Rishi Budhrani brings his comedy content to social with IGTV series

Comedian, host and actor, Rishi Budhrani has often been featured in brand work with the likes of STB, SIA and Uber here in Asia. Now, Budhrani has taken to the world of social media, rolling out a new IGTV series called ‘The Rishi Report’ where he discusses current affairs and world events injected with humour (obviously).

Budhrani describes ‘The Rishi Report’ as a show where a comedian tries to sound smart by talking about the news. 

Speaking to Marketing exclusively on his new show, Budhrani said that he has always been a fan of keeping up-to-date with world news, while using humour as a mechanism to digest the information. This marriage of news and humour came to fruition when he first started stand-up comedy as a career back in 2011.  

“I never had the time, or maybe more so the guts to do this on my own. But, things changed last year when I went on a digital detox and got a chance to actually think about the projects I really want to get off the ground, and this was one of them,” he added. Given ‘The Rishi Report’ is still at an infancy stage, most of the marketing and promos are done through Budhrani’s personal social media channels. According to Budhrani, the team is exploring audience reactions to the series and letting it grow organically.  “Once we're more certain about what exactly we are putting out there, perhaps we will get a bit more pointed with our promotions on various media,” he explained. 

Currently, the team has planned for 20 episodes, and no advertisers, but Budhrani said there are plans to shoot ads as “commercial breaks” within the show. 

Meanwhile, the first episode was released a week ago, and has since garnered 580 views for the first part, and over 1,000 views for the second part of the same episode. The latest episodes were around PM Lee’s recent appearance to address tightening of COVID-19 measures, as well as the white horse on the loose. (If you are unsure of the white horse on the loose, we got you. A majestic white horse was galloping the roads on Sunday afternoon, and was caught on camera by several netizens. The white horse has reportedly safely returned to its owner.) According to Budhrani, content wise, the series will not include slapstick and silly humour but rather “intelligent, current, and a bit silly” content. 

No stranger to working with brands, just recently, Budhrani fronted a content series by Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and Singapore Airlines (SIA), as part of a global marketing campaign. The three-part travel content series titled "Unexpected Journeys" saw Budhrani travel to three towns bearing the unusual names Dull, Boring and Bland in the UK, Australia and the US respectively. He then invites and hosts individuals from these towns to travel to Singapore.