DRIVE+

So, avanti, I assume you've paid for absolutely everything you've seen and heard in your life, or are you coming from the wonderful kingdom of Hypocreland?
 
So, avanti, I assume you've paid for absolutely everything you've seen and heard in your life, or are you coming from the wonderful kingdom of Hypocreland?

How are they suppose to magic up the cash to keep producing it? The big media companies are able to pull in enough through advertising because they have the clout to demand high premiums. The B.B.C. has the television tax as well as profits from selling to foreign media outlets.

Small independents don't have any of that. The choice is yours: either you want to support them by paying the subscription, or you don't like their content. Don't treat it as a moral issue, because it isn't.
 
Understanding the value of a dollar, and not throwing it away needlessly, hardly makes someone a cheapskate.
 
Here's my issue. It's $1 for ten minutes of footage. Most feature length movies are somewhere between $7 and $15 for a blue ray copy. As good as Chris Harris is to watch (and he is, the rest on drive kind of suck) I would probably watch a drive segment once, maybe twice. I don't honestly think I would watch one more than 3 times and that's from historical precedent. His F40 vs F50 video is one of my favorites, but I've still only watched it a couple times. A feature length film with a narrative and a cast of characters and a director with some vision and his articulation of that vision....now that I will pay for. But a 10 minute *clip* of a car sliding around? Nah, no thanks. I don't honestly think TV (in general) would have worked at it's genesis if you had to pay for the programming outright. When you buy specialty channels (HBO) you are getting an enormous amount of varied content. But not a dollar for a 10 minute clip, I'm sorry.

Edit: I also enjoy Xcar more than drive:

 
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I've subscribed to Drive+ for 1 month now and it's about $3.49/month for us here in Australia. The price is all right for me, since that's just 11 cents a day.

On one hand I think it's worth it, $3.49/month to support the team and especially Chris Harris, to produce great content. However, the way that the switch to Drive+ is handled, and the lack of content frequency bugs me. Not only that, they even have the cheek to just copy the Mike Musto GT40 & NSX video from the free Drive channel.

I want to support them for the content, the team, and the production quality. But I wish they could be used as a textbook case of how NOT to handle switching from free to paid subscription and viewership management.
 
How are they suppose to magic up the cash to keep producing it?

That is not the viewers' problem. They planned up a show that was too expensive for what the viewership turned out to be, and ads could not maintain it, so they're going to this paid version. Do you think this is gonna save the show? No. Most of the viewership will not pay for it, so it'll go down anyway, it's sad they took this route instead of trying to make it a better show they could get more views. Like Top Gear had to cut back on the number of episodes and are trying to focus on quality vs quantity (to varying degrees of success), they could have taken a similar route, creating less but better content, trying to get their viewership up.

I like their content. I don't like it enough to pay for it. There's a lot more to watch, for free, on YouTube.
Never said it was a moral issue, but you shouldn't call people cheap for not adhering to the idea.
 
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What are your thoughts on this? I for one will pay for the subscription in the near future simply because I love their work Chris Harris.

However, in this day and age, is this really a good idea? Looking at their recent ratings and general feedback on youtube, the venture (as expected) has been received poorly.

Now is this a short term setback and predicted to blow over after awhile? Or will their numbers not improve due to lack of subscriptions and decreased views?

What alternatives could they have considered before such a drastic move?
It does suck to have to pay but they are high quality productions. Maybe one day I'll feel like paying the subscription price but not yet
 
Avanti must be so disappointed! :lol:
 
Chris Harris specifically can just start his own channel and it would instantly have tens if not hundreds of thousands of views.

Let's see if the second part of my prediction works out.
 
Annnnnnnd there goes the viability of Drive. It was a nice experiment, but that show is not even worth watching without Harris.
 
Let's see if the second part of my prediction works out.

Oh it will, I'm sure about that.

Annnnnnnd there goes the viability of Drive. It was a nice experiment, but that show is not even worth watching without Harris.

Has to be said that things like Big Muscle and Tuned are cool aswell, but honestly, a huge part of the drive subscribers just watched for Chris.
Now since he has his own channel, subscribing to drive+ will be irrelevant for most people.
 
I hope for the longevity of his channel that he puts ads on the videos, otherwise I can't see it lasting long.
 
 
what is the blue car with the white stripe and nose? (looks like lipstick)
 
Bump.

So I finally unsubscribed. I was paying right from the start when they first introduced the paid subscription model.

Honestly the first few months of the paid model were crap. There was a severe lack of content. Once they started making these ~25 minutes episodes with 2-3 segments each I thought it was pretty good and it felt like I was getting my moneys worth.
However now they have made these episodes crappier, especially the last two episodes are horrible. Basically 20 minutes out of the total 25 minutes is just guy talking about engineering things. While I do enjoy the engineering part of motoring too, the way these segments just doesn't work. A guy talking and occasionally drawing (by the way in the last two episodes he didn't even draw anything) isn't really the most captivating way to pass on information and some of those guys are just plain boring to listen to. And to top it all of the 5 minute car segment is also mostly just the guy talking, not actually showing the cars.
 
Thanks for the inside look, Im glad I never caved in to pay for the subscription content. YouTube has far too much free quality motoring review shows (more than I have time to consume anyway).
 
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