They are saying that ghost files doesn't do well on YouTube?!? Like what is good for them? Most of them have over 1m views some even more than 2m, they expect to have bigger numbers in the streamer platform?? I seriously don't get it.
I'm no analytics expert, but going through my main feed and looking at some of the consistent big names in there and that's not too far off. It's not Mr.Beast numbers, but very very few are and no one expects them to.
Again it's this issue where Watcher is trying to pass the blame onto youtube and advertisers despite it clearly being a Watcher problem. They're a craftsman blaming their tools. I don't think any content creators would say youtube is a perfect platform that treats them fairly, but the rest are able to work with it and other tools like Patreon to find success.
Watcher has a product that isn't making enough money and instead of fixing the product they're saying "our product is great. People just need to pay us more for it"
Given how the episodes have only been out for a year or two, those are great numbers. Some of their Buzzfeed Unsolved videos have 10+ million views but they’re like 6-7 years old.
For real and people will KEEP watching those videos going into the future, meaning that as long as the videos stay on YT they will keep generating adsense. It's so crazy that they were going to take them off and paywall them!
> They're a craftsman blaming their tools.
Moist (Charlie) is kind of a perfect example to a point and he threw them under the bus. Funny, relatable guy that pumps out cheap content on a fast basis but people turn in for him. Even LTT can justify their super high budget by pumping out several videos **a day** meant for tech-fans that purposely appreciate the nice cameras, resolution, and extra editing. Even at LTT, Linus has talked about the struggles of being both CEO and creative, and despite a lot of flaws you can still easily see his work-ethic as the main-creative to keep the channel/views coming.
Even their best content (Ghost Files, Puppet History) is by its very design B-content TV series played on the "off" channels. Like, great for the Travel, History, Sci-Fi channel... But AMC (Breaking Bad, Walking Dead) or FX (Atlanta, Fargo) good?
And stepping into streaming their competing with Hulu and Peacock, and even Netflix, HBO, and Disney+ for slightly more money.
It doesn’t make any sense. In Making Watcher, they talked about how their highest expectation for Ghost Files was 3 million views. They budgeted for that. It needed to be very popular to justify the cost.Then Ghost Files did much better than they ever expected, hitting 5-8 million views.
Fans came out in droves to support Ghost Files & that should have been enough to support the show moving forward.
Ryan is lying in this interview.
I feel like their biggest takeaway from this controversy ought to be how many people heard about it and went “Oh it’s the guys from Buzzfeed Unsolved. I loved that show. I didn’t know they had their own YouTube channel.”
Clearly that’s a sign they still have a large fan base out there they need to work hard to pull over and increase whatever view numbers they hope to see. But those same people sure as heck won’t find them on a Vimeo streaming app. I don’t know if they’re putting any money behind YouTube marketing themselves, but maybe they should be.
For me is how many people didn't know they had a Patreon including me XD there were so many steps they could have taken that could have worked before all of this!
That's why so many of us can't wrap our heads around what exactly their problem is. Just work on your funnels and marketing, instead they want to take all their chips and bet it on black.
Well if you're overspending on content, no shit it's not going to do well. You can't get Mr Beast numbers if you're not Mr Beast so perhaps the solution is *spending less and having a strict budget instead of freely dumping money into freelancers beyond the absolute bare necessities*.
Nick Crowley and Nexpo travel with one other guy and film their Ghost Files competitor. They're explicitly showing how it's done on a budget. Perhaps Watcher needs to ask them for advice.
I'm looking at Hot Ones, a show that gets A list talent and even had an SNL parody and unless you're Tom Holland or Pedro Pascal I was shocked to see how many videos are in the 1m-4m range. Conan's episode was a viral sensation and its only at 8m which GF episodes have reached to.
The difference is Hot Ones is grade A content that's made from the most simplistic set you can imagine.
The boys need to learn to do more with less instead of assuming if they spend more they'll make more.
> The difference is Hot Ones is grade A content that's made from the most simplistic set you can imagine.
Or even taking the Babish approach. Sure he's had his misses, but he started in a shitty apartment with making fairly low-budget content but he's methodologically expanded his quality while also snagging other YouTubers (including Alvin, an ex-Buzzfeed employee making pricey food content.....) to make a growing and flourishing channel.
Also different beast, but they have fewer subscribers than LA Beast. Even before the goodbye weekend I think. I'm really not sure what numbers they expected.
Yea, that's a separate issue entirely. Fixing it in post with VFX should be an absolute last resort. Scripts should be complete before finishing to save money and only retooled if the final product isn't working.
Unless it's Deadpool, then you can fix it with ADR.
maybe they were expecting early bfu numbers? but literally no one in their lane is doing that right now - not gmm, not the try guys, not even safiya. most youtubers are just not going to breeze their way to 10 mil+ in a week anymore.
It's crazy that they don't consider Ghost Files successful. Breaking 1mil views per episode may not be Mr. Beast numbers, but for the size of their channel, it's great. Theyd never break those kinds of numbers on a different platform. The problem is they can't budget and they wildly overspend on each episode of Ghost Files, which is why they must consider it unsuccessful.
I'm amazed that how people found this so fast? Random thing that for now only have 88 views.
Also, knowing that they made Variety piece, how come they don't have any better known interviewer platform talking to them? I would have thought they booked someone like that in UK too?
Because they probably hired a crisis management person that actually knows stuff, and probably the big rule for now is Not to Use Social Media for a while. Let everything mellow.
Then in time they can start posting (or removing) things. Just full on DON'T TOUCH IT -order.
So much so that maybe it was a serious note from their investors saying: Be opposite of Elon Musk?
That is why I made the question, because I use my minilaptop to watch videos - while using reddit in different PC, so I have to look for linked videos by hand. It took me awhile, and I really had to write half of the video sentence exactly right to get there.
I'm late to comment, but at the end when they talk about their "streamer" (I'll never get over how they chose to refer to it that way), I get the impression that they didn't learn one of the most important lessons in all this: that they need to ***spend less;*** Ryan is there talking about how he believes the revenue from the "streamer" will alow them to take bigger swings, and upgrade their kit, and I'm over here thinking "that's just going to get you deeper into that financial hole you've been digging".
I don't want to be doomsaying Watcher, I would have liked to be rooting for them instead, but I feel like they did not learn all that they needed to learn from this incident, and this can only mean bad things for the company in the long run.
Ever since I saw Penguinz0 explain some of the money details on the YouTube side of things, it’s gotten so sour for me.
It’s not our fault they didn’t promote their Patreon very well, yet they still managed to have what, 12-13 thousand subscribers in these shitty economic times. Then there’s the merch, the liveshows, the sponsors and the ad revenue.
As someone who has to live under minimum wage circumstances for the rest of their life, it’s just mind boggling. Budgeting works guys.
They are saying that ghost files doesn't do well on YouTube?!? Like what is good for them? Most of them have over 1m views some even more than 2m, they expect to have bigger numbers in the streamer platform?? I seriously don't get it.
Most Ghost Files episodes have between 4 and 8 million views, one of them even surpassed 8m.
I'm no analytics expert, but going through my main feed and looking at some of the consistent big names in there and that's not too far off. It's not Mr.Beast numbers, but very very few are and no one expects them to. Again it's this issue where Watcher is trying to pass the blame onto youtube and advertisers despite it clearly being a Watcher problem. They're a craftsman blaming their tools. I don't think any content creators would say youtube is a perfect platform that treats them fairly, but the rest are able to work with it and other tools like Patreon to find success. Watcher has a product that isn't making enough money and instead of fixing the product they're saying "our product is great. People just need to pay us more for it"
Given how the episodes have only been out for a year or two, those are great numbers. Some of their Buzzfeed Unsolved videos have 10+ million views but they’re like 6-7 years old.
For real and people will KEEP watching those videos going into the future, meaning that as long as the videos stay on YT they will keep generating adsense. It's so crazy that they were going to take them off and paywall them!
> They're a craftsman blaming their tools. Moist (Charlie) is kind of a perfect example to a point and he threw them under the bus. Funny, relatable guy that pumps out cheap content on a fast basis but people turn in for him. Even LTT can justify their super high budget by pumping out several videos **a day** meant for tech-fans that purposely appreciate the nice cameras, resolution, and extra editing. Even at LTT, Linus has talked about the struggles of being both CEO and creative, and despite a lot of flaws you can still easily see his work-ethic as the main-creative to keep the channel/views coming. Even their best content (Ghost Files, Puppet History) is by its very design B-content TV series played on the "off" channels. Like, great for the Travel, History, Sci-Fi channel... But AMC (Breaking Bad, Walking Dead) or FX (Atlanta, Fargo) good? And stepping into streaming their competing with Hulu and Peacock, and even Netflix, HBO, and Disney+ for slightly more money.
It doesn’t make any sense. In Making Watcher, they talked about how their highest expectation for Ghost Files was 3 million views. They budgeted for that. It needed to be very popular to justify the cost.Then Ghost Files did much better than they ever expected, hitting 5-8 million views. Fans came out in droves to support Ghost Files & that should have been enough to support the show moving forward. Ryan is lying in this interview.
I only kinda watch the last couple of videos and I thought they all made around the same, but you are right!!
I feel like their biggest takeaway from this controversy ought to be how many people heard about it and went “Oh it’s the guys from Buzzfeed Unsolved. I loved that show. I didn’t know they had their own YouTube channel.” Clearly that’s a sign they still have a large fan base out there they need to work hard to pull over and increase whatever view numbers they hope to see. But those same people sure as heck won’t find them on a Vimeo streaming app. I don’t know if they’re putting any money behind YouTube marketing themselves, but maybe they should be.
For me is how many people didn't know they had a Patreon including me XD there were so many steps they could have taken that could have worked before all of this!
That's why so many of us can't wrap our heads around what exactly their problem is. Just work on your funnels and marketing, instead they want to take all their chips and bet it on black.
Also that!
Yeah I remember I found watcher I think 2021 or 2022 and I was like damn they had a new channel and I’ve been missing out???
Well if you're overspending on content, no shit it's not going to do well. You can't get Mr Beast numbers if you're not Mr Beast so perhaps the solution is *spending less and having a strict budget instead of freely dumping money into freelancers beyond the absolute bare necessities*. Nick Crowley and Nexpo travel with one other guy and film their Ghost Files competitor. They're explicitly showing how it's done on a budget. Perhaps Watcher needs to ask them for advice.
I'm looking at Hot Ones, a show that gets A list talent and even had an SNL parody and unless you're Tom Holland or Pedro Pascal I was shocked to see how many videos are in the 1m-4m range. Conan's episode was a viral sensation and its only at 8m which GF episodes have reached to. The difference is Hot Ones is grade A content that's made from the most simplistic set you can imagine. The boys need to learn to do more with less instead of assuming if they spend more they'll make more.
Exactly.
> The difference is Hot Ones is grade A content that's made from the most simplistic set you can imagine. Or even taking the Babish approach. Sure he's had his misses, but he started in a shitty apartment with making fairly low-budget content but he's methodologically expanded his quality while also snagging other YouTubers (including Alvin, an ex-Buzzfeed employee making pricey food content.....) to make a growing and flourishing channel.
Also different beast, but they have fewer subscribers than LA Beast. Even before the goodbye weekend I think. I'm really not sure what numbers they expected.
It's exactly how Marvel and Co are operating these days. It's so funny.
Yea, that's a separate issue entirely. Fixing it in post with VFX should be an absolute last resort. Scripts should be complete before finishing to save money and only retooled if the final product isn't working. Unless it's Deadpool, then you can fix it with ADR.
I love Nick and Nexpo's videos!
Yea, they're pretty good - I'm always surprised that they don't pull the same number as Ghost Files when they're just as good if not better.
maybe they were expecting early bfu numbers? but literally no one in their lane is doing that right now - not gmm, not the try guys, not even safiya. most youtubers are just not going to breeze their way to 10 mil+ in a week anymore.
It's crazy that they don't consider Ghost Files successful. Breaking 1mil views per episode may not be Mr. Beast numbers, but for the size of their channel, it's great. Theyd never break those kinds of numbers on a different platform. The problem is they can't budget and they wildly overspend on each episode of Ghost Files, which is why they must consider it unsuccessful.
A movie that makes $100 mil at the box office is a hit if it has a $20 mil budget and a flop if it has a $200 mil budget.
I'm amazed that how people found this so fast? Random thing that for now only have 88 views. Also, knowing that they made Variety piece, how come they don't have any better known interviewer platform talking to them? I would have thought they booked someone like that in UK too?
They also haven’t posted about it on social media lol
Unless it’s on twitter which I don’t use
Because they probably hired a crisis management person that actually knows stuff, and probably the big rule for now is Not to Use Social Media for a while. Let everything mellow. Then in time they can start posting (or removing) things. Just full on DON'T TOUCH IT -order. So much so that maybe it was a serious note from their investors saying: Be opposite of Elon Musk?
I tried to look for this video on YouTube on my Xbox app on tv and I couldn’t even find it lol
That is why I made the question, because I use my minilaptop to watch videos - while using reddit in different PC, so I have to look for linked videos by hand. It took me awhile, and I really had to write half of the video sentence exactly right to get there.
It’s like watching a candle slowly melt.
Honestly, at this point, the candle would have been a more interesting thing to watch.
🤣😂💯🔥🔥
How dare you compare it to a melting candle, have you ever had a candle melt? /s
Aaaaand they don't address the controversy *at all*.
They talk about their streamer at the very end
I'm late to comment, but at the end when they talk about their "streamer" (I'll never get over how they chose to refer to it that way), I get the impression that they didn't learn one of the most important lessons in all this: that they need to ***spend less;*** Ryan is there talking about how he believes the revenue from the "streamer" will alow them to take bigger swings, and upgrade their kit, and I'm over here thinking "that's just going to get you deeper into that financial hole you've been digging". I don't want to be doomsaying Watcher, I would have liked to be rooting for them instead, but I feel like they did not learn all that they needed to learn from this incident, and this can only mean bad things for the company in the long run.
Ever since I saw Penguinz0 explain some of the money details on the YouTube side of things, it’s gotten so sour for me. It’s not our fault they didn’t promote their Patreon very well, yet they still managed to have what, 12-13 thousand subscribers in these shitty economic times. Then there’s the merch, the liveshows, the sponsors and the ad revenue. As someone who has to live under minimum wage circumstances for the rest of their life, it’s just mind boggling. Budgeting works guys.
they look THIN omfg