GarageTV is taking submissions for indie comedy shows to stream on our DIY comedy streaming app!
GarageTV is a curated, profit-sharing streaming service for indie comedy producers. On GarageTV your show will live next to other low-budget, but vetted, comedy shows from other established and up-and-coming producers in the comedy community.
#AnotherPlaceToPost?
Ever felt frustrated putting up comedy shows on Youtube, TikTok, Insta, Patreon, and other public free-for-all video sites? People mainly watch short viral clips when they're on the move, but when people want to sit down, relax and watch a real produced comedy show they tend to go to a curated streaming service like Netflix or Hulu and cast it to their home theater. On Garage TV streaming service, they can sit back and binge your web series alongside dozens of other quality indie-comedy shows, instead of watching The Office for the fortyteenth time.
#Curated
Unlike Youtube or Patreon, Garage TV posting is not open to the public. We only put up shows we actually like and we know every show producer personally. Not all of our content is nobel-prize-worthy, but it's also not just a bunch of random improv show self-tapes. We are looking for shows that are well-edited, with visual elements and music. Shows that look like they could be on Comedy Central but extremely more low budget. If you submit your show we will communicate with you directly about if it would fit into our comedy show lineup. See below for the types of shows we are specifically looking for.
#Monetization
Garage TV is designed specifically as a profit-sharing model for curated well-produced comedy shows. We want to be a monetization tool for you to use to spread your show alongside other quality comedy content.
What you get is a cool DIY-looking video streaming platform with a Subscriber/Ad/Reward model where your fans can watch all of your video content in one place, including casting it to their home theaters. What all of us as comedy producers get is exposure to other comedy fan communities, and a central place for fans of indie comedy to congregate and keep track of under-discovered, up-and-coming, not-yet-called-to-the-major-leagues comedians, writers and producers.
You retain ownership of all your content and we require zero non-compete promise, so you can use our platform as a staging ground for shows that you are pitching to a corporate streamer. It's a stronger pitch to have your show on a cool DIY streamer rather than Youtube, so you can go to a meeting ready to show what it would look like on their app, and if Amazon Prime wants to buy it, you can pull from us with no penalty and make it live on their app the same day.
Our subscription starts at 2.99 a month and a third of that goes directly to the show producers. Our shows are automatically paid out 33% of all subscription fees, which means you, as a show producer, get a real amount of money for every subscribed view, compared to youtube where you don't see a dime until you have tens of thousands of subscribers, and even then you get much, much less than a third of the profit. Fans who don't subscribe can still watch episodes of your show with an ad, unless you make it Subscriber Only, and dedicated users can skip ads by earning rewards as they watch.
Garage TV has many streaming platform features such as Subscription/Ad model, Favorite Shows, Content Search, Episode Queue, Subscriber-Only content, and more, but we are a brand-new service and will add new features as soon as we can.
What Counts As A Comedy Show?
We are looking for many kinds of things, as long as they are comedic. We will communicate with you directly about how your show does or does not fit in with our current content. We are not just looking for tapes of a live show or comedy set shot on an iphone from the audience. On the other hand, a staged show, shot with multiple cameras and edited together with bumpers and music would be great. Shows should feel like they could be on a major streamer like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.
Episodes of your show can be of any length and come out at any frequency. Your show can be finished, or in progress. For instance, your multi-episode web series from 2020 could be released in its entirety, or you can drop episodes your current series weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or however you want.
So what are we looking for? A daily or weekly comedy news or topical show, a stand-up comedy compilation show, a comedy competition show, a topical or fandom specific webcast, a high-tech improv show with overlays, a live sketch show with good production values.
At Garage TV we aim to offer DIY shows from talented comedy producers of all levels of success, but we won't put up just anything. Like Hulu or Netflix we put up shows we like and that we think our audience will enjoy, but unlike those Big Streamers our submission process is wide open! To find out more or to submit your show you can email submit@gravyday.com.
To be clear, we are taking submissions of finished shows, or shows you are planning to make yourself. We are not going to finance your series or podcast, but if we like it we will host it and stream it, and you'll get a percentage of subscription earnings. GarageTV is a tool that you can use to get eyes on your work and earn some dough. You retain ownership and you can actively shop your work to bigger streamers, for instance if you sell your GarageTV hosted show to Disney, no prob, you can remove or disable your content on GarageTV with a click of a button, and send it to Disney, no hard feelings.
I'll start with what we are NOT looking for: - Your improv or sketch show filmed with one camera from the back of the theater. - Your reel or a series of raw unedited tiktoks - Twitch stream of you playing a video game - A series of inside jokes about your local theater's management team - A static 5-panel layout of 5 people doing improv on zoom - Content deemed politically regressive in terms of attacking or scapegoating marginalized groups with cruel intention
Here are some things we ARE looking for: - Polished, edited comedy shows with tight writing, solid improv or compelling conversation. - Funny Podcasts in both audio and video form. If you have a compelling podcast we can host the audio, plus you can record video with a few cameras and add some bumpers and release the live video companion series too. - Sketch comedy shows that are shot on video and edited with titles for TV. If you think you're show looks good enough to be on Hulu or Netflix, or at least Amazon Video, we want to see it! - Improv shows with a good hook. Animated or multi-media improv. Prop Improv. Puppet improv. Just not boring improv. - Game shows and competition shows with comedy hosts and compelling editing. - Talent shows, topical shows, comedy magic shows - An Animated series of any kind - Progressive political talk shows - A sit-com or single-cam written series - A show that showcases failed pilots or rejected content - Companion shows and Re-watches. Do you have a favorite series and want to do an episode by episode re-watch series, or maybe you actually have a show on Hulu, you can use GarageTV to host companion videos and edited behind the scenes content.
You can also release: - Your filmed pilot that never got picked up. If you still own it and we green light it, you can release it as a one-episode series. - Your finished indie film. Do you have a finished film that you're shopping to big streamers or a film that didn't sell but you want to self-release? You can host it on GarageTV and show the big streamers what it looks like streamed from an app to the home screen. It could lend your film some streaming cred and work as a stepping stone
More Details: - We stream audio shows (Podcasts) and video shows (Series). You can't post audio on a video series, but you can create a podcast to release audio and an associated series to release video. Or if you have a current audio podcast on another host, you can keep that where it is and and still create a video version of it for GarageTV. - Episodes of your show can be any length. A show could be a series of 5 minute episodes, or a show could be 1 hour long episode, or it could have 50 episodes ranging from 3 to 40 minutes. - Episodes can drop any time you want. There are no rules or deadlines for your release schedule. If you want to spend three months perfecting each episode, that fine, or you can release an episode a day, or each thursday at noon. It's up to you. - You can make episodes of your show "Subscriber Only" which can compel people to subscribe to watch, which helps you earn streaming proceeds. An entire Series might be Subscriber Only, or you might choose to drop new episodes as Subscriber Only and then release them publicly two weeks later, for example. - You can port your current podcast to garagetv and save money. If we green light your podcast and you have all the released mp3s on another podcast host, we can port them over to GarageTV hosting for free. GarageTV may not contain all the features that your current host provides, but again it would be free so... - If you already release your show on Patreon or YouTube you can still host your episodes on GarageTV, and you might ever earn more money from your current fanbase by bringing them over. The idea of GarageTV is you get a bigger percentage of the subscriber proceeds than YouTube and you get an app specifically designed to stream comedy shows unlike either Patreon or YouTube..
Information For Makers on GarageTV Streaming Network
You will need to have a Show profile, and at least one User profile with Maker Access to access your show and receive funds. You can assign a Team of Users to your show and automatically divide proceeds among them. You can then add Promos, Banner Ads, Blog Posts and Merch if you want to.
Every video or podcast clip that streams on our site is posted under the umbrella of a SHOW. A show has a profile with name, subtitle, description, images and more. Each show can have one or more episodes. It can also have promo videos and social media links.
You can use your show profile on our network as the main website for your show. By adding a show nickname, which is a compact one-word acronym or short name for your show, you will get a website that looks like: https://grage.tv/show/nickname. For instance if your show is called “The Best Show Ever” your nickname can be something like “bestshow” and your url would be https://grage.tv/show/bestshow. Now if you want to register a domain name for your show such as www.bestshowever.com, you can easily direct your domain name to your garagetv show profile. So when they type in bestshowever.com they go directly to the show profile and can immediately access your episodes and other content.
#EPISODES
Each show can then have as many episodes as needed. Each episode profile has a name, description, search keywords and more, plus an optional image. If your “show” is a movie or a single-episode pilot, it will still have a show profile, which contains one episode profile.
#TEAM
Each show will also have a production team of as many people as you like. If you have a sketch team, each member can have their own user profile, as well as editors, directors, producers, etc. Each team member can be assigned a percentage such that each user is automatically paid out their percentage of the proceeds.
#USERS
To access your show on our network you will need to set up one or more USERS. Each person on your production team should create their own user account, so each user account should represent a real person, not a team of people, organization or company. This way each person on your team can be added to the production team for the show, and legal ownership of the show can be easily divided among the team. Each person can then link a stripe account to their personal bank and have their share of proceeds paid directly.
Each person on your team should go to grage.tv/users/new and create an account. In order to be added as a production team member each user will then need to be made a “Maker” by our administrators. You can request that a user be made a maker by emailing admin@gravyday.com and asking to be made a maker.
#BLOG
If your User account is a Maker then you can post on our News blog by going to grage.tv/blogs and clicking the New Blog Post button.
#MERCH
You can sell merch on our website through our stripe system. Contact admin@gravyday.com for more info.
#PROMOS
You can upload one promo video for each show. The current promo will be featured on the show page, above the episodes for the show. This promo may be used in ads in the future.
#ADS
You can upload an ad banner for your show by going to https://grage.tv/ads and clicking the New Ad button. A banner ad is a wide image with aspect ratio 10:1, so for instance 3000x300 pixels. The ads uploaded here will appear on our web pages and direct people to your show.
