Can Columbia College Students Make ‘The Rent’ as Successful as ‘Sexperts’?

Students from the Internet and Mobile Concentration Classes at the Television Department of Columbia College Chicago released the first episode of their original web series The Rent, a comedy about three careless friends who dream up crazy schemes to earn rent money before they get evicted from their apartment. The first of six episodes premiered May 13 with a new installment every Thursday at 9:00 pm (Central).

The three central characters, played by Brendan Carney, Nick Bender, and Kevin Quatman, plot get rich schemes that range form sex tapes to blackmail to illegal conspiracies—perhaps they should take a few notes from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

The Rent follows Columbia College’s successful 2009 web series Sexperts, which cleverly leveraged the audiences of YouTube celebrities like Michael Buckley, Valentina of Val’s Art Diary, and Tony Huyin (thewinekone) by casting them as townsfolk appearing in Skype videos on the show. The Sexperts channel earned #1 Most Subscribed Comedy Channel on YouTube and #4 Most Subscribed Channel of any type on YouTube, according to the Columbia College TV Department home page. Without the YouTube star power (and without the word “sex” in the title, we’ll see what type of viewership The Rent will garner.