[matthewh806]

So, how do you explain Ricky Gervais' ongoing presence in TV, standup & social media where he routinely says objectively worse stuff than ever appeared in the Office with no real damage done to his career?

His recent standup work has far more objectionable content in it than the Office ever did

[teddyh]

I would guess that a TV series must be approved by more people than an individual’s standup routine.

[dylan604]

A standup is the producer/director/writer/actor for the program. An sitcom/romcom has multiple producers/directors/writers/actors involved, so there is a much broader level of editorial. The producers deciding what directors/writers to hire is in and of itself editorial control. The writers agreeing what jokes to use is editorial control. Even the actors will get their say while on set with lines like "i just don't feel this is what my character would say", then you get rewrites onset.

TL;DR: of course a standup's routine is much less scrutanized than any other type of content by the nature of it.