Wayans betting Web comedy will sell

Later this month, the comedian of "In Living Color" and "My Wife and Kids" fame plans to launch a website, WayOutTV.com, featuring videos produced by aspiring young comedians he handpicked. Wayans sees the free site as an online comedy club and production studio that could eventually change the way content is bought and sold in Hollywood.

He's not the only one with that vision. And as others before him have discovered, it's tough to change an entrenched industry like show business.

Wayans will be competing for eyeballs and advertising dollars with dozens of sites offering material produced by professional comedians, including Will Ferrell's FunnyorDie.com, MyBlueCollar.com, which features the likes of Jeff Foxworthy, and MyDamnChannel.com, which contains content from Harry Shearer.

Those sites haven't struck gold yet. It's especially tough to attract visitors accustomed to visiting Google Inc.'s YouTube.

"We're still looking for that big success story," said Richard Hull, chief content officer for Blowtorch, a young adult-focused entertainment and media company.

Wayans and his advisors say their site will be different.

"People want our content because we're dealing in funny," Wayans said in an interview.

As younger viewers spend more time online and less time with television, online video sites have the potential to attract more advertising dollars. The transition is expected to get a boost from the Hollywood writers strike, which has slowed down the pace of new TV shows and pushed some writers to experiment more online. Research firm Emarketer estimates that spending on ads tied to online video will grow to $4.3 billion in the Untied States in 2011, from $1.4 billion in 2008.

"There's a lot of initial attempts at these sites, but no one has dominated like the way Comedy Central dominates cable," said Tim Chang, a principal at Norwest Venture partners, who has been informally advising Wayans and has been looking at WayOutTV as a potential investment. Wayans has an opportunity to pull ahead because "Damon is used to these skit formats; his strength is in putting out content quickly."

In addition, many of the videos on sites such as YouTube are created by amateurs and aren't that amusing, Chang says. He said Wayans would act as a "filter" to make sure WayOutTV's videos pass muster.