Which comedians were selling the most DVDs in the UK in 2007?

On November 5^th 2007 Jimmy had released his 3^rd DVD, Comedian, see here. Apparently 77% of annual comedy DVD sales are in Q4 (Oct to Dec). Which should come as a surprise to no one…

According to the official charts this release was at #5 in the Stand-up chart (on New Year’s Eve).

Hope the below makes sense…turned myself inside out trying to figure out which information was most accurate.

Official Charts (UK)

Official Charts website has the Comedian DVD chart data – here.

Their data for all DVDs (not just comedy) says:

• This title charted between 17^th November 2007 and January 12^th 2008
• Top 100 – 9 weeks
• Top 75 – 8 weeks
• Top 40 – 6 weeks
• Highest position was #30 on December 29^th

Slight confused by the strapline they have (at the top of this DVD’s entry) as it says Weeks: 7 (and then show 9 weeks in the Top 100). I think it’s 9.

Stand-Up DVD Charts

Chortle published a story on December 31^st 2007 and they reported that Billy Connolly was #1 on the stand-up chart and #12 on overall DVD sales.

They mention that the Peter Kay release was a compilation of clips from earlier DVDs. Amazon has a live update chart (here) of their most popular stand-up DVD releases and Peter has a lot of releases on there (which could go some way to explain why he puts very little content out on social platforms – his fan demographic likes a DVD).

Chortle listed the best-selling (end of year chart) stand-up DVDs as:

1. Billy Connolly: Was It Something I Said
2. Alan Carr: Tooth Fairy Live
3. Peter Kay: Stand-up Ukay
4. Ricky Gervais: Fame
5. Jimmy Carr: Comedian
6. Russell Brand: Doing Life, Live
7. Al Murray: The Pub Landlord Live At The London Palladium

Chortle then published a 2^nd story (also December 31^st) that changed the ordering slightly and pointed out that post-Christmas sales meant many of these had been reduced to £6.99.

1. Alan Carr: Tooth Fairy
2. Billy Connolly: Was It Something I Said
3. Ricky Gervais: Fame
4. Peter Kay: Stand Up Ukay
5. Russell Brand: Doing Life
6. Jimmy Carr: Comedian

Which doesn’t quite align 100% with the Official Charts listing (here) which, if I pick out the above from the “all DVDs” list, comes out with the list below for Dec 23-29 (number in brackets is overall chart position)

1. Billy Connolly: Was It Something I Said (#9)
2. Alan Carr: Tooth Fairy Live (#13)
3. Peter Kay: Stand-up Ukay (#15)
4. Ricky Gervais: Fame (#19)
5. Russell Brand: Doing Life (#27)
6. Jimmy Carr: Comedian (#30)
7. Al Murray: The Pub Landlord Live At The London Palladium (#33)
8. Roy “Chubby” Brown: The Good The Bad (#42)

December 30^th to 5^th January (here):

1. Alan Carr: Tooth Fairy Live (#12)
2. Billy Connolly: Was It Something I Said (#13)
3. Ricky Gervais: Fame (#18)
4. Peter Kay: Stand-up Ukay (#22)
5. Russell Brand: Doing Life (#33)
6. Jimmy Carr: Comedian (#38)
7. Al Murray: The Pub Landlord Live At The London Palladium (#48)
8. Roy “Chubby” Brown: The Good The Bad (#54)

Pick the bones out of that lot…all you need to know is that these were the best-selling comedians of 2007.

Notice how articles tend to ignore Roy “Chubby” Brown?

And, for anyone that may notice that the names tagged on the bottom of this post don’t include all of the names in the text…to try and keep the Tags to a manageable level they reflect (1) people that Jimmy came up with, on the circuit or (2) works with a lot today (Katherine Ryan, Rob Beckett, Judi Love) or (3) the people he has said he was influenced by / admires (Connolly, Emo, Chappelle etc.) or (4) personal friends. Basically, the people that I have judged to be integral to “the Jimmy Carr story” perspective.

Amazon

Amazon’s 2007 list (here) has a bunch of numbers missing from the middle but the site Bestseller (here) shows the full Amazon Top 100 (DVDs and Blu Ray).

There is one small anomaly (Borat is #21 on Amazon and #22 on Bestseller) so I’ll use the more complete listing on Bestseller.

• Sacha Baron Cohen at #22 with Borat: Cultural Learnings of America…
• Ricky Gervais at #32 with Ricky Gervais Live 3 – Fame
• Jimmy Carr at #67 with Jimmy Carr: Comedian
• Billy Connolly at #69 with Billy Connolly: Live – Was It Something I Said…
• Alan Carr at #77 with Tooth Fairy Live

These numbers differ to the official charts, above, because Amazon, of course, were not the only retailers selling DVDs as, back in 2007, people were still buying physical media from places like HMV or even Woolworths (which was still open, but in decline).

Other DVD 2007 Sales Trivia

Chortle reported that the Borat mockumentary had a worldwide gross of $157,470,996.

Guinness World Records declared that the best-selling TV Comedy Series was the Little Britain DVD, with 645,675 units. As this “only” generated revenue of £2,769,985 this would be about £4 per DVD – which doesn’t seem to align with details in the tabloid analysis, below.

The Tabloid Angle, 2015

The Official Chart Company (UK) mentioned above have live charts for all kinds of media (DVD weekly chart is here). In 2015 The Daily Mail wrote a rather nasty toned piece about how Brit comedians had “raked in millions” from comedy DVDs, in the previous decade. The stats they quote:

• Between 2005 and 2015 DVD sales were 13 million and 39 different live comedy shows have been in the UK Top 30. Note they say “live comedy shows” and don’t say how many comedians they are referring to.
• Average cost, per DVD, was £15
• The comedian gets between 7% and 15% of the sale price
• 10-year DVD sales revenue was £195 million

Unfortunately, their “math don’t math” as they say.

The article states that our top comedians (they list a few names but are vague about exactly who they mean) “shared a collective pot of £30 million across 10 years” and declares that to be £3 million each.

But it then goes on to say that Lee Evans pocketed £9 million of it…

Someone buy them a calculator.

That article didn’t mention Jimmy as his last DVD was in 2013 and I suspect his absence from the 2015 chart is why they didn’t include his name (even though he had DVD releases between 2005-13). Spotting the demise of this medium he had already moved to Netflix in 2015

My initial thoughts were

• 7% – 15% is quite a low percentage. They have to pay tax on that so, depending on the tax laws that year, probably handed over 40% of that to HMRC
• £15 was the AVERAGE and DVD sales were always a gamble as sales can be tricky to predict and then the bargain bin beckons…
• Back in 2007 this was the only outlet for delivering a tour memento to fans – and no one forced us to buy them

Overall, the article was written with the usual trigger words repeated, to get readers into a froth about these comedians earning too much (see the comments under the article).

At the end of the day these people slogged around the club circuit for years before they achieved success and they deserve to be paid for their day at work, the same as anyone else.

Anyone complaining that a comedian “isn’t funny” yada yada should (1) not buy or watch their output then and (2) if it’s THAT easy…try it yourself. I know that I couldn’t do it.