DRIVE+

So general consensus is DRIVE+ will most likely go belly up; in that case, where would Harris go? Not many automotive review shows where he could immediately become the main presenter (which is why so many people loved DRIVE to begin with)

I would gladly see Hammond go...
 
So general consensus is DRIVE+ will most likely go belly up; in that case, where would Harris go? Not many automotive review shows where he could immediately become the main presenter (which is why so many people loved DRIVE to begin with)

General consensus based on what?
 
General consensus based on what?

The general public's opinion? Although I know nothing of their financial situation right now, I can't expect it to be good.

Just speculating on what would happen to the crew if the show was cancelled, really.
 
I doubt it's going completely dark any time soon. They probably have enough money to keep trying the subscription model at a loss for a while (read: at least a year). Furthermore, in the case they do not have enough paid subscriptions, I suspect they will save face and minimize operating cost instead of changing their revenue model again. According to facebook comments from them, they did get more paid subscriptions in the beginning than they estimated, so they do have some liquidity.

But in the unlikely scenario that /DRIVE were to disappear completely, I seriously doubt any of the crew would have to look very hard for a new job. With the success of Chris Harris, Matt Farah and Mike Musto videos, those three would absolutely get a another job on another show. Maybe on a new media channel like Motortrend, maybe on network TV. The production crew of /DRIVE is probably hired help these days so they would just swap projects.

/DRIVE has been more of a sideproject for most of the guys there. Chris Harris is mostly a columnist for newspapers, Matt Farah has SmokingTire, Mike Musto is apparently an instructor / organizer of some sort, Larry runs AMMO, Mike Spinelli is a hardcore journalist, J.F. Musial owns TangentVector and is a producer for advertising, etc. All the guys have something that would generate some personal income while they looked for a new sidejob / passion project. It actually seems like a pretty good lifestyle, as opposed to Youtube gamers for example, who usually have nothing except their gaming channel, and rely on existing long enough to be noticed by gaming-related companies (manufacturers, game publishers, content networks, etc).

So yeah, probably no reason to fear for the guys livelihoods. Chris Harris specifically can just start his own channel and it would instantly have tens if not hundreds of thousands of views.
 
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The general public's opinion? Although I know nothing of their financial situation right now, I can't expect it to be good.

Just speculating on what would happen to the crew if the show was cancelled, really.

The problem DRIVE+ has is that they are using their subscribers as test bunnies for the roll-out of pay-per-view youtube. The result of this is a combination of people who live in a country without access and complainers claiming that the montly fee is extortion (in reality it's a tiny fee) based on weak arguments that everything on youtube should be free. I reckon most big channels will still stay open even after pay-per-view is "stabilised". There will of course be some pay-per-view channels, but I think those will be heavy hitters who produce very high quality content. It's not like people will have to pay for every frickin channel they subscribe to.
 
i haven't subscribed to any channel

if a vid is worth watching, it'll appear here, no need for me to shift through all the junk...
 
BTW: Did anyone else notice that they promised a solution to all the international fans that could not subscribe to Drive+ due to regional restrictions by August 11th? And did anyone else noticed that its the 13th and they have been silent ever since? :mrgreen:
 
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So yeah, probably no reason to fear for the guys livelihoods. Chris Harris specifically can just start his own channel and it would instantly have tens if not hundreds of thousands of views.

Well, he does have his (private) own channel. And it has thousands of views. No doubt one with edited videos would go up crazy

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BTW: Did anyone else notice that they promised a solution to all the international fans that could not subscribe to Drive+ due to regional restrictions by August 11th? And did anyone else noticed that its the 13th and they have been silent ever since? :mrgreen:

I read in some comments that they're still working on it ... doubt they can overcome some of the national regulations toward paid streaming content like it is here. But still, I was wondering where the big international announcement went... nothing two days ago.
 
BTW: Did anyone else notice that they promised a solution to all the international fans that could not subscribe to Drive+ due to regional restrictions by August 11th? And did anyone else noticed that its the 13th and they have been silent ever since? :mrgreen:

"Silent" is being a bit unfair. They're keeping people posted literally every few hours. Also the Youtube comments are being read and they post responses there on a personal basis.

DRIVE
41 mins ?

Great meeting today. Took a big, happy step toward distributing content world wide. Still have to talk to some important people, but we're getting close.
 
Sure, they might need an actual vlog on Youtube for this debacle, but I don't think they've ever done one before, so this is par for the course for them.
 
I'm definitely not paying for subscription for a YouTube show. If there's a torrent for it then I'll watch it, but if not then oh well, there are other car shows.
 

Still no announcement.

The only thing I've seen from them so far - they replied to a guy asking when it's coming to Germany with "soon :)". Wow
 
They really shouldn't have started a subscription service this early with so little preparation or think that people in unsupported countries would be quiet about it.

The information flow from them has been shit.
 
Yeah of course it's nothing new. I was just wondering if they can at least keep their promise once.
 
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