Seinfeld picking up where Louis C.K. left off

I’ve been writing a lot lately about how entertainers, particularly comedians, have been finding new ways to circumvent “the system” to get their content to their fans. Louis C.K. was one of the first to do this when he put a special on his website and allowed people to download it for $5. He’s continued to buck the system by selling tickets for his upcoming tour on his website for $45 each, completely bypassing Ticket Master.

Then Aziz Ansari did the same thing, putting one of his specials up on his website for a $5 download.

Now Seinfeld is in the mix and he’s taking a different direction. He has created a new “TV show”, or what we might have in the past called “webisodes”, where he rides around in a car with another comedian and then gets coffee. It’s appropriately called, “Comedians in cars getting coffee”. Instead of going through a network and producing a show, he wanted to do it on his terms and his way. Crackle.com agreed to his terms and he’s now off and running.

I saw the first episode with Larry David and it was pretty funny if you’re into comedians. I could listen to two comedians talk all day so for me this will be something I keep up with.

But the basic premise here is that we’re continuing to see talented entertainers bucking the current status quo. Everyone knows the TV networks are a broken and antiquated system. I still go back to over two years ago when I saw Mark Cuban debate Avner Ronen at SXSW about the future of TV. And Mark is still correct that we’re nowhere near Internet-based content overtaking the cable system…but we’re getting closer every day.

1 Comment

  1. Nick Ayres on July 20, 2012 at 7:01 am

    For all of Cuban’s craziness, he’s still one smart dude. And pretty perception. 

    Thanks for the Seinfeld tip, will be checking that out!



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