Along the way it split into two channels, and then eventually became Comedy Central.

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