Maker Studios Partners With Its Second Established Film Festival

Maker Studios inked a deal with Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Enterprises (the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival) way back in May 2012 to usher the now 12-year-old entity into the digital age and help guide it through the turbulent and ever-changing online video landscape. The partnership spawned at least one YouTube channel that’s on brand for both organizations and comprised of online original programming worth viewing.

Now, Maker Studios announced a partnership with another established film festival to expand its digital initiatives. The YouTube multi-channel network with more than 4.5 billion monthly video views will manage the online video presence of the 30-year-old comedy institution, Just for Laughs.

Just for Laughs needs less help on YouTube than Maker Studios’ previous partners. The Montreal-based comedy festival (that attracts 2 million people to Quebec’s capital city every summer) turned internationally well known comedy brand (with festivals in Toronto, Chicago, and Sydney, a television production arm, a live shows division, and a talent management group) is also in possession of a top channel.

YouTube.com/JustForLaughsTV racks up tens of millions of views a month (mostly from gag and prank videos) and was the 76th most viewed channel on YouTube in September

. Still, there’s room to grow, and the YouTube knowhow Maker’s amassed by managing the most subscribed channel on the world’s largest video sharing site should help JustForLaughsTV reach new levels of viewership.

Maker Studios will also create a destination site for Just For Laughs (in which it will utilize its newly purchased video player), and some of Maker’s top comedy talent will perform and produce original content while at Just For Laughs 2014.

“A company as forward-thinking as Maker inspires us with three goals,” said Just For Laughs Co-Founder Andy Nulman in the release. “The first is to take something that’s already working extraordinarily well – the Gags channel – and pump it up to its pinnacle. The second is to find the secret formula to convert our immense catalog of stand-up comedy into a distinct product that will captivate the digital fan. The third is to leverage the power of our annual festival to create new collaborations and unique original content. That said…let’s get to work!”