MTVN Entertainment Group announces the launch of Atom.com, a digital comedy network that distributes original programming across the Internet, handheld devices, gaming platforms, mobile phones, television and other gadgets still to be invented. Atom.com offers a cornucopia of professionally produced comedy and provides indie and UGC creators with a clear path to "go pro" themselves -- earning infamy, money and a direct path to exposure and future development opportunities on the Web, television and beyond.

With the launch, Atom.com becomes COMEDY CENTRAL's exclusive partner and anchor brand for original digital comedy content, developing new properties for multiplatform distribution, building an online community of creators and viewers, and producing a half-hour TV series, "Atom TV," that debuted on COMEDY CENTRAL this week.

Original Digital Comedy Programming

Atom.com's programming lineup features daily new releases of original comedy including animation, live-action narrative, topical videos, sketch comedies and spoofs. The site also offers a library of thousands of comedy productions previously developed by, licensed by and uploaded to AtomFilms and COMEDY CENTRAL.

At launch, Atom.com is premiering four new Web series including:

• "Border Patrol," produced by Josh Greenbaum, Ben McMillan and comedy legend Ivan Reitman ("Old School," "Ghostbusters"), centers on three slacker friends who spend their weekends in lawn chairs at the Mexican border determined to stop illegal immigration. Demonstrating Atom's direct pipeline to COMEDY CENTRAL, "Border Patrol" is the first Atom Original to sign a Webisode-to-episode on-air development deal with the network.
• "Steven & Stephen," from "Adult Swim" stars Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim ("Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!"), about two groin-conjoined, Internet-obsessed twins.
• "Stickman Exodus," from Waverly Films, in which stick figures, doodled into existence by a bored high-school student, search for the "promised page" in the kid's notebook.
• "Benny, Escaped Convict," co-created by television writer Ryan Levin ("Scrubs") and award-winning animator Nye Warburton, chronicles the exploits of a foulmouthed rodent on the lam.

Atom.com is also in production on dozens more original properties that will debut in coming months, including: "My Best Friend Is My Penis," starring Jon Togo ("CSI Miami"); topical pop culture videos from a stable of creators including Blame Society Productions ("Chad Vader"); the gaming parody "Legend of Neil" and the urban legend comedy series "Never Do This."

Atom.com -- Where Funny Videos Go Pro

The new Atom.com Web site will replace both AtomFilms.com (a 2008 Webby Award finalist) and AtomUploads.com, bringing professionally produced titles and amateur comedy content together on one site. Visitors will find an entirely new Website design and thousands of videos, animations and Flash games. Each title is classified in one of two states: "Pro Videos" (developed or licensed by Atom) and "User Videos" (content uploaded to Atom). To provide a direct path for User Videos to go Pro, Atom has expanded its "Upload Showdown" competition. Each week, the audience watches and votes on top new User Videos, determining which should join the ranks of Atom's Pro Videos, earning not only site promotion but a distribution and licensing contract offer with additional royalty payments via Atom's revenue sharing program and carriage across Atom's distribution channels including "Atom TV" on COMEDY CENTRAL.

The site's other new features include a streamlined UGC upload system, social networking profiles and content-sharing features powered by MTVN's Flux network, higher-quality video streaming and a Creator's Kit featuring dozens of royalty-free music beds, including contributions from "Juno" composer Matt Messina.

A Next-Gen Advertising Model

The COMEDY CENTRAL alliance and a suite of new features will allow the MTVN Entertainment Group to offer Atom.com as a unique value proposition to advertisers and sponsors. The new Atom features diverse video advertising opportunities including non-interruptive overlay ads, deeply branded UGC competitions, and multiplatform buys that extend across Atom.com, Atom TV and beyond.

Leveraging its capabilities and relationships in original content development, Atom will also offer end-to-end branded-entertainment programs for advertisers that want to be part of the entertainment experience itself. For example, "Agency," currently in development, offers sponsors product integration central to the storyline, chronicling the efforts of a fictitious small-town ad agency as they fumble their way to build an actual advertising campaign for a real client.

Atom on Every Screen

The digital comedy network based at Atom.com extends far beyond the Web site, reaching almost every screen that plays video. On television, "Atom TV" (TV-MA) features top Atom titles (including "Upload Showdown" winners) on COMEDY CENTRAL every Monday night at 2:00 a.m. Atom content also appears periodically on Spike TV and Logo. On mobile phones, Atom has prominent channels on Verizon Wireless' V CAST as well as AT&T's CV and AllTel. Via the Internet, Atom is featured on iTunes, AOL, AT&T, Bebo, Dailymotion, Veoh, xBox Live and many more leading web destinations. All of these partnerships not only give consumers easy access to Atom content, but drive additional exposure and revenue for creators in Atom's revenue sharing program.