• Ad Age, Wednesday, December 6, 2006 10:30 AM

Comedy, a big money maker for Viacom Corp. offline, is now set to become the cornerstone of the media giant's online strategy. Its new video properties, Atom Films and iFilm, have now been brought under the wing of Doug Herzog, the former president of Comedy Central/Spike/TV Land.

Atom is set to become an incubator for MTV Networks, which includes Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike TV and other comedy-oriented channels. iFilm has remerged as a video portal of sorts for content professionally produced by MTV Networks.

Viacom says both sites are already making money through advertising. If Viacom can drum up enough interest, it could make a dent in YouTube's dominating slice of the video market. After all, clips from shows like "The Daily Show" and "South Park" are a big reason people head to online video sites.

That's not to say that Viacom will follow through with its one-time promise to take content off YouTube, but Viacom execs admit they still don't know what to do about the Web's biggest video destination. For now, Viacom is taking a lesson from Google's book by playing both the friend and enemy card. It competes, yet is open to partnership.

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