British comedian Ricky Gervais has translated his popular podcast, The Ricky Gervais Show, into an animated series for HBO.

The animated series takes the audio of the podcast and puts animation to it, intercutting retro-styled animated scenes with animated versions of Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington.

See the HBO site for details.

Click here to view the embedded video.

UK comedy blog Chortle reports that Ricky Gervais’ world-record breaking podcast is getting turned into an animated series for HBO:

The 13 half-hour episodes, due to air next year, could make an unlikely star of sidekick Karl Pilkington, whose strange opinions they mercilessly mock.

‘Karl is a man who believes that a sea lion is a cross between a fish and a dog,’ the pair told Hollywood trade paper Variety. ‘Hopefully, Karl will enter the pantheon of animated greats.’

Modi Wiczyk of Media Rights Capital, which is producing the show, added: ‘They find him to be the funniest person in the world. Ricky says Karl is like crack to him.’

The series is being co-produced by Wildbrain, the animation studio behind the kids’ show Yo Gabba Gabba.

Talk throughout the business world seems certain that satellite radio behemoth XM/Sirius filing for bankruptcy in the coming days. If this indeed comes to pass, what’s to become of those big-name, big money radio personalities who stand to lose a hefty salary?

Howard Stern left terrestrial radio (and an estimated 12 million listeners) for satellite, where he commands a staggering $100 million/year salary. If satellite radio goes “poof!”, what happens to him?

It’s been suggested that maybe he should consider syndicating his show as a podcast.

In an exchange with Entertainment Weekly, marketing expert and Stern show fan Ernest Lupinacci suggests that Stern produce the show on his own, and, in the business model of Ricky Gervais, sell it to paying subscribers as a premium podcast.

“In the new digital age, distribution is fungible,” Ernest wrote, adding that if Stern builds himself a studio, he can record a daily show and then easily distribute it to subscribers. Let’s say he has 3 million listeners willing to pay just $3 per month for daily podcasts. (As compared to Sirius XM’s $12.95 monthly rate.) That’s $108 million in revenue a year. And, Ernest adds, “he could hire a competent sales guy, and if they can generate (conservatively) another million a month in ad revenue — that’s $12 million more.” It ain’t Sirius money, and he’d likely have to pare down his staff, but it’s enough to keep his core group of cohosts and producers happy, with a little money left over…

There are plenty of advantages to this idea, both for Stern, and for his audience. The costs of producing and distributing a show this way is small. There’s some cost involved in outfitting a recording studio, but if he’s making $100 MM/year, he can probably afford a modest setup.  The Internet is already there as a distribution method, and there are no multi-billion-dollar satellites required for creating a delivery network.

Most audience members presumably already have a computer (and portable listening gadgets like iPods, Zunes, and multitasking mobile phones), as well as Internet connections. Listeners wouldn’t have to shell out for additional hardware (as Stern’s satellite subscribers have had to do). And charging a subscription fee would probably cost listeners far less than the $12.95/mo charged by satellite providers.

Stern might be able to woo back more listeners with a modestly-priced show, listeners who did not follow him to satellite due to the cost. And his audience would likely appreciate the opportunity to time-shift their listening to the show to suit their own schedules.

What disadvantages or roadblocks might there be for big-name satellite radio hosts (Martha Stewart, Bob Edwards, Howard Stern, even Bob Dylan) to shift their XM and Sirius shows to a premium podcast medium?