UKTV’s Dave Commissions New Chat Show

LONDON: Robert Llewellyn is to host the new chat show Carpool, a commission from UKTV’s male-skewed channel Dave that is produced by RDF Contact and fully funded by Toyota Prius.

Carpool started off as an Internet series, with Llewellyn picking up guests in a car and driving them to the location of their choice, all the while engaging in informal chats. Since the show became available on iTunes it has had more than 2 million downloads. Each individual episode is viewed on average 50,000 times.

The series is now headed to TV screens, with a premiere on Dave set for the fourth quarter of this year. All of the interviews featured on the show will be available on joindave.co.uk.

UKTV’s head of commercial partnerships, Sally Quick, said: “We are delighted to be in partnership with Toyota on this hilarious and innovative series from RDF, it could not be a better match.”

Llewellyn added: “I started Carpool 18 months ago as an experiment. A sort of talk show recorded in a car as I drive busy people to meetings, events, gigs or just down the shops. The real joy is that people talk openly and intimately and it’s not only funny but a real insight into the interviewees. It’s been downloaded over 2 million times through iTunes and for many weeks was in the iTunes top 10 podcasts. Carpool takes the talk-show format and stows it in the boot while the real talking takes place up front and I’m really excited to be bringing the show to Dave viewers.”