Comedy Central App Lets You Program Its Friday Night Line-Up ~ Pare News

January is Stand-Up Month at Comedy Central — and the network is letting all you funny people program its Friday night line-up via a Facebook app, CC Stand-Up.

CC Stand Up is an app attached to Comedy Central’s official Facebook page. Once users Like Comedy Central, they’ll be given access to the app which lets them vote for a series of comedians by watching short clips of their performances.

The top-voted comedians will then have their pre-taped specials broadcast on Friday night at 9 p.m. Eastern Time leading up to a brand-new debut special from a featured comedian.

The four premieres include Tom Papa, Kevin Hart, JB Smoove and John Mulaney, though users can vote on a huge swathe of top talent that includes pre-taped specials from Donald Glover, Aziz Ansari, Jim Gaffigan, Michael Ian Black, Chelsea Handler and more.

SEE ALSO: The Charlie Sheen Roast: Comedy Central's Ambitious Social Media Experiment

The whole app has been built with social in mind. CC Stand Up was created by the same company, Omnigon, that built Comedy Central’s social dashboard for the Charlie Sheen Roast that blew up on Twitter. What’s more, “votes” are cast by following or “Liking” the comedian’s social profiles. Not only does this help boost those profiles but it necessitates that any participating comedians are also on Facebook or Twitter.

“When you come in here and do “Like” or follow, you're liking or following the comedian themselves, not us,” says Steve Grimes, Comedy Central’s SVP of Digital Media. “You like our Facebook page to participate but after that we're really getting the audience to engage with the comedian directly.”

Comedians are getting involved as well. A news feed of tweets and comments from that week’s candidates shows them reaching out to voters and promoting their own material. “One of the main reasons why we’re so focused on these social platforms is that comedy lives on these social platforms,” Grimes says.

There is also some social science around which comedians are chosen for the premier: “We took a central comedian and find comedians that are associated with them in some way, shape or form,” Grimes says. “you know, maybe he follows them on Twitter? There is some sort of social thread that connects them.”

Stand Up Month is an annual tradition for Comedy Central but this is the first year that users have been the social keys to the comedy car. Grimes says the network wanted to get away from having one major showdown at the end of the month and instead focus on creating conversation and promoting a variety of artists and specials throughout the duration.

Comedy Central has gone all-in when it comes to social, and CC Stand Up is just the tip of the iceberg. The network is getting ready to revamp its entire stand-up website, Jokes.com, to be more social.

“The Facebook app is actually a bit of a sneak peek of what the site will look like,” Grimes says. The new stand-up site is expected to launch by late spring or early summer.

Do you think Comedy Central is right to bet so heavily on social? Can networks trust us to help them program their shows? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.