Long live Roadkill! So where did it all go wrong?

The internet is awash with news that the mega-popular, ground-breaking show Roadkill has been canned after 13 incredible seasons. On the show, David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan represented their brand of grassroots automotive shenanigans but, like any successful outlet, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes. 

I'll start by saying, a huge congratulations to everyone who worked on Motor Trend shows. They were super well-produced with great storylines and beautiful visuals, and were presented by genuinely brilliant car enthusiasts who built epic cars and undertook amazing adventures. To last over a decade in such a highly competitive arena is a testament to what a good product they produced.

So, where did it all go wrong, and what is next?

To understand where we are, we need to understand where we came from. 

Freiburger and Finn never owned Roadkill; the show (and its stablemates like Roadkill Garage, Hot Rod Garage, Dirt Every Day, etc) are all part of the Motor Trend Network (formerly Source Interlink, formerly Petersen Publishing way back in the day). Today that is owned by Discovery, and Discovery's $41bn debts are part of the reason that shows are being axed.

MOOG wrote a lengthy post about paywalls and why they work for a few, but not many. I'd HIGHLY recommend you read his post [CLICK HERE] to get some background from the time when Motor Trend switched their shows onto their own app-based subscription platsform.

And what would I know? I've worked in automotive enthusiast media (ie: this exact space) for over 20 years as a journalist, producer, publisher, mechanic, social media flop, and assorted herder of cats. I've seen trends, titles and personalities come and go, and so I think I've got a pretty good handle on what's going on. Plus, I've been a fan of Freiburger's work on car magazines since the '90s, and Finnegan's since he was building mini-trucks with tribal graphics.

I am also not too proud to admit i fangirled like a goon when I flew to America with Marty and MOOG to build the Subaute (see reference image, below). I was a hardcore fan of Roadkill since they bought a clapped Pontiac Catalina and drove it from El Paso to Los Angeles with no hood. 

Moving the shows behind the paywall was a great corporate move, but it highlighted the divide between business and hobby. We're all enthusiasts, putting our hearts and souls into loving cars, and while going behind a paywall makes sense to keep the dollars flowing in so everyone gets paid and rad content is made, it stung a lot of enthusiasts who saw many other channels doing similar styles of builds remain on the free YouTube platform.

Not long after Motor Trend was absorbed by Discovery Channel, international broadcast rights deals meant everyone who wasn't in the USA or Canada instantly lost their access to these awesome shows. As someone who had followed Roadkill since the Hot Rod Unlimited days, this really stung me and I still feel raw about it today. 

We're all used to seeing YouTube channels being run by the person in front of the camera, but that was the opposite of what was happening at Motor Trend. We loved Roadkill for much the same reason people love Mighty Car Mods: you felt like the guys on the show were doing the same stuff you and your mates were doing. And while Freiburger and Finnegan were, they had bosses signing the cheques. 

A paywall meant budgets were healthy, but it also came with a lot of corporate bloat. HR departments. Lawyers. Large office spaces. Admin. Marketing teams. And more. They're all people who need to eat and pay rent, so it adds layers of bloat to the organisation, and means they need to make money every day to pay for all of those people. Sometimes that pressure influences business decisions, which affects the finished product we watch, and car enthusiasts are super-quick to smell that. 

The very first day I walked into the Street Machine magazine office nearly 23 years ago, the Editor (a legendary bloke called Geoff Seddon) sat me down and said: never mess with a person's passion. I've paraphrased there because Seddo didn't say "mess" (he used a word that starts with F and rhymes with "fire truck").

Seddo's point was anything Street Machine did (or anything a person did on behalf of Street Machine) had to show respect to the passion car enthusiasts carry for their hobby, no matter what form that takes. "They may be bricklayers or brain surgeons during their day job, but if you ask them 'what they are' they'll tell you they're a car enthusiast" he followed up. He made sure I understood to respect that this hobby is what some people live and breathe.

I believe, and many many online comments back this up, people knew they were being sold a product by the Motor Trend owners. We all love Freiburger and Finnegan, Alex Taylor, Lucky Costa, Tony Angelo, Dulcich and Brule (among others), and we know they're all down for the tyre-smoking cause... but car ethusiasts could smell when the suits were messing with them, and despite the show crews' best efforts, the tide of public opinion for the Motor Trend shows turned long ago.

The great news is these awesome hosts (and some BTS crew) have their own YouTube and social media channels you can follow for the raw, unvarnished content. Both Finnegan [CLICK HERE] and Freiburger [CLICK HERE] upload heaps of rad, interesting videos - the cars might not be K-swapped Civics, but there is a lot to learn and some genuinely cool stuff happening on their channels. Special shout-out to Tony Angelo's Stay Tuned channel, too - he's a former pro drifter and a confirmed 180SX sicko so he can't be bad!

All these hosts are genuine car enthusiasts who are busy doing what we saw on Motor Trend shows even when the cameras aren't pointed at them. They're passionate, enthusiastic, clever, funny and they all do skids. What isn't to love? 

It's time to support the creators, and it's time to support our fellow enthusiasts. Long live Roadkill, thanks for all the skids.