AtomFilms Aligns with Comedy Central

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO,
June 27: MTVN Entertainment Group has relaunched AtomFilms.com as Atom.com, a
digital comedy network that distributes original programming across a variety
of platforms, with Comedy Central as its exclusive partner.

Comedy Central will
develop new properties for multiplatform distribution and build an online
community of creators and viewers, as well as produce a half-hour series, Atom
TV, which debuted on Comedy
Central this week.

At launch, Atom.com is
premiering four new web series: Border Patrol, which centers on three slacker friends who spend
their weekends in lawn chairs at the Mexican border, determined to stop illegal
immigration; Steven & Stephen,
about a set of conjoined twins who are joined at the groin and obsessed with
the Internet; Stickman Exodus,
featuring stick figures, doodled by a bored high-school student, searching for
the “promised page” in the kid’s notebook; and Benny, Escaped Convict, which chronicles the exploits of a foul-mouthed
rodent. Atom.com is also in production with a slew of new original properties
to debut in the coming months.

The new Atom.com website
will replace both AtomFilms.com and AtomUploads.com, bringing together
user-generated and professionally produced content. Titles will be classified
as either “Pro Videos,” which are developed or licensed by Atom, or “User
Videos,” meaning the content has been uploaded to the site. Each week, viewers
can vote on which new “User Videos” should join the ranks of “Pro Videos,”
earning a distribution and licensing contract offer with additional royalty
payments via Atom’s revenue-sharing program and carriage across Atom’s
distribution channels.

"We want Atom.com to
provoke, break rules and uncover talent much as Comedy Central did at its
inception on cable," said Erik Flannigan, the executive VP of digital
media at MTVN Entertainment Group. "If we get this right, Atom.com will be
our punk-rock label and help to bring fresh, provocative comedy to every screen
our audience is watching."

"Atom delivers web
comedy the way nature intended—random, timely and out of touch with
normal standards of good taste," said Scott Roesch, the general manager of
Atom.com. "We couldn't ask for a better partner than Comedy Central as we
begin this quest for comedy talent, convergent sponsorship sales, multiplatform
distribution and, of course, global domination."

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski