Dan Ilic turns to crowd-funding to turn A Rational Fear into a satirical comedy hub
Dan Ilic is turning to crowd-funding to transform his ABC Radio National show A Rational Fear into a digital comedy hub.
Ilic, and the rest of the team behind A Rational Fear, want to produce Australian satirical comedy web content for an internet audience over a period of ten weeks, with the group asking Australian comedy fans for financial support to make it happen via a Pozible campaign.
In the video Ilic points out the ownership of the commercial TV networks is prohibitive of an open satirical comedy show, while the public broadcasters do not have the cash to fund it.
“It’s much more than a site – it’s a digital comedy brand,” creator Dan Ilic told Mumbrella. “We’re going to be creating content with a strong editorial edge, with a strong point of view that we will put out first through arationalfear.com but also we’ll be posting it to Facebook, Twitter and Google+, for the six people on Google+.”
“They’re mostly Google employees and they’re very influential,” quipped head writer Lewis Hobba.
“One of the good things we did earlier yesterday was we put a whole bunch of posters up in Channel Seven’s offices and then called the AFP to tell them that Channel Seven had secured a deal with Schappelle Corby and thank goodness that drove a lot of media attention to our posters, that was very lucky,” joked Ilic.
“Hopefully we’ll get enough money to be the first online publishing outlet to get the first words of what it was like to live in a living hell, we’re very excited about that.”
On a more serious note, Hobba explained the campaigning for finance will occur in the digital space.
“Because we are going to exist in a digital space most of our campaigning will happen in the same place that our content will, through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram because that’s how we’re delivering content that’s exactly the same place that we want our audience to be finding us and hopefully donating.
“We’ve got the Pozible page so what we intend to do is get as many of our famous friends to tweet it as possible. Craig Thomson hasn’t come on yet, he’s been very quiet but hopefully he will tweet it, he’s a big spender,” quipped Hobba.
A Rational Fear will focus on “putting a critical eye on news and current affairs also making accessible and funny for people” explained Hobba.
“We want to make people laugh at what’s happening, that’s what A Rational Fear brand is all about, making fun of what the news is trying to make us scared about.”
Ilic said they want to make content that goes viral.
“We realise as consumers of digital content ourselves that we don’t go to individual sites to graze on news, we go to our social media feeds and we want to make stuff that will go viral,” he said.
“We’ll create it and keep it on our site but we hope that people will trust our brand as something they want to share with their friends.”
The new web hub will contine A Rational Fear’s practice of recognising new voices and talent, with Ilic and Hobba hoping they will be able to help mentor young comedians.
“A Rational Fear the podcast has always brought on a bunch of guys, uni writers lots of really young stand ups and given them the chance to know what a writing room feels like. That’s what we really want to do here because we’ve had great opportunities with things like Hungry Beast where we were mentored by people much more experienced than us and we’re really hoping we can do that for young comedians,” Hobba said.
The show started off as a comedy podcast before being broadcast on Sydney radio and then around the country on ABC Radio National. It has been performed live with shows at Splendour In The Grass and the Sydney Opera House.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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I’m going to give him some cash. Good luck to him. If Melbourne can support Triple R and PBS and Sydney FBI then why not an online channel for this sort of comedy. With the exception of Mad As Hell it’s not like the ABC has given me much to watch so far this year that I’ve enjoyed.
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