Seeso, Comedy Streaming Service, Will Shut Down Later This Year

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Seeso, NBC’s streaming comedy subscription service, is folding later this year. The service started in January 2016 as a niche alternative to Hulu, Amazon and Netflix, but struggled to maintain a steady subscriber base.

Seeso cost $3.99 a month and offered next-day streaming of NBC’s flagship programs, such as “Saturday Night Live” and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” The service also created original programming including “The UCB Show,” starring Amy Poehler; “HarmonQuest,” a show from the “Community” and “Rick and Morty” creator Dan Harmon; and “The Cyanide & Happiness Show,” an animated adaptation of the popular web comic.

But Evan Shapiro, who helped start the service as executive vice president of NBCUniversal Digital Enterprises, departed in May, and the service suffered a round of layoffs in June. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Seeso announced its closing and said that some of its original content would move to VRV, a separate streaming service.

The service’s newest series, “There’s … Johnny!,” which dramatizes the behind-the-scenes action of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” has been postponed from its scheduled debut this month.

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