To go on a Podcast or appear on TV?
You can sometimes see, in comments under videos, the odd muppet questioning why do comedians do so many podcasts. Here are a few thoughts…
UK TV Audience?
First of all I looked into the Barb data to see if I could get some sense of the average TV watch time and, seeing as their model is collecting information from a sample of people and them multiplying it up….I can’t say that I agree with their “137 minutes of TV a day” conclusion (with a reach of 56m viewers). I sometimes don’t even turn my TV on for a couple of weeks…and I know a lot of my family/friends are the same. I think the TV industry is in WAY more trouble than that (I listen to The Rest is Entertaiment).
When you look at the biggest weekly UK TV shows they range from 3-8 million viewers and, having gone back through a few weeks, I couldn’t spot any chat shows at all – mainly soaps and the odd big drama series / Sat night show. The only show remotely comedic that’s listed is Have I Got New For You (and I’ve not watched that for years).
TV Chat shows?
Even if someone goes on a TV chat show they are probably going to be plonked on the end of a sofa, with 3-4 other guests, and get 5-10 minutes of air time. All froth and promo and no time to get into anything too deep.
If all you want to do is plug a book or new TV show, then that may suffice. But it means no one is really getting to know YOU.
And the other downside is that the show is likely to only be available within the country that you filmed it. Meaning marketing yourself or your product takes a lot of effort, flying around to record promo segments in each country.
Podcasts / YouTube
So, how about Podcasts? The information below is from a scoot around the biggest Jimmy Carr podcast appearances, as of 3rd June 2025. But this is ONLY from YouTube – so there will be more data to add in from Spotify, other audio outlets, clips on TikTok, X, Instagram and Facebook etc. etc.
Altogether, from 2021 to date, he’s appeared on about 70 episodes of various UK / US shows (including the below). The others don’t have such huge viewing figures, so have not been included (I’ve not got THAT much time on my hands).
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
Jimmy guested on Team Coco in April 2024 and it seems to broadcast through SiriusXm, Apple, Spotify and Amazon. Only 4 clips, totalling 39 minutes, were posted to YouTube.
1,718,413 views
Diary of a CEO
DOAC is a hugely successful podcast and is available through multiple outlets – including on the BBC iPlayer. Jimmy’s first appearance in 2021 (100 minutes) had racked up over 1.9m views and his 2nd (116 minutes) has surpassed 4.1m.
A further 6 official clips, totalling 52 minutes, add another 3.1m views.
But these 2 appearances have been wildly successful and various mindfulness type sites have posted clips extracted from them. The biggest ones that I looked at (and there were many more) comprise 8 Shorts, with 16.5m views.
Adding all of these together…
25,799,171 views
Jimmy’s Channel / Mike Birbiglia
Jimmy talked about a suicidal fan that had contacted him on Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out in Dec 2023. Uploading that short clip to his own channel has collected 7.2m views
7,274,128 views
Joe Rogan Experience
Jimmy appeared on Joe’s show in 2023 (168 minutes) which has had 885k views to date. His second appearance, May 2025 (190 minutes) has already had 1.59m views. The 2nd appearance has had two clips (total of 13 minutes) posted for another 419k (in the past 2 weeks).
Unofficial clips from the first show initially went wild – but have since been removed. The only 2 sizeable ones remaining are 2 shorts, totalling 969k.
Adding up these 6 videos…
3,865,742
Jordan B Peterson
Jimmy was on JBP’s podcast in March 2022 and it has over 1.1m views. The largest unofficial post has another 366k…meaning a total of:
1,545,486 views
Kill Tony
Less than 24 hours ago a new Kill Tony, starring Jimmy, was released – and it’s already had over 740k views (120 minutes). The 2018 show (70 minutes) racked up 143,673.
The 2017 appearance (110 minutes) and 2015 (120 minutes) were not released to YouTube, back then, but unofficial uploads are 155,840 and 68,702 respectively.
1,108,381 views
Modern Wisdom
Jimmy counts Chris Williamson as a friend and recorded a new episode a couple of weeks ago (not released yet). His October 2023 appearance was 163 minutes and has been viewed over 1.3m times. But Chris has also released 11 clips (totalling only 20 minutes) and they add another 1.5m.
2,883,568 views
YouTube Summary Numbers
- 45 videos
- Of those 13 are unofficial – 18,127,222
- 32 official videos/clips – 26,067,667
- Overall total – 44,194,889
In Conclusion…
You have to remember that these 44 million views are from only 10 episodes, covering around 21 hours of talk, and only on the ONE platform. That’s a rate of over 2.1m an hour – and yet there will be many more views on audio (and other platforms) and the viewing figures are going to keep on going up and up.
Unlike TV (which includes massive studios and crews) the overheads of producing podcasts are going to be WAY lower. Podcasts have gotten more professional recently (with more expensively kitted out studios and camera operators / video editors) but the studio / equipment most often belongs to the podcaster and, as a tool of their trade, is tax deductible and some of them are a “working from home” arrangement.
From the point of view of the podcast guest – what someone like Jimmy does is to have podcasts slotted into his tour itinerary.
He’s just done the first leg of his USA 2025 tour and he was out there a couple of days early so he could be in Yellow Springs and Texas to do a couple of podcasts and appear at Dave / Joe’s own clubs. This is good time management as having a couple of things a day lined up presumably gives him time to get over his jet lag before he falls into his routine of “2 gigs a night” followed by a 2 to 4 hour flight, to the next venue, the following day.
With UK based pods he’s either hopping on the tube – or sometimes dialling in over Zoom (e.g. Brydon&) . All of this is much better time management, especially when you consider that he’s producing content that has shown people that he’s got more in his locker than just dick jokes.
One final wrap up. Totals for the pods in descending order:
- 25,799,174 – Diary of a CEO
- 7,274,128 – Mike Birbiglia
- 3,865,742 – Joe Rogan Experience
- 2,883,568 – Modern Wisdom
- 1,718,413 – Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
- 1,545,486 – Jordan B Peterson
- 1,108,381 – Kill Tony
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