Blue Collar Comedy Dies

Looks like users would rather “Die” than watch Blue Collar comedy. The parent company of Funny or Die, Or Die Networks, has killed off Kung Fu Todd, which used to be Blue Collar or Die (and was My Blue Collar before that). While Blue Collar’s death may not be a total harbinger for the company, it should serve as a swift kick in the pants.

Blue Collar’s transition from TV success to web success wasn’t guaranteed. The Blue demographic was males over the age of 35. As Liz pointed out yesterday, that’s old. Older than the 18-to-24-year-old audience advertisers are after, and Or Die Networks needs advertisers.

Second, Or Die Networks has been public with its troubles with Blue Collar for quite some time. Back in April, CEO Dick Glover told us about moving away from the site’s Southern roots to becoming more of a topical comedy site, riffing off events like the Eliot Spitzer scandal. Guess that didn’t work either.

That isn’t to say that unloading dead weight like Blue Collar gets Or Die Networks off the hook. The company took $15 million in funding and more recently HBO took a minority stake in the company, but Funny or Die hasn’t had a real break-out hit since The Landlord, and it hasn’t shown that it can retain the audiences it gets from viral traffic spikes. Plus, its forays into action sports (shredordie.com) and food (eatdrinkordie.com) haven’t taken off at all. This doesn’t bode well for the upcoming PwnorDie video games site.

As the death of Blue Collar shows, online comedy is a cutthroat business. The more Funny or Die is treated as a side project for its celebs, the more it will feel that way to audiences. Why should we invest the time if the owners aren’t?