Problem: Currently, laugh tracks (and clap tracks and honk tracks) are pre-recorded. When listening to talks, sometimes you can tell that these tracks are prerecorded as well. Could AI help create more diverse tracks?
Solution: This business would create auto-generated and AI-generated laugh, clap, honk, and more tracks for use by television networks and television shows. Charley Douglass is known as the “father of laugh tracks” (feel free to peek at that history here: Laugh track). Charley was working at CBS when he came up with the idea.
Douglass copped the technique for CBS and began amping up or tamping down laughter recordings according to the effect he wanted, rather than relying on audiences’ natural reactions. Soon he was on a mission, building a machine full of taped laugh tracks (according to historians, recorded mainly during dialogue-free sequences in variety a programme, The Red Skelton Show) that would evolve to become the industry standard after Douglass’s laugh-track debut in 1950 on The Hank McCune Show.
The idea of ‘the laugh track’ spread quickly through the new medium—and caused immediate controversy that would last until modern times. Actor and producer David Niven sniffed in a 1955 interview, "The laugh track is the single greatest affront to public intelligence I know of, and it will never be foisted on any audience of a show I have some say about."
You can read more about this innovation and controversy here (Canned Laughter Conspiracy – The Red & Black (pmhsredandblack.com)) or here (The Long, Strange History of the Laugh Track (treehugger.com)). However, what I find most interesting about it is that fake laughter can actually make jokes and content funnier. As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, “Jokes followed by forced or canned laughter averaged a 10 percent score boost and those with a burst of more spontaneous sounding laughter saw a 15 to 20 percent spike. The research appears in the journal Current Biology.” I’m sure the same effects would be replicated for honk tracks and/or clap tracks.
Globally, “The Global Video Editing Software Market size is expected to reach $1.1 billion by 2025, rising at a market growth of 4.4% CAGR during the forecast period (yahoo.com).” This gives a large area and runway for growth for innovative products and businesses in this industry.
I think a good way to end this article is with a quote from the BBC:
In Chuck Palahniuk’s 2002 novel Lullaby, he writes, “Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950s. These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead.” That’s profound, but probably not true, since TV audio engineers have been updating their reels continuously. There were times when canned laughter was so predictable, anyone in the business could predict which laugh would come next on any given show. But now it seems that the laugh track itself that may soon rest in peace.
Monetization: Selling these niche and unique laugh tracks through licensing.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)