
One of the more exciting developments we have seen in recent years on the Internet is self-publishing. This is an opportunity to distribute and promote entertainment in ways which was previously only possible for major distribution companies and national broadcasters. One of the fields exploring interesting alternative platforms is comedy. Here I will examine a few cases as examples of ways that comedy is benefitting from the advantages of self-publishing.
The rise of the Internet has coincided with a gradual shift of comedy into the mainstream, to the extent that stand-up comedy, once only seen in small pubs and clubs and occasionally on television, is now described by some as "the new rock 'n' roll". Stand-up comedians regularly fill large stadia and feature heavily across television schedules.
YouTube if you want to
The meteoric rise of YouTube has been central in popularising comedy videos, to the extent that the term "viral" is now used in reference to videos (usually comedy) gaining millions of viewers in a short space of time. Over the last couple of years Foster's have tapped into this phenomenon by reviving popular television comedy titles of the 90s. The first of these was a new series featuring Steve Coogan's character Alan Partridge called Mid Morning Matters. This comprised 12 weekly episodes of more than 10 minutes each; an entire 2 hours of new material presented entirely free for YouTube viewers.
This proved to be an incredibly popular project, with more than 4 million views in total. This has led to various broadcasters taking a new interest in Alan Partridge, with the BBC and Sky leading talks with Baby Cow (the production company who owns the rights to the show) in packaging these YouTube episodes into 30 minute episodes for television, with the possibility of a second series to follow. For a title not seen on our screens since 2002 this is a remarkable turn of events.
Since then Foster's have built on the success of Mid Morning Matters by producing new material from Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and 90s BBC sketch show The Fast Show. Vic & Bob's Afternoon Delights has so far posted 20 short episodes of new sketches and gained more than 1.5 million views at the time of writing. The Fast Show has so far posted 12 short episodes (totalling more than 1 hour of new sketches) which have received over 1.3 million views at the time of writing. Whilst perhaps not quite as successful as the Alan Partridge episodes, these revivals of popular 90s comedy shows are demonstrating there are new ways to produce comedy without the need for agreements with television networks. Foster's have also shown there are new ways to advertise and sponsor programmes through a very popular campaign which strengthens the link between their brand and quality comedy.
Stand-up and Deliver
Also exploring the possibilities of the Internet are a couple of stand-up comedians in the United States. Louis CK recently filmed a special live performance and made it available exclusively as a download directly from his own website at a cost of $5 per download. This was a financial risk as it cost him $250,000 to produce, but has proved to be a huge success, generating over $500,000 in its first week and soon afterwards bringing total revenue to over $1,000,000. He then announced that $280,000 of that would be donated to charity.
Another U.S. stand-up comedian, Jim Gaffigan has recently announced plans to follow Louis CK's lead by similarly producing his own special performance to go on sale exclusively as a download in April. To reduce the likelihood of piracy, Gaffigan has already declared that $1 out of every $5 download will be donated to charity, in the hope that this will appeal to the conscience of someone looking to illegally upload the file for others.
Fist Of Fun
Similar to the approach taken by these U.S. comedians is the case of British comedians Richard Herring and Stewart Lee, who have funded the release of 90s BBC comedy show Fist Of Fun with their own money. This involved buying the rights of the show from the BBC and financing their own production of DVD extras as well as the distribution on DVD through a website called Go Faster Stripe. This is a move which builds on the success of previous independently produced DVDs of stand-up shows through Go Faster Stripe.
The advantage of this move was for Lee and Herring to have the freedom to put out a premium version of a show which the BBC had no plans to release, packed with more extras than BBC DVD sets normally do. The obvious disadvantage was the financial risk to Lee and Herring, and Go Faster Stripe, who invested thousands of pounds of their own money in this project. I asked Richard Herring and Chris Evans from Go Faster Stripe about the process of self-publishing the Fist Of Fun DVD.
Interview with Richard Herring and Chris Evans (from Go Faster Stripe)

What were the risks of producing a Fist Of Fun DVD independently of the BBC?

RH: The risk was only that it would sell 0 copies and we'd all lose about £10,000. But I didn't think that was much of a risk. I was pretty sure we'd sell a couple of thousand of each series and break even. We've already done about double that for series 1. So the gamble seems to have paid off.

How helpful were the BBC in co-operating with the transfer of Fist Of Fun to you and Stewart Lee? Did they provide material for the DVD extras?




















So what can we learn from all this? Well, the number of potential avenues for comedians to get their work seen by fans is growing and evolving. The Internet is providing possibilities for comedians to self-publish their own stand-up shows by download and DVD, as well as revive older much loved television shows which deserve to be preserved and seen by fans old and new.
In the case of Fist Of Fun we are even seeing the comedians themselves stepping in and rescuing their own work from a broadcaster with no interest in releasing the show. It seems likely that we will see more performers doing this in the future.

A wealth of other material from Richard Herring is available at www.richardherring.com.
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