Sylvain Parent-Bédard, CEO of ComediHa!, on June 26. Parent-Bédard’s entertainment agency, ComediHa!, is helping to keep the Just for Laughs name alive under their banner.Evan Buhler/The Globe and Mail
Canada has a new king of comedy, and his name is Sylvain Parent-Bédard. The 50-something with the spiky hair and big smile controls Quebec City-based entertainment group ComediHa!, which bought several big-pillar assets from bankrupt comedy company Just For Laughs in early June. The purchase includes its namesake brand and its French-language equivalent, Juste pour rire, as well as Zoofest, ComedyPro, the hidden-camera series Gags and its entire audiovisual catalogue.
A born entrepreneur with a passion for hockey (he was invited to the Boston Bruins training camp when he was younger), Mr. Parent-Bédard studied administration and law before finding his calling in marketing and events. Known mostly for putting on French-language comedy festivals in Quebec (his company also bought the rights to make a Quebec adaptation of the TV hit Brooklyn Nine-Nine), he’s now the owner of one of the most powerful entertainment brands on the planet. In addition to hosting the world’s premier English-language comedy festival, attracting comics such as Chris Rock, Jon Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld, Just For Laughs (JFL) also puts on live shows and festivals in other cities and produces TV shows and stand-up specials. (At last count, its Gags series was seen in 135 countries and on 95 airlines.)
Mr. Parent-Bédard wants to recapture the magic, starting with the ComediHa! salue Montréal festival, which opens July 18. Billed as the “first step” toward the full revival of JFL, it’ll feature comedians Dane Cook and Bobby Slayton. Still, there’s nothing funny about the challenge that lies ahead. Here’s what Mr. Parent-Bédard – who insisted on speaking English – has to say.
Sylvain Parent-Bédard, CEO of ComediHa!, and Ariane Thibault, executive producer of ComediHa! and Just for Laughs, are excited for this summer’s comedy festival season in Montreal on June 26.Evan Buhler/The Globe and Mail
What’s the thinking behind this purchase?
I always had a lot of admiration for Juste pour rire and Just For Laughs – what they have done to make Montreal the hub of comedy [1] and bring that all over the world. They opened a lot of paths in France, Switzerland, Belgium, U.S.A., U.K., Australia. And that was a kind of model for me that I tried to replicate with ComediHa! [2] I did well in the French community. But in the world of comedy, the English side has great value and great stars. When Just For Laughs had their problems in 2017, 2018, we wanted to buy it, [3] but this was impossible because the former owners didn’t want us to. … It was a big surprise for us when we learned about the bankruptcy in March. It was a sad story because I think that when a great brand goes wrong in comedy, this is not good for the industry. But it became an opportunity that we had to grab. It’s going to help us to go forward, faster.
What’s the bigger picture here? Why do you think we’re seeing this consolidation?
We are owners only since June 7. So we have a really short-term plan, which was to put on the festival. Then we would like to bring back touring with great stars. And the mid-term and long-term plan is to bring back Just For Laughs and Juste pour rire as they were before the pandemic. It has to be a hub for the industry, where we can be a great launch platform for new faces [4] and also a hub to do great television shows with great stars from all over the world. [5]
What’s the future for the JFL and ComediHa! brands? Do you think they’ll separate?
I think the JFL brand is a great one [6] and the greatest one for stand-up comedians. So at the moment, we really think that next year we’re going to come back in Montreal with the Just For Laughs and Just pour rire brands as a festival. As for ComediHa!, we need to think about it. At the moment, the position – and this might change – would be that stand-up shows in English and French run under Juste pour rire and Just For Laughs. When we do musicals, theatre, television, scripted shows – those would be under ComediaHa! We bought those assets not to file them away in a drawer. We bought them to bring them back as they used to be. And we believe that all the industry – agencies, agents, artists all over the world – although it is only since a few weeks, they all believe in it.
How much did you pay for the assets?
There was different prices that we put on those different assets, but it was between $20-million and $25-million. [7]
And what does your revenue look like now?
The whole group of ComediHa! should be around $75-million to $80-million this year. And we aim to reach, in the next three years, around $120-million. This is why we’re taking our time. A lot of people want us to be in a hurry, but we are not. We want to take time to make a plan – a great plan – analyze everything, make good choices.
The whole bankruptcy process took about six weeks, right? Normally, this kind of thing lasts well over a year. Can you give us a sense of the intensity of the negotiations?
It has been difficult. Usually it’s due diligence for six months to a year. You meet everybody, all the employees. This has been a kind of dark process – it was tough to see things clearly. I think that at a high level, the problem of the former company was not a revenue problem but maybe more of an expenses problem. So it has been very difficult, very demanding, a high level of risk. [8]
Why do you think the former owners [9] couldn’t make things work? And what makes you think that you will be able to make it work?
I don’t know for sure, because I wasn’t there. And it was a special context with the pandemic and postpandemic. I’m not there to judge what the former owners and management team did, but for sure, it wasn’t a good recipe. And we won’t do the same recipe. For 25 years now, our values and our culture have been very important at ComediHa! We have a high level of risk tolerance, and we are entrepreneurs. It’s a family business, but I am the owner. I am the one who gets control on everything. I assume my decisions. But we are agile. It’s easy to make decisions. It’s not a corporate company any more. [10] We meet on a Monday morning at 9. And at 9:30, if I’ve got all the information, the decision is made. We don’t have to go through a big high level of direction committees and board meetings. So this is going to help.
Is the fragile math underpinning the arts in Canada broken? Organizations have come out the other side of COVID-19 with ballooning costs, dwindling audiences and more shaky funding sources than ever. What’s your take?
Even before the pandemic, the media were under pressure with a lot of problems coming from the big tech giants. There is a flight of advertising revenue out of Canada. And those tech platforms don’t really invest in Canadian content. Same thing for the private money coming from sponsorships since the pandemic. We had some tours in Quebec and in Canada that were sponsored by big sponsors with hundreds of thousands of dollars, almost millions of dollars. And we had to cancel them one time, two times, three times, four times. So the sponsors have lost a bit of confidence in what’s happening in live-show tours and live events like comedy and music festivals. Even also in the theatre. So yes, we are facing big challenges. But I believe that we are going to be able to adapt. And we really need the government to play some role, to believe in our culture – Canadian culture, French-Canadian culture, English-Canadian culture. We need them to support us, because the revenue has melted. [11]
How do you think this is going to shape up over the next several years?
The world has changed. [12] We have to manage, to plan our budget, our tours and our marketing in a different way. But I do think that although the behaviour of the consumer has changed, there is a kind of balancing of it over the years. At the moment, it’s strange, but people are coming back a little bit to the traditional television broadcasters. And I think it’s going to be the same with live shows – that the people are going to come back. I hope. I hope.
[1] The JFL/JPR festival is considered one of Montreal’s top three live event pillars (along with the F1 Grand Prix and the Jazz Festival). Total estimated GDP impact: $34-million a year.
[2] ComediHa! lays claim to a billion YouTube views, 3,500 shows, more than 750,000 annual spectators and 1,000 TV episodes.
[3] JFL founder and sole shareholder Gilbert Rozon sold the company after facing allegations of sexual misconduct. He was subsequently charged and found not guilty.
[4] Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Amy Schumer and countless others all got their start at Just For Laughs.
[5] There’s a key rival in TV/video, though: Netflix, which has its own festival and video content.
[6] JFL’s red-horned mascot is known as Victor. His catchphrase: “Mommy, it’s over!”
[7] The last time JFL was sold, the price was an estimated $65-million, according to the Montreal Gazette.
[8] “There are 6,000 documents in the data room related to the sale that we have to go through. And we haven’t been through all of it.”
[9] Former owners were talent agency ICM Partners, Bell Media and the Molson family’s Groupe CH.
[10] ComediHa!’s current owners are Groupe Lapointe-Parent-Bédard et associés, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, FICC (Sodec) and Quebecor.
[11] Top-line is down 30 per cent from prepandemic levels, he says.
[12] Audiences have changed, too. ComediHa! shows used to sell out in a few weeks. Now, it’s not unusual for shows to be only half-full just a day or two ahead of a performance. By show time, capacity is typically at 80 per cent. Still, “80 is not 100. And when you are 24 hours away from the show, it’s a high level of risk.”