It's a show... about nothing!

In April 2009 I posted the first episode of Carpool on YouTube. Earlier that year I had posted a few episodes on iTunes which is where the majority of the downloads/views took place. Since then I've made over 100 episodes with a total combined download count of 7.6 million.
Hopefully I will make some more later this year.
A few weeks ago my tweet stream turned into a torrent as people asked me if I'd seen news of Jerry Seinfeld's new series 'Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.'
 I checked it out and while the stuff in the car is clearly exactly the same idea, shot in an almost identical way, it's hard to suggest it's a rip-off. For a start half the show takes place in a coffee bar or cafe, shot with a professional crew, it's clearly got a big budget and features very well known faces from the world of comedy. Assuming it's a rip-off would mean that Mr Seinfeld or his associates had seen Carpool and thought, 'Hey! We could do that!'

It's just that Jerry has a lot of cars, he likes driving, he's a comedian, new cameras allow you to shoot in a car, he knows lots of comedians, he's making a show. 'Hey, that's a great idea Jerry!'
It's fine, what am I going to do about it? What can I do about it? Nothing except make some new episodes of carpool and get a lot more hits because of what Jerry is doing. This has already happened, Carpool's existing episodes have all had a remarkable upward swing in views and downloads over the last couple of weeks, there hasn't been a new one posted for 18 months

That's the best way to look at it. It's a win win.

Carpool summer hols

I think the video explains it all, but just in case I will try and cover all the areas I may have forgotten.

Carpool will be back, probably late September but don't hold me to that.

The new series will still be available on the same feeds on iTunes and YouTube, but it will hopefully look a little bit better, it won't have any sound synch problems on YouTube, and there will be audio only versions available.

I'm always happy to receive suggestions of who you'd like to see on the show.

I've got some cracking passengers already lined up and a lot more in the pipeline. 

Hope you keep watching when it comes back in the autumn.

Tim Minchin Carpool

Carpool on the web

It’s not surprising there is some confusion about Carpool, where it is, when it’s on, if it’s on, what it’s on, even why it’s on.

This is partly due to the way it came about, and partly because of the complex relationship between traditional broadcasting (what I called proper telly) and internet distribution. We are all using nascent technologies which are evolving and changing all the time, keeping track of one podcast is not that easy.

Unless you use iTunes of course then it’s very easy, but there are clearly a lot of people who don’t like using it and that’s fair enough.

Back in January 2009 I started putting them out exclusively on iTunes because I use that system, I understood it and the thinking was it was a premier media distribution tool. 

More importantly, there was no time restriction, the podcast could be as long as you wanted.

Unlike YouTube which at the time had a 10 minute limit. If you had a directors account (which I now do) no such restrictions applied and I wanted carpool to be longer than 10 minutes.

So iTunes it was and it worked. After 18 months the series had been downloaded close to 3 million times. I had managed to post a weekly episode for 18 months entirely on my own, believe me, that took some work. I loved it but it was exhausting keeping the flow going.

In early 2010 I got a directors account on YouTube and started putting them up there too. I now wish I had been able to do that from the start as I now put big hefty HD versions of the show on YouTube and more people are slowly finding it and using that.

Then in the summer of 2010 we started to record the TV versions for Dave, I knew I couldn’t keep up the regular weekly releases so I had to let it stop.

The most important lesson I have learned about online media is making sure you have a new show every week. It makes a huge difference. The word spreads quickly, people subscribe to the feed either through iTunes or an RSS feed and the numbers of downloads each week constantly increases. 

Now my plan is to mix and match, some full length episodes from the Dave series, some newly recorded episodes, or ‘old school’ carpool.

New shows are released every Friday.

Here are some of the people coming up, not in any order

Tim Minchin

Jeremy Hardy

Craig Charles

Bob Burnquist (skate board champion, amazing bloke)

Jo Brand

Kevin McCloud  (the Grand Designs man)

Jason Byrne

Shappi Korsandi

Tim Vine

Doon Mackican

Jim Jefferies

Here are the ways you can see carpool online.

iTunes.    http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/robert-llewellyns-carpool/id302529378  

YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/user/carpoolUK

plus of course my site which has all the links for the above anyway. 

www.llewtube.com

 The iTunes version

The YouTube Version

Carpool on Dave, part 2

The new series of Carpool on Dave in the UK starts again this week.

The shows are being broadcast at 8:30pm, so a bit earlier than before Christmas. The running order is as follows.

WED   5^H JAN -   Jason Byrne/ Jo Brand                 

WED 12^TH JAN -   David Baddiel / Tim Minchin           

WED 19^TH JAN -   Phil Jupitus / Toby Williams           

WED 26^TH JAN -  Tim Vine / Doon Mackichan           

WED 2^ND FEB -   Jim Jefferies / Richard Herring