Albrecht + IMG + Factory = ?

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on October 2nd, 2007

No one is sure yet. Chris Albrecht, erstwhile head of HBO, has resurfaced in Cleveland. (With the internet, one doesn’t necessarily have to be based in Hollywood or New York! With the internet, Albrecht doesn’t necessarily have to be based in Cleveland, come to think of it!)

He has ascended to the position of president of the media group at IMG, a “Cleveland-based agency best known for its core competencies in sports and fashion.”

According to a Hollywood Reporter story, IMG “has a deal with Jamie Masada’s Laugh Factory that has turned his famed comedy club into a dot-com destination for stand-up programming.” This was news to us. Then we hit the Factory website, which is in the beta stage right now.

The article said further that “IMG also has more than 500 hours of high-definition stand-up material, the largest such library in the world.” The vast bulk of it no doubt taped at the Factories in NY and LA and acquired through the abovementioned deal.

The last line: “Nobody has figured out how to make comedy an international, multiplatform business. Albrecht may be just the guy to do it.” He’s got Jamie Masada, IMG and a $250 million private-equity fund for acquisitions and investments to work with. In the new digital frontier, that’s quite a head start.

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