CollegeHumor officially changes name to Dropout in rebranding

CollegeHumor is abandoning its collegiate title after nearly 25 years… to become Dropout.

The company is officially rebranding from CollegeHumor to Dropout, the name of the ad-free streaming platform it launched in 2018. CollegeHumor was founded in 1999 by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen — in the days before the streaming revolution — and gained traction as a comedy site Free, ad supported.

Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp acquired CollegeHumor in 2006. Then in January 2020, IAC laid off more than 100 CollegeHumor employees and sold a majority stake in CH Media, the parent company of CollegeHumor and Dropout, to Sam Reich (Pictured above), who was the company’s creative director at the time.

In a video about rebranding (Watch below), Reich, who now serves as the company’s CEO, says he’s not sure Dropout will make it to its second year. “I’m not going to lie to you, I was scared. I’m scared that the company I’ve spent my whole life trying to build is going to collapse,” he says, thanking Dropout subscribers and employees for keeping the company going.

Tuesday (September 26) marks the fifth anniversary of Dropout’s launch. “So, to commemorate what is a huge milestone in CollegeHumor’s life… we’re going to kill him,” Reich explains, before smashing a laptop emblazoned with the CollegeHumor logo with a sledgehammer. “Rest in peace, CollegeHumor — we’re all dropouts now,” Reich says. Abramson and Van Veen then appear in a laptop video to give Reich their official blessing to leave the name and start a new chapter as Dropout. (Van Veen left CollegeHumor in 2016 to join Facebook, and has since served as Meta’s vice president of global creative strategy.)

A Dropout subscription costs $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year. Reich declined to specify the number of subscribers to the service, but said: “We are in the mid-hundreds of thousands and growing.”

“Five years ago, we ‘left behind’ traditional media and went directly to our audiences. We could never have imagined how meaningful this change would be to our business,” Reich said in a statement provided to Reuters. diverse. “This has resulted in the healthiest, most creative, and most exciting version of the company yet. I stand shoulder to shoulder with our exceptional talent, crew, and employees as we leave ‘college’ behind and continue to forge our own path. It turns out this isn’t just a gap year.

Dropout hosts over 75 “uncensored” original series, a mix of short-form and long-form programming. The collection includes “Dimension 20,” “Game Changer,” “Make Some Noise,” “Um, Artificial…”, “Dirty Laundry,” “Play It by Ear,” and “Breaking News.” The service is available on the web and via mobile apps for iOS and Android, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Google Chromecast, and Samsung smart TVs.

The CollegeHumor website shut down in 2020 but the brand maintained an official YouTube channel with 14.7 million subscribers. According to Reich, the CollegeHumor YouTube channel will also be renamed Dropout. CollegeHumor-branded videos will remain on the channel “as a nod to that specific period in our history,” Reich said, and will also continue to stream live on the Dropout platform. “Our goal is to honor everything the CollegeHumor name has brought us, while allowing Dropout to take center stage with our existing showcase clips, [YouTube] Short films and episodes are available to stream for free.

Watch Reich’s video about rebranding CollegeHumor to Dropout: