Comedy Central Hires Advertising Vet Steve Elliott

Comedy Central has named Steve Elliott as vice president of branded entertainment development.

The newly created position will have Elliott helping to produce long and short-form branded content for advertising partnerships. He will also work on making branded episodic, one-off specials, short form and social content for Comedy Central’s social pages. He will be based in New York and will report to Jim Sharp, exec vice president of original programming, and Chris Ficarra, senior vice president of integrated marketing.

“With his eclectic background in advertising, marketing, writing and production, we’re counting on Steve to develop branded content that achieves the same creative heights as our ‘regular’ content,” said Kent Alterman, president of original content, joking that “This quote is sponsored by a major lifestyle brand.”

Elliot previously served as creative director at production companies Hungry Man, Pilot and Triple Double. His credits also include relaunching “Brain Food Daily,” a news/comedy web series for Participant Media.

This news follows the late-August hire of Baratunde Thurston to lead production of original content for “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” and further solidifies the cabler’s focused approach to digital.

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