Gervais First To Take Podcasts Subscription-Only

Ricky Gervais is to create another podcasting first, building on the success of his record-breaking run on GuardianUnlimited, launching the world’s first paid-for podcast through online audiobook seller, audible.com.

The new podcast, retaining the Ricky Gervais Show title, will be available from 28 February, just eight days after the final episode was made available through the Guardian’s website.

A charge of £4.50 will be levied for the first four episodes of the new run of programmes, with each episode lasting half an hour.

Gervais has previously made light of charging for podcast content in the show itself, although the last episode in the Guardian-hosted series sees the comedian announce the change, blaming sidekick Karl Pilkington for the new costs to listeners.

“Next week we’re going to try to continue this for a little while, but we will have to charge a fee because it costs us money to host, and Karl is unemployed,” Gervais explained, “but we do mean a tiny little fee… Karl needs your money.”

When asked how much he expected listeners to pay for the new podcast, Pilkington added: “Just something more than nothing!”

The show has seen massive listener numbers since its launch earlier in the year, with the Guinness Book of Records recently admitting the three-man team into its pages under the heading “most downloaded radio show,” with an average 261,670 downloads a week during its first month.

Last month saw Gervais begin to exploit the power of his podcast, signing Channel 4 as the first advertiser to use space within the audio download. Promoting its Friday night comedy shows, the broadcaster described the placement as “extremely valuable” in reaching a mainstream comedy-focused audience (see NewsLine).

It is not yet known whether Gervais’ new podcast series will carry advertising or not.

Ricky Gervais: www.rickygervais.com