Early shows

Gervais and Merchant first worked together in radio on the London-based alternative radio station Xfm London. Their show was broadcast from January to August 1998 from 4–6pm on Sundays, and only featured Gervais and Merchant (before their collaboration on The Office). The show's original format was more interactive, with features, guests, phone-ins, and audience interaction through listeners' letters.^[4]

Return to XFM

Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in August 2001, after the first series of The Office had been broadcast, with Pilkington brought in as producer.^[5] The show was originally just billed as Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and Pilkington's presence was not acknowledged on posters or other advertisements. Gervais and Merchant would speak to Pilkington about his thoughts on whatever they were talking about. In 2003, Pilkington was added to advertisements for the show as he took on a more prominent role in the show. The last show for XFM aired on 2 July 2005, after which they chose to switch the show's format from radio to podcasting.

Series 1

The show ran between September 2001 and May 2002 before Gervais and Merchant went on hiatus to film the second series of ‘’The Office’’. Initially, Pilkington’s on-air presence was relatively minimal. Gervais and Merchant only occasionally called for him to weigh in with his thoughts, while the two mostly talked to each other, with the links between songs comprising only about 30 minutes of the show's 2-hour run time.

As Pilkington’s personality moved to the forefront, the talk portion of the show expanded to roughly an hour per 2-hour broadcast. While the show relied largely upon a stream-of-consciousness format, Pilkington made attempts to keep things more conventional by insisting on running contests and airing pre-recorded segments and regular "features".

Series 2

With the second series of The Office complete, Gervais, Merchant, and Pilkington returned to XFM in August of 2002 to resume their 2-hour Saturday afternoon broadcasts. Though Pilkington’s name was still not being used in promotional materials, the format mainly centered on his contributions with Gervais and Merchant reacting to his comments, a format that would endure through the remainder of the radio broadcasts and podcasts, concluding in 2012.

This was the longest stretch of XFM shows, running 51 weeks until August 2003 when Gervais and Merchant again went on hiatus, this time to record the final episode of The Office.

During the year, Gervais and Merchant began saying on-air that Pilkington had become the star of the show and theorized that most listeners were tuning in to hear his anecdotes and perspectives. Pilkington, however, grew increasingly frustrated with Gervais's antagonism towards him, and over the final few shows, suggested that he did not wish to continue. Gervais and Merchant insisted they would not return if Pilkington did not agree to remain with the show.

Series 3

During the hiatus, Pilkington signed on with Gervais and Merchant’s talent agent, and negotiated a deal with XFM to get Mondays off in exchange for continuing to do The Ricky Gervais Show on Saturdays. This was a frequent topic of contention during this run with Gervais repeatedly accusing Pilkington of being lazy for demanding an entire day off in exchange for producing the 2-hour Saturday afternoon broadcast.

The show began airing again in November 2003 and broadcast for 12 weeks until January 2004 when Gervais and Merchant went on hiatus to film series 1 of their new show, ‘’Extras’’.

Series 4

Gervais, Merchant, and Pilkington returned to XFM following the completion of ‘’Extras’’ series 1. This time, they recorded only 6 shows before Gervais and Merchant left XFM for good. The show would later continue as a podcast, with no further association with XFM.

Radio 2 Holiday Shows

Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington broadcast two hour-long holiday specials on Radio 2 during the 2005 holiday season, the first airing on Christmas Eve and the second on New Year's Eve.^[6]

NME Radio show

Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington recorded a two-hour radio show as part of the test transmissions for the new radio station NME Radio. The episode aired on Monday 9 June 2008, 12pm (BST).^[7]

Creation

According to Emily Bell, editor-in-chief of Guardian Unlimited, Gervais and Merchant had approached the Guardian with the idea of the show.^[8] Bell said that they had switched to a podcast format for greater control over content and access to a larger audience. The first 12 episodes were released free of charge through the Guardian Unlimited website.

Series one

The first series of podcasts began on 5 December 2005, and a new episode was released each Monday for the next twelve weeks. The show relies heavily on the wit and bizarre theories of Pilkington, who was then unemployed, having left his job as radio producer at XFM. The podcast focuses more on Pilkington as a primary figure of humour in the show in various ways, including questions directed at him that have been emailed in, either by fans of the show or by Gervais and Merchant themselves.^[9]

Series two

Series two of the podcast began on 28 February 2006. It consisted of six episodes with the final one released on 4 April 2006. The series saw the return of Karl's Diary and Rockbusters.

With the start of series two, the formerly free Ricky Gervais Show shifted to a pay model. As a result, the show is now classified as an audiobook. It is available through Audible and the iTunes Store with individual episodes. The reason for this addition, according to Ricky on the podcast, is because The Guardian agreed to pay for the bandwidth for 12 episodes, and any further episodes would have to be paid for out of their personal finances.^[10]

Series three

Series three of the podcasts was released on 22 August 2006. This season saw the return of Karl's Diary as well as a new feature based on Pilkington's attempts at Poetry. All other features were abandoned, with the rest of each episode focusing instead on conversation. The season had the same pricing implementation as season two, although the file quality was increased.

At the end of the sixth episode, Gervais and Merchant agreed to put the show on an indefinite hiatus.

Series four: The Podfather Trilogy

Three free podcasts were announced. The first was released on 31 October 2006, to coincide with Halloween, the next was on 23 November, coinciding with Thanksgiving, and the last was released on 24 December 2006, to coincide with Christmas.^[11]

Fame special

A special podcast was made available as a giveaway to people who went to see Gervais' stand-up tour Fame, which played from January to April 2007. It was later released for free to the public in October of that year.

Hour-Long Bonus Podcast

On 25 November 2007, Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington released a free podcast. Originally released as an extra on the audio CD release of series one, it was later made available free through iTunes.

Series five

Four more episodes were released on 15 September 2008 through the iTunes Store. This series was released all at once as an Audiobook, almost two hours in length and split into four half-hour episodes. All episodes were recorded at the same time. There are no contests or any interaction from the listeners as the previous series contained.^[12]

The Ricky Gervais Guide to...

A Day in the Life of Karl

A special one-off podcast titled A Day in the Life of Karl was released on 28 October 2010.

Video podcasts

On 24 March 2006, an "irregular run of free video podcasts" was launched through the iTunes podcast directory. The video podcasts do not follow the format of the earlier audio shows and the content varies greatly from podcast to podcast. The first video was a conversation between Pilkington and Gervais, with Gervais enthusing about the idea of Pilkington becoming a human crab or having massive reconstructive surgery. The second podcast served as an advertisement for Pilkington and Gervais's new book, The World of Karl Pilkington (a series of excerpts from the previous podcasts and various musings and drawings produced by Karl). The third on the series was an audio clip from a previous edition of Monkey News, synchronised with a flash animation. The fourth video podcast features a controversial audio advertisement for The Prostate Cancer Charity and Gervais talking about his Aerial Award. The fifth is Gervais and Merchant making Pilkington watch Brokeback Mountain. The sixth podcast was another conversation over Pilkington's book The World of Karl Pilkington. The seventh podcast was about a story Pilkington told in series one, episode one, about his bizarre journey in an abandoned asylum and rehabilitation clinic. The eighth video shows Gervais showing the viewer around the various sets during the filming of the second series of Extras, followed by Pilkington giving his opinion on Gervais's latest book, Flanimals of the Deep. The ninth was Pilkington talking about Gervais's cat; Ollie. The tenth was Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington announcing the new series of the show beginning on 22 August.

In August 2012, Gervais produced a pilot for a new series of video podcasts, titled Learn English with Ricky Gervais.^[18] The show features Gervais and Pilkington engaging in English dialogue, and translated captions have been provided in many languages by his fans.^[19]