First GPS-triggered comedy podcast

Right: The website of the world's first comedy podcast produced specifically for satellite navigation devices

What claims to be the world's first audio comedy show, with different sketches triggered according to the vehicle's location, can now be downloaded from the internet and then uploaded onto drivers' satellite navigation devices.

Called "230 Miles of Love", it has been recorded to lighten the journeys for drivers on the UK's M6 motorway.

People can visit www.230milesoflove.com and download the sketches without charge and then, when certain points are reached on the M6, a relevant sketch is broadcast from their sat nav. There are different versions for northbound and southbound journeys - and versions with swearing deleted.

So, as drivers cruise past Junction 20 they get to hear all about the Thelwall Viaduct’s exhausted poet-in-residence and as they approach the M6 Toll road they hear For Whom The Toll Tolls, the only game show that asks whether you’re going to risk getting stuck in traffic on the original M6, or take the Toll; the sketch even ends differently depending on which way the driver goes.

As well as enlivening the journeys of thousands of people, the show aims to raise £23,000 for The Motivation Charitable Trust, which provides wheelchairs to people in developing countries.

“The M6 is an ideal location and subject for comedy. Hundreds of thousands of people use the road every day, which gives you a ready-made audience and even better is that nearly every traveller wants to be entertained," says writer Andrew Shanahan. "With the advances in satnav technology, it seemed like a natural progression to look at this as a new medium and explore what it could do to brighten up a long journey.”

2 May 2008