Amelia Dimoldenberg is bringing her YouTube interview format Chicken Shop Date to an end after a 12-year run. The British creator announced the decision on Instagram, telling followers that several final instalments would be released before the series concludes.
“I never thought I’d stop Chicken Shop Date,” she wrote. “I thought maybe it would be a part of me forever, and in some way it always will, but I feel like it’s now time to move on from this adventure and onto a new one.”
Dimoldenberg, who has 3.45 million subscribers on YouTube, described the show as her “very own romcom” and said she wanted to celebrate its history with “a few final dates”, which are due to arrive shortly.
The announcement prompted warm responses from several prominent figures in the creator economy. Kareem Rahma, the creator and host of interview formats Subway Takes and Keep the Meter Running, told Dimoldenberg: “You are the GOAT and I have no doubt that whatever you create next will be spectacular.”
Hot Ones host and First We Feast chief creative officer Sean Evans described the series as a “legendary run”, adding: “I’ll be first in line for whatever’s next.” Jordan Schwarzenberger, co-founder of Sidemen management and ventures company Arcade, responded: “Incredible.”
Launched in 2014, Chicken Shop Date pairs Dimoldenberg’s deliberately awkward interviewing style with informal encounters staged in fried chicken shops. Initially focused on UK rap and grime performers, it grew into a regular stop on the publicity circuit for international music, film and television talent. Recent guests have included Paul McCartney, Zara Larsson and Conan O’Brien.
The decision comes shortly after Dimoldenberg reflected on the format’s changing industry status at the Edinburgh TV Festival. She said that publicists and managers had initially been reluctant to place talent on a YouTube show, but that Chicken Shop Date had subsequently become comparable with appearances on The Graham Norton Show or BBC Radio 1 for stars promoting new projects.
“That has always been the ambition – my ambition – to make it as important as going on Graham Norton or going on Greg James, Radio 1, for example,” she said, according to The Guardian. “So I’ve achieved that goal.”
Dimoldenberg is now extending her work into more traditional film and television. She is writing a teen drama for the BBC, described as being in the mould of Skins, as well as developing a Hollywood romantic comedy in which she would play a journalist who falls for a celebrity after interviewing him.
The identities of her remaining Chicken Shop Date guests have yet to be revealed.
Image courtesy of Amelia Dimoldenberg instagram account
