Top Gear podcast (unofficial) - where did it go..?

Published by neil on May 18th, 2007

There has been a growing buzz around this for a few weeks now. It even made it to No. 4 in the UK iTunes podcast chart - and without releasing a proper episode; little more than a ‘coming soon’. But now, it’s disappeared - completely.

The podcast website (http://lazyorange.net/topgear/) and podcast RSS return 404 errors (not found), and searching on iTunes returns no result. Even the root website of the guys who were creating this comes back with a blank page. Search on Google and you’ll still come up with various directory entries and listings, but nothing leads to an actual podcast, website, or, well, anything at all on the actual show. How did I spot this? Well, this was a very interesting and immediate partnership for BTPodShow in the UK. No-one at the podcast’s production team has been available for comment as yet regarding the show’s disappearance - and we’re not officially talking about it either.

I must admit, I am not surprised it happened. They used the official Top Gear branding and managed to crank up a lot of buzz through word of mouth so became very visible - goes to show how popular a Top Gear podcast might become. Speculation easily leads to the assumption that the BBC shut them down. If they used the official BBC branding, then likely they would use the theme tune too - Oh dear, that’s a sure recipe for falling foul of copyright.

With the right handling, however, unnoficial podcasts around BBC programming can be very successful. DWO WHOCAST is a case in point. Entirely independent, does not use any actual BBC branding, visuals, or makes any direct and deliberate association to the programme. It’s obvious what the show is about, of course, but it manages to toe just the right side of keeping in with the BBC brand police. They do it so well, in fact, that they actually get cooperation from the Doctor Who team themselves.

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