Ricky!
ByRicky Gervais has decided to start charging for his podcast. According to Journalism.co.uk:
From 28 February users can download the four episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show series two for £3.75 from Audible or from the iTunes store. Individual shows are 95p each and the whole first series is £2.75.
I was a big fan of The Office but I wasn’t impressed with the Ricky Gervais Show. Now I’m even more disappointed.
I can understand why Gervais would want to make money off of the show. But imagine if you had to pay to read Boing Boing or to watch Rocketboom. Blogging, podcasting and vlogging are new media forms that thrive when content is free. And Rocketboom and Boing Boing have managed to make a profit without charging readers or viewers. Advertising has proven to be the key.
Pay-per-download seems like a very old fashioned way of using new media. In the past couple of months I’ve seen the Ricky Gervais Show discussed all over the Web, especially on US weblogs like this one. By putting up a paywall Gervais is cutting off a swathe of listeners, many of them from the valuable US audience that he could have cashed in on further down the road.
As it is, current commentary on the pay decision ranges from this (from a polite American):
You can thank these three English blokes for spoiling what was until now a podcast-world free of capitalism…Speaking as a fan of the first twelve free episodes that just concluded, this, quite frankly, blows.
To this (from a Brit in New York):
One of the great achievements trumpeted about Gervais’ show has been his entry into the Guinness Book of Records for the most downloaded podcast. (Not the greatest of feats for such an infant media form.) It’s safe to say that those download figures are about to take a steep nosedive. It will be interesting to see how many listeners he loses.
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Harry’s Place serves up more Galloway entertainment. Interviewed in the Algerian El Khabar newspaper, he had this to say about the cartoon row:
5 Comments
February 28th, 2006 at 9:14 am
This Gervais complaining is all nonsense. It’s not free for him to produce it, it’s certainly not free to host a podcast downloaded five million times and regular listeners will know that Karl’s not got a job, so why should he take all that abuse for free. All this talk if ‘podcasts are supposed to be free’ is daft as well. They’re not ‘supposed’ to be anything, they’re what people can make of them. So Gervais charges for his podcast – maybe it’ll fail, maybe it won’t, but he’s not breaking any sacred laws.
Two other things. Firstly, he’s not ‘sold out’. Gervais has turned down more lucrative, shitty jobs than most famous people and he doesn’t do advertising as far as I can tell. So he’s not some great philanthropist either, although we did get those first twelve for free, and heaven only knows how much the bandwith cost him (and/or the Guardian).
Secondly, the only bits of the podcasts I didn’t like were the annoying adverts for Channel 4. If paying for the podcast means I don’t have to listen to any ads (more intrusive in audio than in any other media) then so be it. It’s a model that works pretty well for HBO afterall (which Gervais’s show ‘Extras’ is on).
Also, Galloway’s a scumbag.
February 28th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Nick, my point isn’t that all podcasts should be free. My point is that Gervais’ free podcast raised his profile exponentially in the US. To turn away from that in favor of a pay model so soon seems a little rash. We’ll see.
February 28th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
I’m trying to rationalize why Gervais is charging $1.95 a show.
This is the future of free speech.
1) He’s taking a gamble.
2) It’s not all that much considering songs cost 99 cents – for 3 minutes! This is 1/5th the price of a song.
3) It’s really funny (esp. Karl).
4) He’s got nothing to lose, already a star with a big following. He may as well lead the way.
5) $2 isn’t worth much anymore, doesn’t even buy you a greasy hamburger.
6) 95 pence is a token price, but it doesn’t translate well into dollars.
7) Corporations may be shut out if popular blogs can grow independently.
March 1st, 2006 at 7:28 am
PD, I have to agree with you and the Brit in NYC that you quote (perhaps that’s you too).
I personally loved The Office, but of late I’m more and more losing my interest in said RG. In fact, I thought the US Office was (unexpectedly) a lot funnier, and whenever I now see or hear RG (on Jonathan Ross’s Christmas, Best of Moyles and of course his podcast), I’m not at all that infatuated anymore.
I haven’t even listend to every episode and certainly won’t now.
Could it be the wunderkind is losing it?
March 1st, 2006 at 11:34 am
Paul – that’s a fair point, but not really the point the fellow who said ‘what a wanker’ was trying to get across, I think.