Chris Harris on Cars is getting it's own youtube channel!

Chris Harris on Cars is getting it's own youtube channel!

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Discussion

405dogvan

5,326 posts

264 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
I like what Drive does - I like what Chris does - I never through they overlapped enough to share much outside of the odd co-feature (like the Monaco thing - which, if we're honest, didn't work!?)

CH does have a slight habit of bridge-burning but motoring journalism is a small industry which tends to mean that happens a lot anyway and putting 'video' in-front of that takes it to extremes!

It must be hard to do anything without someone getting upset you're treading on their toes - I do wonder how much a 'free' Youtube channel can nett someone tho. Youtube earns fortunes for angsty/floppy-haired idiots and the odd video game reviewer but making cars slide around is maybe a bit niche?

I said this in the CH farewell thread tho - I believe there IS a market for a co-ordinated team of video reviewers, diarists, car project people and other motoring video makers to get together a make some very interesting videos and other content under a banner of shared income and all that jazz...

Ollywood

173 posts

140 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
405dogvan said:
I like what Drive does - I like what Chris does - I never through they overlapped enough to share much outside of the odd co-feature (like the Monaco thing - which, if we're honest, didn't work!?)

CH does have a slight habit of bridge-burning but motoring journalism is a small industry which tends to mean that happens a lot anyway and putting 'video' in-front of that takes it to extremes!

It must be hard to do anything without someone getting upset you're treading on their toes - I do wonder how much a 'free' Youtube channel can nett someone tho. Youtube earns fortunes for angsty/floppy-haired idiots and the odd video game reviewer but making cars slide around is maybe a bit niche?

I said this in the CH farewell thread tho - I believe there IS a market for a co-ordinated team of video reviewers, diarists, car project people and other motoring video makers to get together a make some very interesting videos and other content under a banner of shared income and all that jazz...
From that Reddit thread and the way the peeps involved it feels like Drive is really run like collective. No real CEO in charge to keep them in line and have a clear message. From what Matt Farah rant is seems like it was CH who wanted the pay wall and no one else.

And from other postings around it seems like drive has found a home with NBC with season 2 being in production. So Mr Farah will have to get use to talking to suits (which he seems to have a dislike) and it's going to become a traditional TV commission with a you tube channel. And so the model stays intact and like you were saying free for the self shooters out there.

Chicane-UK

3,861 posts

184 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
Ollywood said:
Seems like Matt Farah wasn't too pleased with CH leaving drive.

http://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/2j3giy/chris...

And some mud is being slung.
Wow. He seems genuinely pretty pissed off.

jon-

16,496 posts

215 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
In case it gets deleted

MF said:
what bothers me most about it (in fact, the only thing that really bothers me about it), is that Chris will come off smelling like roses for leaving drive and going on his own, "just leave those losers, you're better than that, etc," echoing the comments in this very thread, leaving the blame for SVOD with JF, or with greedy presenters, or whatever, whereas the truth is Chris was very, very strongly responsible for the switch to SVOD, and really was pushing that just 3 months ago, and to push so hard for that, and then to just ditch it, unannounced like he did, is such a stty thing to do as a person, as a professional, and as a friend, that it bothers me that no one will realize just how selfish, and ego-driven this move represents for him.
Looking forward to hearing the other side of the story.

Edited by jon- on Wednesday 15th October 11:53

Ollywood

173 posts

140 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
There is more on the latest smoking tire podcast. Sounds like CH has been burning bridges!

405dogvan

5,326 posts

264 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
jon- said:
In case it gets deleted

MF said:
what bothers me most about it (in fact, the only thing that really bothers me about it), is that Chris will come off smelling like roses for leaving drive and going on his own, "just leave those losers, you're better than that, etc," echoing the comments in this very thread, leaving the blame for SVOD with JF, or with greedy presenters, or whatever, whereas the truth is Chris was very, very strongly responsible for the switch to SVOD, and really was pushing that just 3 months ago, and to push so hard for that, and then to just ditch it, unannounced like he did, is such a stty thing to do as a person, as a professional, and as a friend, that it bothers me that no one will realize just how selfish, and ego-driven this move represents for him.
Looking forward to hearing the other side of the story.

Edited by jon- on Wednesday 15th October 11:53
Bit disappointed in Mr Farah there - that just comes over as a bit childish - I can understand he's pissed-off about what happened but projecting that to assuming people won't take his side isn't very grown-up.

I know we're on the Internet but we don't have to make everything a black-and-white situation.

405dogvan

5,326 posts

264 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
Ollywood said:
From that Reddit thread and the way the peeps involved it feels like Drive is really run like collective. No real CEO in charge to keep them in line
I believe J.F. (Musial?) is/was the man who said what could and could not happen - there are Harris and other videos where they refer to doing stuff he told them explicitly not to do etc.etc.

OdramaSwimLaden

1,971 posts

168 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
jon- said:
In case it gets deleted

MF said:
what bothers me most about it (in fact, the only thing that really bothers me about it), is that Chris will come off smelling like roses for leaving drive and going on his own, "just leave those losers, you're better than that, etc," echoing the comments in this very thread, leaving the blame for SVOD with JF, or with greedy presenters, or whatever, whereas the truth is Chris was very, very strongly responsible for the switch to SVOD, and really was pushing that just 3 months ago, and to push so hard for that, and then to just ditch it, unannounced like he did, is such a stty thing to do as a person, as a professional, and as a friend, that it bothers me that no one will realize just how selfish, and ego-driven this move represents for him.
Looking forward to hearing the other side of the story.

Edited by jon- on Wednesday 15th October 11:53
Hopefully it'll be ignored and not turn into a circular firing squad; people move on, get over it MF.

FWIW CH, I like your videos despite comparing the Drive videos to someone who chooses to use the M6 toll road instead of thee free M6 at 2am in the morning.....

Best off luck.

Ollywood

173 posts

140 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
405dogvan said:
I believe J.F. (Musial?) is/was the man who said what could and could not happen - there are Harris and other videos where they refer to doing stuff he told them explicitly not to do etc.etc.
From the smoking tire podcast it sounds like CH didn't inform anyone about his decision to leave drive. Which is why Matt Farah had meltdown on Reddit and on the smoking tire podcast he gives a more measured summary. Also it does sound like JF does not have complete control over the running of Drive. On twitter it says CEO and President of Tangent Vector which did some of the video productions but not all. And he is an executive producer of drive.

In the smoking tire podcast it does sound like CH had a big say on the running of drive…

ajprice

27,317 posts

195 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
From watching their videos, I thought it was Mike Spinelli, Leo Parente and JF Musial in charge, with Chris Harris, Matt Farah, Mike Musto etc on the content side.

Ved

3,825 posts

174 months

Wednesday 15th October 2014
quotequote all
The fault is on their management to not lock in their contributors to a contract so this can't happen. It may not be a graceful way to leave but if there's nothing stopping someone leaving (a sinking ship) then there is little to cry about in reality.

daveco

4,122 posts

206 months

Thursday 16th October 2014
quotequote all
Put simply, Harris was a cut above the rest and it showed in the production on his videos.

Farah complaining about him leaving and the money spent on his videos is ridiculous. Every single one of Farah's videos runs the same generic 'camera on the bonnet' and 'camera in the cabin' perspective, and he drives the cars on public roads mostly.

He also responds quite vitriolically to some responses to his videos as well. All that being said he's still the best of the DRIVE bunch.

robertpaulson

44 posts

145 months

Tuesday 21st October 2014
quotequote all
dufflecoat said:
No one has yet worked out how to effectively gather revenue from this medium, I hope Chris cracks it.

If he cant, then broadcast journalism looks to an uncertain future where amateurs with go pro's publish an unfathomable amount of durge. We will have to wade through hours and hours of opinionated but uneducated morons to see some half decent content. Idiocracy could be a reality.

Chris, dont f&*k up the future of the humanity. OK?!
Pretty sure there will be an inexhaustible supply of folks willing to film themselves ragging supercars about for free, some of them will eventually make passible content that the market (viewers) will end up focusing on.

Given the state of legislation around motoring adverts these days, youtube vids of powerslides must be one of the primary means of getting decent content out there (plus a damn sight cheaper than a professional standard advert which is just skipped by everyone anyway), so it can't be that hard to get the manufacturers to drop you the keys and tyres if you have enough viewers on something like youtube.

Think you are spot on though, there is no way to effectively monetize journalism in the internet age, thought the terminal decline of print publications had already proved this? Quite the conundrum and probably why there is a 25 page thread on how harris can afford to run an FF when barely anyone involved in any sort of hobby journalism earns more than 25k


petej

225 posts

206 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
quotequote all
So... Chris's new YouTube channel launching tomorrow still?

Patrick Bateman

12,143 posts

173 months

Tuesday 11th November 2014
quotequote all
He says next week now on his twitter.

405dogvan

5,326 posts

264 months

Wednesday 12th November 2014
quotequote all
Been watching some of Harry's videos - which are great, but the viewer figures aren't going to be paying anyone's wages (or even buying someone a fish supper, frankly)

No idea if it's his plan to make money or just make good content - but Chris has to hope his rep. means people will pay to see stuff 'earlier' and then release it 'free' in cut-down form or later-on perhaps (combining ad revenue with subs income)

rob.e

2,861 posts

277 months

Wednesday 12th November 2014
quotequote all
i have to echo the comments above. i subscribed to DRIVE+ purely because CH was on there. Not much else on there is worth paying for (and in fact a lot of better content is free anyway) so i too will be cancelling my subs.

petrolicious and roadkill are excellent and free.

willisit

2,141 posts

230 months

Wednesday 12th November 2014
quotequote all
Perhaps CH's Goodwood job is paying for the YT stuff now?

PGM

2,168 posts

248 months

Wednesday 12th November 2014
quotequote all
Bobby Shaftoe said:
405dogvan said:
but the viewer figures aren't going to be paying anyone's wages (or even buying someone a fish supper, frankly)
Aye, perhaps we've got to a point where hardcore car telly isn't really commercially viable anymore, having been displaced by the likes of Truckers on Ice, Lizard lick towing and the fat mockney shouty fella.

There's some great car stuff on youtube like Roadkill, /Big Muscle on drive & Harry's garage, but collectively they seem to have less views than a single episode of that high pitched piewdiepie tosspot screaching into a webcam. Sad times!
I know we're on PH where wages are high but as I said above you'd be surprised, look at this list below and most of it's total toilet too:

The Highest Earning Youtube Stars:

(estimated annual earnings)

  1. 41: TimothyDeLaGhetto – $1 million (578 million total video views)
  2. 40: SHAYTARDS – $1 million (1.01 billion views)
  3. 39: Shane Dawson – $1 million (1.1 billion views)
  4. 38: TheRadBrad – $1 million (1.03b views)
  5. 37: ElRubiusOMG – $1.1 million (917m views)
  6. 36: Vsauce – $1.2 million (656 million views)
  7. 35: EvanTubeHD – $1.3 million (766 million views)
  8. 34: PrankvsPrank – $1.3 million (788m views)
  9. 33: EpicMealTime – $1.3 million (721m views)
  10. 32: FPSRussia – $1.3 million (600m views)
  11. 31: MichellePhan – $1.3 million (985m views)
  12. 30: TheDiamondMinecart – $1.4 million (1.01b views)
  13. 29: Potemi926 – $1.6 million (655m views)
  14. 28: Vegetta777 – $1.6 million (1.1b views)
  15. 27: WhiteBoy7thst – $1.7 million (609m views)
  16. 26: TheLonelyIsland – $1.7 million (1.4 billion views)
  17. 25: Sxephil – $1.7 million (1.27b views)
  18. 24: FreddieW – $1.8 million (1 billion views)
  19. 23: SpeedyW03 – $2 million (943m views)
  20. 22: TheBajanCanadian – $2 million (817m views)
  21. 21: HolaSoyGerman – $2 million (1.3b views)
  22. 20: TheWillyRex – $2 million (838m views)
  23. 19: Tobuscus – $2 million (1.02b views)
  24. 18: TheFineBros – $2.2 million (1.9b views)
  25. 17: AdamThomasMoran – $2.2 million (703m views)
  26. 16: SkyDoesMinecraft – $2.3 million (2.1b views)
  27. 15: BoyceAvenue – $2.3 million (1.4b views)
  28. 14: Nigahiga – $2.3 million (1.8b views)
  29. 13: ERB – $2.4 million (1.1b views)
  30. 12: CaptainSparklez – $3.2 million (1.5b views)
  31. 11: CollegeHumor – $3.3 million (2.7b views)
  32. 10: RealAnnoyingOrange – $3.4 million (2.1b views)
  33. 9: UberHaxorNova – $3.5 million (1.3b views)
  34. 8: RayWilliamJohnson – $4 million (2.7b views)
  35. 7: TobyGames – $4.2 million (1.7b views)
  36. 6: JennaMarbles – $4.3 million (1.5b views)
  37. 5: BluCollection – $4.8 million (1.78b views)
  38. 4: DisneyCollectorBR – $5 million (2.6b views)
  39. 3: Smosh – $5.7 million (3.4b views)
  40. 2: BlueXephos – $6.7 million (2.4b views)
  41. 1: Pewdiepie – $7 million (5.4b views)

Soupie69uk

922 posts

216 months

Wednesday 12th November 2014
quotequote all
And he is going to write for Jalopnik.

Mike Spin is the editor/founder I think so nice to see him leaving Drive was not taken personally.