ricky-gervais

Medialoper Bebop Episode 28: [REDACTED]

January 18, 2012 by Jim Connelly

Kirk, Tim & Jim have all seen Moneyball, so we figured we’d talk about both the film and the concept. (05:30 – 15:20)

After that, we look at the SOPA protests, including the one on this site. And explain why Lamar Smith, the author (or “author”) of SOPA, is exactly like Snooki. (15:22 – 20:55)

Then, we look at SPIN’s plan to tweet the vast majority of their record reviews. (20:56 – 32:53)

Finally, it’s Kirk’s turn to explain what is in his mix, which has been utterly transformed by iTunes Match: Elmore James, Sharon Jones and Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs. (32:54 – 40:53)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:59 — 68.7MB)

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Apple Launches Subscription Multi-Pass Video Service

March 8, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

Q. What do Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Ricky Gervais all have in common?

A. Consumers can now buy paid subscriptions to their latest programs through iTunes.

While Steve Jobs has resisted subscription pricing since the inception of iTunes, today’s launch of the Multi-Pass subscription video service is the first sign that Apple may be willing to tinker with it’s highly successful standardized pricing model. For $9.99 consumers can now buy 16 episodes of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. That’s only $3 more than you’ll pay for four episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show.

Strangely, Apple is claiming that Multi-Pass isn’t a subscription service. Apparently the fact that you happen to be paying in advance for a month’s worth of programming doesn’t make it a “subscription”.

Apple’s vice-president of iTunes, Eddy Cue, said MultiPass is not a subscription service, even though customers would pay for it on a monthly basis.
“This is something that you can always own as a download,” he said. That makes it different from other online music subscription services like Napster or Real Networks’ Rhapsody, where consumers lose their music if they unsubscribe.

Right, but I also won’t lose my back issues of the LA Times if I unsubscribe, and that’s still called a subscription.

Semantics aside, the new Multi-Pass service does seem to solve a potentially major problem that could plague iTunes as it expands the scope of it’s entertainment content. Standardized pricing just isn’t suited to certain types of programming. While consumers have shown a willingness to shell out $1.99 per episode of The Office, it seems less likely that they would be willing to pay the same for an episode of The Daily Show or The Colbert report, both of which run new episodes four days a week. As iTunes expands to include daily programming they need a different pricing model. The multi-pass seems to be the answer.

Apple iTunes in monthly deal with ComedyCentral

A History of the Ricky Gervais Show

March 7, 2006 by Jim Connelly

As these things go, I’m a relative latecomer to the podcasts of The Ricky Gervais Show: I only got ’round to listening to them a couple of weeks ago.Â Better still, I came into it totally cold, not knowing what to expect, and I was instantly hooked on the mad ramblings of Karl Pilkington.Â So much so, that as a matter of fact, I have no issues with paying for the podcasts of the second season.

It totally passes my Blackjack test:Â do I anticipate getting more pleasure out of this than playing a single hand of Blackjack?Â And in this case, the answer is a resounding “yes.” To be fair, Ricky was on Letterman last week, and explained that they are charging for this season to recoup the hosting and bandwidth costs for all of the downloads.

However, for those of you who don’t want to pay for your monkeynews, or you want to see to find out what the buzz is all about Â prior to Â paying — it looks like the Podcast Series Â 1 archive will also cost $5 to grab in one fell swoop — I’ve discovered a secret online stash of dozens of episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show.