My Damn Channel has appointed Eric Mortensen, who was previously Blip’s senior director of content and network programming, as its director of programming and acquisitions, a new role. ”We’re investing in the team and the infrastructure to make the My Damn Channel Comedy Network the first choice for fans and the right choice for talent,” said founder and CEO Rob Barnett in a statement.

In 2012, My Damn Channel launched a live daily comedy show on YouTube. The company says it saw a 91 percent increase in total video views across all its sites in 2012 compared to the previous year.

My Damn Channel’s search for more original content comes at a time when other companies are looking for the same thing. Amazon Studios recently announced its first six comedy pilots, including offerings from The Onion and “Doonesbury” author Garry Trudeau. And Yahoo launched its first original comedies last March. Barnett told me he’s “encouraged” to see other companies “beginning to fund great original content and we are working with some of them.” My Damn Channel Comedy Network stands out, he says, because it is aimed at creators “looking for a network partner who specializes in comedy series.”

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The show is going to be hosted by Beth Hoyt, and feature interviews with Hollywood stars and YouTube celebrities alike. Viewers will also get to see the premiere of videos from the 30 or so original web series that My Damn Channel is currently working on, and there will be some tie-in of comments from YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. “It’s the spawn, the love child of television meets the Internet,” explained Barnett, again only half joking, during a phone call Tuesday.

My Damn Channel Live, as the show is going to be called, is part of YouTube’s new original channel line-up, and it’s a big deal for the video site: Comedy and entertainment formats have worked really well on YouTube, but it hasn’t quite cracked the code of successful live programming yet – which is one reason why the average YouTube viewer only spends 15 minutes a day on the site, and not hours as in front of the TV.

Barnett’s show, which is going to be broadcasted live every weekday at 1pm PT, will be 60 minutes long. Viewers will be able to catch up on archived episodes immediately afterwards, and My Damn Channel will also serve up sliced up clips for consumers who are still more attuned to watching short clips online. But the show isn’t just a big bet for YouTube; it’s also a huge deal for My Damn Channel, which will roll out a new website design just for the occasion. Barnett went as far as to call it “an entire relaunch of this company.”

When asked why the time is ripe for a format like this, Barnett credited two factors: Advertisers are increasingly willing to dole out big bucks for online video, and the audience is starting to raise their expectations beyond watching short viral videos. “The days of uploading a video, pushing out a couple of tweets and hoping that the video will go viral have largely ended,” he told me.

But despite all the lessons My Damn Channel has learned from the traditional TV world – Barnett calls it “stealing from HBO and Showtime” – viewers can still expect the show to look different from network comedy. “We started with the philosphy that you always could do more with less,” said Barnett, adding that this gives My Damn Channel “a punk-rock feel that just doesn’t exist in a three-letter media company.”

Update: A spokesperson for My Damn Channel sent us the following clarification: “The show will not be 60 minutes each day. Wednesday episodes will be 30 minutes, and Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday will be 10 minutes. Total of 70 minutes per week of live video.”

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But the good times, they keep on rolling for the site. I caught up with CEO Rob Barnett after a presentation at the New York Television Festival last Friday (but before the subsequent party). On stage, Barnett not only discussed cord-cutting and the freedom granted by the Internet to create one’s own material with Harry Shearer, but also announced some new additions to the My Damn Channel team, including Status Kill creator Jesse Cowell.

In the below video, Barnett goes into detail about what adding Cowell means for the SITE, describes what’s kept My Damn Channel sustainable over the years and calls out industry naysayers as being “cynical.” He also mentions what piece of technology he believes may be a game-changer — not just for My Damn Channel, but for the entire online video industry. Hint: It rhymes with “oogle.”

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“We focus on controlling costs and earning real revenues from repeat customers. We work with the best partners to offer the most powerful monetization force ever created: great content,” CEO Rob Barnett said in the announcement.

That $4.4 million will go towards adding additional sales and business development personnel, including a new VP of Business Development and a Director of Advertising and Branded Entertainment. This will increase the total size of MDC’s staff to, in Barnett’s words via email, “Something insanely huge like TEN people! We never wanted to overdo it before we knew we could make this work. It’s working. We’re growing. Amen.”

MDC’s slate of content has created a reputation that draws in high-level talent. As Easy to Assemble creator Illeana Douglas, who launched the second season of her IKEA-sponsored series on the site, said in a Q&A last October:

Rob Barnett, the president, takes it very all personally, and he cares about the artists and we get to have ownership. A lot of places don’t allow you to retain ownership, which is really unfair, because when you do these web shows it’s obviously a bit of a sacrifice financially. Plus, they had all my favorite people: Harry Shearer, Wainy Days and You Suck at Photoshop were actually my favorite shows on the web.

This announcement coincides with the site’s third anniversary, as well as the launch of a new slate of shows, which includes promotional shorts for the Paramount content Dinner for Schmucks, a yet-to-be-premiered series by former Colbert Report staffer Mark Malkoff, and original web content to support the Adult Swim launch of Childrens’ Hospital. In addition, Easy to Assemble returns this fall with even more celebrity appearances (including Patricia Heaton and Fred Willard) and plenty of Swedish accents.

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