Comedy creator IPs emerge as new media properties for brands

Relationshit Advice. Nation Wants to Guess. Judge Me If You Can. Loose Emotions. Akal Ke Ghode.

These comedy shows may not sound like television properties, but they are beginning to behave like them. India’s comedy creators are moving beyond stand-up clips and one-off brand integrations to build recurring shows with hosts, formats, audiences and, increasingly, sponsors. The catch is that the economics of YouTube do not always reward the effort that goes into making them.

Comedy is among the harder content categories to produce consistently, yet it sits towards the lower end of YouTube monetisation. Finance, technology, business and education content can generate around ₹80 to ₹300-plus per 1,000 views, while comedy, vlogs, gaming and entertainment typically sit closer to ₹30 to ₹60 per 1,000 views.

For a comedian putting together a proper recurring show, that creates an uncomfortable equation. The set may be small, the conversation may look casual and the production may appear inexpensive on screen, but there are writers, cameras, editors, crew, guests, post-production and, most importantly, the creator's time behind every episode.

That is where brands are increasingly entering the picture. The new comedy economy is not only about who can sell the most tickets or pull the most views on a stand-up clip. Comedians are building entertainment franchises that audiences can return to.

Raunaq Rajani's Relationshit Advice, Gursimran Khamba's Nation Wants to Guess and Ashish Solanki's Judge Me If You Can are examples of this shift. Rather than simply placing a brand logo around a comedian, brands are entering the format itself.

Cashify, Moxie Beauty, DaMENSCH and Wild Stone have all found space around comedian-led content, signalling a change in how brands are approaching comedy audiences.

The appeal is fairly simple. The audience has not arrived to watch an advertisement. It has arrived for the comedian, the chemistry and the format. That gives brands a chance to become part of the entertainment rather than interrupt it.

For younger D2C brands in particular, this can be more valuable than a conventional celebrity endorsement. A recurring format gives them multiple episodes, repeated exposure and a more natural environment in which to demonstrate the product.

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A ₹30 view can still become a valuable audience

The irony is that the same content can be commercially valuable to brands even when its direct YouTube economics are relatively weak.

Ayush Shukla, Founder, Finnet Media, an influencer marketing agency said, “Creator IPs are increasingly becoming media properties, not just campaign assets. Compared with TV sponsorships, recurring formats can offer significantly lower CPVs, highly targeted audiences, repeated exposure and native brand integration, while also allowing brands to become part of the content rather than simply advertising around it.”

That changes the calculation for both sides.

For YouTube, a comedy show is another piece of entertainment competing for advertising inventory. For a brand, however, the same show can become a recurring media property with a defined audience and a recognisable host.

Shukla added, “The next five years will see creator IPs compete directly with traditional TV properties for brand budgets. Recurring creator formats offer lower CPVs, stronger audience affinity, repeated exposure and native integrations, giving brands an opportunity to build sustained presence within content rather than rely on one-time sponsorships.”

This is also why the ₹0.50 CPV conversation becomes interesting.

“Recurring creator formats can fundamentally change the economics of sponsorships. With CPVs potentially falling below ₹0.50, brands can get repeated exposure to highly engaged audiences at a fraction of traditional TV sponsorship costs, while integrating directly into the format and becoming part of the content,” Shukla said.

The proposition, then, is not necessarily that comedy creators make more money from every view. It is that they can build an audience whose commercial value extends far beyond YouTube's advertising payout.

The Kaustubh Agarwal playbook

Standup comedian Kaustubh Agarwal's growing portfolio is another example of how this ecosystem is taking shape.

Across Andha Pyaar, Loose Emotions, Akal Ke Ghode and Madhur Model, the comedian is not operating around a single piece of content but across multiple recurring properties.

Andha Pyaar has attracted MARS Cosmetics, while Cashify has been associated with Loose Emotions and other comedian-led formats.

That is an important shift in the creator economy. A comedian's asset is no longer just the comedian.

It is the format.

The format can be sponsored. It can generate clips. It can travel to Instagram. It can create conversations outside the episode. It can give brands multiple touchpoints. And if it becomes successful enough, it can potentially move to another platform.

This is beginning to make comedians look less like influencers and more like small entertainment companies.

The three-step creator flywheel

Samay Raina's India's Got Latent offers perhaps the clearest demonstration of what happens when a creator-controlled format becomes big enough.

The first advantage is the stage. A creator who can pull tens of millions of views per episode has already solved the hardest part of entertainment: getting people to show up.

The second is discovery. A contestant or emerging creator can walk into a large creator's show with almost no following and walk out with an audience that knows their name. The host can continue feeding that discovery through social posts, clips and mentions.

The third is monetisation.

Those newly discovered creators can then move into brand collaborations of their own. The value does not stop with the original episode. The creator ecosystem starts producing more creators, more collaborations and, eventually, more commercial opportunities.

That is why India's Got Latent is bigger than a successful comedy show. It demonstrates how creator entertainment can function as an audience-building machine. And now it has crossed the platform divide.

In June, Netflix announced that India's Got Latent Season 2 would launch simultaneously on Netflix and YouTube, with episodes dropping every two weeks. Netflix also announced a separate Samay Raina comedy special in development.

The first four days of Season 2 illustrated the point sharply: the show generated more than 45 million views on YouTube compared with about 2.2 million on Netflix.

Brands are becoming the production partner

This is where the creator economy begins to look different from traditional influencer marketing. A creator post is usually bought for reach. A creator IP can be bought for continuity.

Cashify's association with Gaurav Kapoor's Lie Hard is one example. Streaming on Kapoor's YouTube channel, the show uses a comedy-led format that blends storytelling and a game-show structure, with episodes released every two weeks.

Nakul Kumar, Co-founder & CMO, Cashify, said, “We’ve always loved doing things a little differently, and Lie Hard is exactly that. Just as Cashify is redefining how people sell their old phones, making it smarter, simpler, and more sustainable, this show brings a fresh and clever twist to comedy. It’s not just about entertainment, it’s about authenticity and creativity, which perfectly captures the spirit of our brand. Partnering with Gaurav and the killer lineup of comics felt like the perfect way to connect with our audiences while keeping our storytelling game strong.”

The important word here is partnering.

The brand is not simply buying a mid-roll slot. It is associating itself with a recurring piece of entertainment that audiences have actively chosen to watch.

That is particularly useful for D2C brands, which often need repeated exposure to build consideration and recall.

TV has the reach. Creators have the relationship.

Traditional television is not disappearing. Kaun Banega Crorepati, for instance, continues to command the kind of cultural familiarity and family reach that newer creator formats cannot replicate overnight.

Brands such as Zed Black are still using KBC as a major national platform, with Mysore Deep Perfumery House describing the show as a property that has become part of India's cultural fabric. 

Anshul Agrawal, Director, Mysore Deep Perfumery House, further added, “As a brand with a growing national and global footprint, we look at media platforms from a long-term perspective, not just for immediate reach, but for their ability to build sustained consumer relevance. KBC has remained relevant across generations because it has become part of India’s cultural fabric, and that kind of familiarity and trust is difficult to replicate. At the same time, consumer attention is evolving rapidly, and newer, digital-first formats offer opportunities for deeper engagement. Our approach is to build a balanced media portfolio, leveraging the enduring power of established national platforms while selectively investing in emerging formats that can shape the next phase of consumer connect.”

But the media economy around it is changing.

PwC India projects internet advertising in India to rise from $7.5 billion in 2025 to $14.3 billion by 2030, a 13.9% CAGR. Traditional television revenue, meanwhile, is projected to move only marginally from $7.2 billion to $7.5 billion, representing a CAGR of around 0.8%.

OTT video is projected to grow 10.2% annually, from $2.2 billion to $3.6 billion, while gaming and esports are expected to grow 11.3%, from $1.5 billion to $2.6 billion.

The numbers point to a broader shift from simply buying audience scale to buying engagement, measurability and repeatability.

And creator IP sits neatly in that gap.

The comedy show is becoming the new media property

The larger opportunity for comedians is therefore not simply to become more popular on YouTube.

It is to own formats.

A comedian who owns an audience, a recurring show and a recognisable format can monetise through YouTube advertising, brand sponsorships, live shows, social clips, merchandise, OTT partnerships and potentially licensing.

That is a very different business from being paid for an Instagram post.

It also explains why comedy creators are increasingly producing what looks suspiciously like television, even when the economics of YouTube alone would not justify it.

Gautam Madhavan, Founder, Xley and MAD Influence, said, “Creator IPs are increasingly beginning to resemble traditional TV shows and television properties, but with better quality and potentially greater scale. Their advantage lies in the native reach creators bring through social platforms, along with the familiarity and trust associated with their faces. We are already seeing creators build games, series and even movies, blurring the lines between creators and celebrities.”

The irony is that comedy may be one of the categories best positioned for this transition precisely because it has historically been under-monetised on YouTube.

When the platform payout is not enough, creators need another economic engine. Brands may be becoming that engine. And if the audience keeps returning, the creator show stops looking like a YouTube video and starts looking a lot more like the next television property.