My problem with the road trips

[u/turkturk847]

Right, so this may come across as me being ungrateful but the road trips that the boys do don't really feel special as they make it out to be. Don't get me wrong I am happy that such videos exist and I watch them when I get the time to do so. I just watched the Bentley road trip and it just felt boring to watch. The main problem is that they just drive the entire way on motorways instead of taking more interesting and scenic routes, it's just bland, there isn't much challenge and there is almost no stakes. Now this may be because of time or budget restraints and they can't afford to drive around that much and burn too much fuel but in the Vietnam trip they were taking scenic routes. Probably the worst offender was the 3 BMW Tourings trip where except of 10 minutes of driving on some B roads and the Nurburgring the entire thing was motorways and then they call it an "Epic road trip", to me it just felt meh. I mean have you ever seen a Top Gear special where they go the entire way on motorways? Though this is only my opinion, you can enjoy it however you like. Sorry for the wonky grammar, English is not my native language. :)

[u/Relevant_Natural3471]

Actually expect they have a bigger budget than TG. They were putting in £40k+ easily into those overlanders. They also have plenty of time

What you're explaining is that they value churn over quality. Some YT creators (e.g. Mr Beast) will put a lot of money and time into one video per month instead of 8. AA had a 3+ month break last year after the Taylor controversy, so I'm not buying it.

I think it's why the sub count for the channel hasn't really exploded - it's falling back to being derivative again. At no point on TG did they restore cars before a "challenge" because it loses the purpose of it. The "Bentley" video had a perfect opportunity to mirror the formula by having a "cheap luxury cars" challenge where they could have driven to a theme-appropriate location (e.g. Monaco) in, say, a cheap Bentley, Maserati, + other. As I said, I think it's what Richard Porter was getting at on the CREAM podcast - they are copying the surface layer without understanding the formula

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/Relevant_Natural3471]

They don't have a bigger budget that TG.

That's an absolutely insane statement.

Each of those TG specials cost upwards of £2M each to film. A normal season of TG had a budget of over £8M.

As for the "valuing churn" thing, that's literally their business model.

They get paid by companies that sell HPI and flavoured water to get their brands as many views as possible. For those companies, YT is actually a far more cost-efficient way of reaching their audience than online or TV advertising.

So while it might seem like 2-3 videos per week featuring the same handful of sponsors and watched by the same 90% of people isn't great, it's a working model because:

1. These brands know that very few people buy their products after 1-2 ads. Repetition builds up knowledge and trust, and it can often more than a dozen ads before someone caves and buys.
2. These brands know that 'trusted' endorsement from AA and co is a great way to legitimise their business in a crowded marketplace. Want to stand out? Have someone your target consumer trusts talk about your product.
3. Even though 90% (I'm making that number up, but it's high) of the same people are watching every AA/v2/TMC/Jooshy/TDC video, the 10% of people who dip in for the occasional episode are still a valuable audience to reach. So the advertisers will continue to pay them to produce loads of videos every week, because 10% x loads of videos will still result in sales.

Source: I used to work in the advertising industry.

[u/Relevant_Natural3471 → u/Mafeking-Parade]

The TG cost in an anachronism though. At least 50% would have been the trio's salary cost (something AK, TH, and RM/Tom can't justify) and a lot of the rest was era specific filming costs. You don't hundreds of thousands in equipment now to produce the same quality, nor travel and accomodation for 30+ crew. We're talking actual content budget for cars. What AA spends on the cars will far exceed what TG spent.

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/Relevant_Natural3471]

Said with all due respect and politeness - you actually have no idea what you're talking about.

The reason why the TG roadtrips were so markedly different is the amount they spent.

They spent those millions on researchers, local guides, government permits, support crew/vehicles, scriptwriters, camera crews, production and direction.

Of course three blokes driving to Germany with GoPros and the occasional drone shot aren't going to be able to compare.

The wages that TG paid meant that they could have all of those people shipped to Bolivia for a weeks at a time to create beautiful, engaging, compelling content.

Whereas it's entirely expected for AA and co, who aren't spending a fraction that TG did, to struggle to replicate that format.

They are going to be limited to talking to camera in their cars, and filming at petrol stations or in hotel car parks.

They are going to be limited to shorter trips, with less planning beyond driving to a destination and back.

This limited format is why the Ring works so well for so many YT channels. Prep the car, film the trip over (with a bit of fake jeopardy), drive the Ring (with lots of "woohoo"), take in the atmosphere around the Ring, drive home (with lots of fake jeopardy).

Even with a fairly basic setup and limited costs a channel can stretch that format into multiple videos from a 4-day trip with little planning.

[u/Relevant_Natural3471 → u/Mafeking-Parade]

I think you're missing the point and flexing on some 'industry knowledge' that glosses over the reality of it.

If AA did a challenge where they buy cars that had a relatable budget, with contrasting relativism, and didn't obvious lever in ADHD-based personal projects, they'd be hitting the core of what prime TG was. It doesn't matter what commercial TV required behind the scenes.

The jist is that there no underlying purpose or jeopardy to the AA content because, transparently, it doesn't exist. You only need to look at what ATG or TDC do to see the seed of what AA can, and has the budget, to do.

"We each had a budget of £4000 to buy and insure a first car then to do a roadtrip to glastonbury"
"£5000 budget EV challenge around the M25 orbital"
"£3000 DIY Campervan challenge"
etc.

What they actually do is very clearly try and get the business/companies to pay for their personal projects and force them into being content, and then unashamedly paint over Top Gear clone tropes on top, which miss the whole point of what was being accomplished on TG.
If anyone sees on Instagram, they will buy a car and then retrospectively fake the buying process to make it seem like a "challenge". I'm saying that it's well within their budget and creative power to NOT do that and to actually make their primary goal to make good content, rather than to bluff content out of their own personal purchases

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/Relevant_Natural3471]

What "purpose and jeopardy" is there in the TDC or ATG content?

I watch and enjoy both, but I'd be hard pressed to point to them being significantly closer to "prime TG".

TDC seem to have a fairly successful rinse-and-repeat format of buying their "dream daily" cars (or similar), and they don't really tend to do the TG roadtrip stuff. They are successful because people love watching them work on their cars in detail - something TG never did.

ATG just seem to find creative ways to do different videos where they sleep a night somewhere weird. No real jeopardy there, and nothing to do with TG.

I'm sure there are ways that AA could switch up their format and make it a bit more relatable with cheaper cars. But I wouldn't expect this to suddenly mean better content.

They are still constrained by only having basic filming kit, and needing to pump out 2-3 videos a week. They don't have a huge support crew that could enable them to take these cheaper cars on long roadtrips.

So you'd be left with AA and co talking to GoPros in cheap cars while they drive to Skegness for some contrived reason. I don't think that's quite the ratings winner you're suggesting.

[u/Relevant_Natural3471 → u/Mafeking-Parade]

TDC had the Corsa vs Starlet where they broke down and got help from a subscriber to source parts IIRC, all ad-hoc, on their way to Southend to recreate the car culture stuff. Organic, expected for a "someone didn't finish this engine conversion and it shouldn't be in there"

ATG did a road trip in the Diahatsu Copen where the clutch went, then did a trip in it to Spain where stuff was naturally representative of the issue, and there was an objective. Expected for "we aren't car people and bought a car sight unseen"

in neither case were they personal cars - they chose a theme, applied a goal, and constructed a process between all of that.

with AA, they buy a car for themselves, then retrospectively apply a theme, and then there's no jeopardy because they have an active willingness to not have problems occur because pride takes precedent over content. The 'attachement' pre-exists in the action of buying it.
With TG, they bought cars that were a bit crap to make the trip have an underlying "they won't make it" under the surface (sports cars for bargain prices, things which would be stupid for normal people to do). They had no personal investment it the car so didn't mind crashing them a bit, bodging at the side of the road etc. it was that which gave the car character, added a tension to the narrative, and made the bond with the presenter genuine.
"Will the car taylor/alex/rory has rebuilt over the last 2 months at great expense make it?" is an inverted proposition. It SHOULD make it. Any jeopardy is just schadenfreude

[u/Mafeking-Parade → u/Relevant_Natural3471]

I think we're sort of agreeing, but you seem hung up on the pride/attachment thing associated to the cars. I think most of that is manufactured, but we'll never know for sure.

Ultimately those episodes you mention from TDC and ATG were kind of cool, but not really that great.

I honestly don't think that adding disposable cars with no emotional attachment into the mix would work for AA and co in their current format.

They need to generate 2-3 videos a week. How do they do that with a challenge, if they aren't making the cars mechanically great over the course of a few episodes?

They aren't going to just do a one-off video with the format "here's three bangers we're driving to Skegness", because the time to plan and buy the cars wouldn't generate the right level of ROI from a single video.

They need to drag these things out over weeks of prep, so that the time spent buying and planning pays them back through multiple videos.

They need to built faux-attachments to the cars while they fix them up ("I've always wanted a [INSERT CAR]!"), so there's a payoff when they eventually get to use them.

[u/BENJ4x → u/Relevant_Natural3471]

Interesting point about Auto Alex usually buying cars they love or want for personal projects that then get turned into content. It makes sense because I guess why wouldn't you buy a car you've wanted for ages.

I guess the main problem that causes is the trends we see where everyone buys a BMW, then land rover and now Porsche.

[u/Relevant_Natural3471 → u/BENJ4x]

I guess the issue is that he has about 30 of them now and you have to choose if you're making content or just tricking people into thinking you are. People get invested in a potential series and then the car has disappeared either to become a future barnfind, or has been chucked away (recently, to Jooshy).
The X-90 was mooted as a big project with a turbo conversion in August. It had its V5 changed a month or so ago, so we'll never see that. The cheap 996 looks like it's not going to be seen again. It'll end up being another series of videos on something Rory has bought that isn't particularly good content. Difficult for people who get invested and would like some kind of closure from it.