It’s interesting to see that Russell Brand has a new CD/download out called The Russell Brand Radio Show – The Best Of What’s Legal. It’s available as a set of three CDs (plus bonus DVD!), or as a download from places like iTunes.
At first glance the question you might ask is what on earth the BBC is doing putting out this as a CD? But it’s nothing to do with the BBC of course. As we all now know, the radio show was produced by his own production company, Vanity Projects, from May 2008. I assume that part of that deal was that the rights to the audio reverted to his company after the BBC’s usage had expired – largely the 7 day iPlayer window.
So Brand is free to monetise his radio show accordingly.
But has he done it right? Judging from the extracts on iTunes, it’s basically some new linking material surrounding previously heard clips from the radio show. That’s nothing more than prospective purchasers would expect of course. But paying £15.99 or more for audio that you got free previously is a bit much.
It’s basically three hours, and even Ricky Gervais doesn’t charge as much as that. The reviews at iTunes are worth a read. It’s clear that fans know that the full podcasts are saved up in other areas.
Now if he started releasing weekly podcasts at £1.89 he might do well. That said, even Ricky Gervais sells a CD set of his podcasts at a similar price for 3 CDs.