Now, let’s get back to Tom Scott’s regular show.
On Monday, dormant internet star Scott posted his first YouTube video since January 1, 2024, when he announced his decision to step away from the demanding job of producing weekly content. Scott, who still boasts more than 6.6 million subscribers on the video-sharing platform, didn’t just stop by to break his record of silence, he stopped by to unveil his new project, “Tom Scott: England.”
The new series features 41 episodes based on England’s historic counties and was filmed over an eight-week road trip. The show will premiere its first episode on Nebula on Monday, where it will air the “regular version” of “Tom Scott: England,” and episodes will then be released on YouTube a week later with ads and some editing, Scott said.
Two hours before the first episode (titled “I Helped Break the Bell 142 Years Ago, and That’s OK”) was released on Nebula, Scott took a break from editing subtitles for upcoming episodes of “Tom Scott: England” and spoke with Variety about why he decided it was time to get back to regular content production.
“The simple answer is because we had an idea that worked, and the alternatives didn’t do it,” Scott said. “That’s been a rule that I’ve lived by for a long time: The alternative is not to do it. And I remember coming up with it, probably 20 years ago when I was a student, and throwing something at the Internet. I had an idea. See, it works. It’s possible. I have the brains and the ability and the resources to make this. I think it’s going to work. There’s no excuse not to do it someday.”
Produced by Scott’s Pad 26 Ltd in association with Penny4 and Breadbox Studios, ‘Tom Scott: England’ sees Scott flit around England’s historic counties (the total number of which, he notes, is a matter of debate), showcasing the most interesting aspects of each location.
Since stepping away from regular video production on YouTube, Scott has noted the increasingly high hurdles facing online creators since COVID-19. Known for his educational and travel-related content, Scott had been posting consistently since 2014, when he decided it was time to leave YouTube.
Scott says he misses the experience this unique brand of self-employment brought him, but he’s decided to return now because he believes the new format he’s developed, which combines novelty and familiarity, offers something new to an audience sifting through an oversaturated creator economy.
“At least for me, I have one of the best jobs in the world,” Scott said. “I recognize that having to go out and talk to people and be on camera and be passionate about it on demand is a personal hell for some people. Even if it’s not a job, for example, I wanted to do this. This is my life. At one point, I wanted to do this. I wasn’t getting paid to begin with, but I was just throwing stuff out on the internet. And at some point I realized, oh, I can go to some interesting places and show it off to people.”
“Years ago, on an old project, I had to walk on the plate of a moving radio telescope. Yes, of course I’d like to do it! But you can’t do that as a tourist. It’s like I have some magical filming privileges and I don’t want to lose that. The fact that this is actually my job is great. So when I came up with the idea of this format, I said, “This works, this is possible, this can be done, this is an improvement, this is this.” This is new, this fits with what’s going on. The alternative wasn’t doing that. ”
To watch the “Tom Scott: England” premiere today, you’ll need to visit indie streamer Nebula (with whom Scott has previously collaborated on the series “Tom Scott Presents: Money” and appeared on the travel competition series “Jet Lag: The Game”). According to Scott, there were two main reasons for choosing that distribution, one being YouTube’s content restrictions.
“There’s going to be some blurring between big events and small events,” Scott teases. “There’s an outrageous content warning on one episode… By the end of it, about two-thirds of the screen is blurred and desaturated to avoid any fictional blood or gore. Nebula, the completely unblurred official version of the video, YouTube is definitely not. Even with all the educational guidelines, there’s no way they’d publish it there.”
Another reason is dollars and cents. Nebula is offering Scott another revenue stream for the series (a project he’s not yet sure will recoup its production costs), and the non-exclusive deal will allow him to retain as many viewers as possible when the episodes are later posted to YouTube.
So Nebula was a great fit to start with because it allowed me to put out the videos I wanted to put out. Still, I have a bigger audience with access to ridiculous locations that very few people can shoot at. God knows, but Nebula has managed to punch way above its weight with its reputation. But having a subscriber count of millions publicly available and verifiable is very useful. ”
