Comedy Central

Comedy Central is an American adult-oriented basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel carries comedy programming in the form of both original, licensed, and syndicated series, stand-up comedy specials, and feature films. It is available to approximately 86.73 million households in the United States . Since the early 2000s, Comedy Central has expanded globally with localized channels in Europe (including the United Kingdom), India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, Middle East, Africa and in the Commonwealth of Independent States. The international channels are operated by Paramount International Networks. History 1989–1991: Pre-launch as The Comedy Channel On November 15, 1989, Time-Life, the owners of HBO, launched The Comedy Channel as the first cable channel devoted exclusively to comedy-based programming. On April 1, 1990, Viacom (who owned MTV, VH1, and Nickelodeon) launched a rival channel called Ha! that featured reruns of situation comedies and some original sketch comedy.