Deadline reports that NBC’s comedy streaming platform, SeeSo, has issued some layoffs today, suggesting that there might be trouble brewing at the online service. Comedy fans have been eyeing SeeSo with trepidation for a while now, ever since its first major champion, Evan Shapiro, departed NBCUniversal last month.
Besides offering access to the company’s library of older comedy—including Parks And Recreation, Saturday Night Live, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus—SeeSo has picked up a reputation as an incubator for weird, inventive new humor. Kulap Vilaysack’s Bajillion Dollar Propertie$, Dan Harmon’s HarmonQuest, and My Brother, My Brother, And Me have all found homes on the service, which seemed ready and willing to take chances on non-traditional comedy formats. It remains to be seen, though, how long that innovative, high-risk, high-reward approach can last, now that the service’s business model is being reevaluated in the wake of Shapiro’s departure. (That being said, sources quoted by Deadline make it clear that nothing’s set in stone just yet, and that the company is still openly debating about what to do with its comedy service.)