Bristol comedian Russell Howard has played down reports that he had quit TV after opening up about his health, and explained how the entertainment industry was changing drastically.
The ‘Good News’ host hit the headlines after talking on his own podcast about his future and how he had ‘had a pretty good run’ on TV over the past 19 years.
But speaking on Radio X’s Chris Moyles breakfast show, the former UWE student explained that it was merely a reflection of the way the comedy industry had changed ‘so dramatically’.
This week, Howard did a stand up show in front of a sell-out live audience at the London Palladium, which was also being screened on his own website to fans around the world who had paid $10 for access, along with various Q&A sessions for different time zones globally. That kind of direct access between a comedian and their fans – without going through TV executives, programming and channels – is the future, the comedian said, in a world where comedians doing stand up specials on Netflix or other channels is now something of a saturated market.
“I love doing stand-up and I love doing my podcast,” he said. “They are quite punk, in a way, because if you have an idea you don’t have to sit around and wait for executives to green light it, and I’ve got this very simple premise – like a reverse Room 101 – where guests come on and talk about brilliant things, things they adore.
“When you’re talking about things you love, you give a deeper chat. Everything’s changed so dramatically in stand-up. So I did a couple of Netflix specials, and now you kind of get lost a bit unless you’ve got an eight-part series. Whereas now you can just do it from your own website, and have your own thing, put it out on the internet. That’s the way of the world,” he said.
He played down the idea that he had ‘quit TV’, saying it was not what he meant. “It’s what happens if you talk on a podcast and articles turn it into clickbait. I basically just said I really enjoy doing stand-up on my podcast,” he explained.
“This country’s pretty strange. We had an election and we didn’t have any topical comedy shows on TV – you really just don’t have them anymore. I don’t really want to do TV for the sake of it, and I’d rather do stand-up – that’s all I said – and suddenly it was ‘Howard quits!’ It was bizarre.
“I was in New York at the time, and my wife said ‘what’s going on?’ and there were all these articles,” he joked.