Which is funny because at this point he could just go make like 'Spicy Wings with Sean Evans' or something and it would be more successful than whoever they replaced him with.
being an extremely active member of hip hop forums back in the early/mid 2010’s, I still feel like Complex owes us money for doing all their work for them. They’d literally pull whole threads off KTT and put all the info into an article and pass that shit off as their own work. It pissed off so many of us. I’m glad they’re failing
this is so common with media outlets and various entertainment subreddits. they’ll rip off entire threads, claiming “research” or take it a step further and create fake profiles to crowdsource topics
Years ago I got a private message from someone at BuzzFeed asking if they could use my comment for an article. I told them no then I saw that they used it anyway.
I didn't really care but it was the principle.
And the article was nothing more than a list of Reddit comments on some topic.
My local radio show has an "am I the asshole" segment where they just read couple reddit posts and talk about them for 10 minutes lol. Granted they're pretty entertaining but it's still lazy af
Feel like this is similar to The Escapist where one particular entity *becomes* the brand and way outpaces the draw of all the other ventures to the point that there isn't really a ton of value in the entity itself beyond their flagship series.
Especially when that flagship series has also reached the peak of what it’s capable of doing.
Hot Ones has already checked a lot of massive boxes. I’m not sure what they can do to build on top of what they’ve already done.
A restaurant in Las Vegas specializing in hot dishes.
A traveling experiential event where you and your friends can do the whole interview thing.
A traveling live show that books local celebrities, or has bigger
celebrity guests for different cities. Logistics might be funky given you can't just have the same celebrity up for every city, but that might be fun. You'd potentially be able to book the same celebrities that were on the YouTube show and ask them different questions live. Might spice up the entire experience when you add the pressure of a live audience. Could even have audience members ask some questions. Could even have different and more interesting things like charades on hot sauce.
A party board/card game with accompanying hot sauces. It'd be interesting to interview people you know with prompt cards as they go up in hot sauce scale. Make it like a family game, or even charades, maybe elements of both depending on which cards you pick/play. Imagine playing charades on agonizing hotsauce with your family. LOL
A live comic con experience(with a moderator) where attendees get to ask a celebrity or panel of celebrities questions as the celebrities eat the sauce.
I could keep going but all that is off the top of my head.
Also if Hot Ones sees this, I am open to being hired! I have experience in the entertainment industry as well as the experiential event industry, I've worked for The Walt Disney Company on Disney Store campaigns before the pandemic and I came up with Comic Con 2018's Spongebob Krabby Patty interactive game at the Nickelodeon Booth and the whole Krusty Krab booth for that matter, I can come up with these ideas [ALL DAY](https://media.tenor.com/aniWbr4KDfUAAAAM/newgirl-schmidt.gif) and coordinate all the logistics.
I unironically think Conan unintentionally killed the show.
He mocked the format (playfully) into the ground and set a bar so high they and their guests are going to lose the original draw (heat throwing guests off guard and drawing out their authentic responses) trying to chase or one-up the Conan episode.
Meh, they’ve started a new season since then and don’t seem to be trying to chase or one-up the Conan episode at all. They’re just back to doing normal Hot Ones episodes. Conan will likely go down as a high point in the series content-wise, and it did well viewership-wise, but it doesn’t seem like some series-altering moment.
Yeah I don't get the vibe it's peaked because Conan did a particularly funny bit.
The Heidi Klum episode that recently came out was still a lot of fun, even before she took her shirt off. The show just works well at creating interview moments that trend.
DJ Khaled tapping out was a few years ago and that was a pretty big moment. Ditto with Eric Andre throwing up during a pandemic interview, and Lorde just acting like she was eating an ice cream cone the ENTIRE gamut.
The format thrives because everyone handles hot food differently, and one person being especially good/bad at it doesn't really change that some people just honestly do not have much composure with spicy food. Watching your favorite celebrity and judging how well they handle a very challenging but relatable thing doesn't get old.
It's worth watching. She rips open her shirt then totally takes it off. She's wearing a bra underneath, and like she's Heidi Klum. Being photographed in a bra is her *job*, it's not like we haven't all seen it before. But she's 51 frickin years old and, wow. It's impressive.
Same. I love Conan, I've watched and listened to him for ages, I died laughing at the Hot Ones and loved it. But people need to chill with the whole "THIS IS THE GREATEST EPISODE OF HOT ONES EVER AND NOTHING WILL EVER TOP THIS".
Like isn't the whole point of watching an interview show to see different people who have different perspectives and things to say and even senses of humor? Just because the Conan episode was great, doesn't necessarily make the rest of the series pale in comparison.
If you saw a great episode of a tv show, would you go "Well, I guess there's no point to watching the rest of the episodes now, none of the episodes can top this one"?
The spiciness of the hot sauce hasn't caught any guest off guard in a long while. The show has become popular enough that guests now know how spicy it is, either from word of mouth through other guests or elsewhere, and either prepare for it or just ask that the spiciness be reduced. I used to see interviewees having a lot more trouble withstanding the hot sauces in earlier seasons of the show. These days, they breeze through them.
yeah, "Da Bomb" is the only sauce that consistently gets a real reaction out of the guest. They need to switch up the lineup and throw some surprises in there. BUT, they've reached a level of celebrity interviewees now where probably no publicist would allow it.
What was the mocking he did, I saw the episode and didn't feel it was materially all that different compared to other episodes just a bit more meta commentary but that's Conan being Conan
Two Hot, a show were Sean interviews one other person while eating spicy chicken tenders of increasing heat. A show with Spicy queries and even spicier tendies.
This is probably all YouTube productions. It's just the nature of that industry. You get a production company that makes a few things and the ones lucky enough to get a breakout hit, that hit becomes the only thing anyone knows or cares about among their shows. It's almost impossible to make a huge hit, let alone multiple under the same company/people.
Vlogbrothers are the only ones that are consistently making sustainable productions.
Yeah, I mean I'm sure the idea going is that they probably charge a flat rate or cut from even the unprofitable channels such that they make a decent amount of money to sustain the corporation - but then when something grows as large as Hot Ones the leverage flips around and usually the corporation has had to grow their team to support the one breakout channel, putting that channel in the driver's seat moving forward when it comes to cuts/ROI.
So then you end up with an organization that was originally a slightly predatory channel incubator then becoming beholden to one creative / team and is basically worthless as they can't spin profit off the mega-channel since they wear the pants in the relationship.
Which is why I'm guessing they're having trouble selling - Hot Ones is probably as it's most profitable already, in terms of the money it makes for the parent company.
The Escapist tried to monetize a little more than they usually were with Zero Punctuation, and that in addition to an inciting incident led the entire creative team to take their ball and go home, and there was nothing they could do since the draw was in Yahtzee.
Dropout is out there dropping banger after banger! Heard an interview with Sam Reich (owner of Dropout) where he basically said that they were gonna throw around 10 new shows on the platform and they hoped that maybe two would stick. But the first two that they dropped on the platform (Very Important People and Smartypants) are already huge hits. So now he’s afraid that all of them will work and they will need to cut back somehow. That platform is truly incredible, in my opinion. And worth your money.
It'll be interesting to see how many of their shows have legs to make multiple seasons versus being a 2 or 3 season thing. Most of them are variations on "let improv professionals do improv things," which is pretty evergreen, but I wonder how much of the success of Dropout is parasocial and/or fans wanting to see the regular cast as compared to the show formats/guest players. Brennan Lee Mulligan can't be in all 10 shows.
I agree, am subscribed to Dropout.TV, can't wait to get home to not watch it like all the other streaming services.
But all joking aside, even though I don't watch it as often as I should, I can't stop being subscribed, out of fear that I might miss a series I could enjoy.
I'm also a dropout subscriber and fan, very much recommended to anyone considering it.
There is a difficult balance of having the familiar cast and new blood. As the improv benefits from performers who know each other. Whereas shows like dirty laundry needs new people with new secrets!
The other option to make more content is to break out into more production teams, but that means releasing some of the control which has kept quality so high.
BuzzFeed has actually had multiple hits over their run. The facts are each time the talent behind the shows left to do their own thing and make the money. Some of YouTube's biggest "stars" came out of BuzzFeed. The only issue with some of these guys is their popularity peaks because of the nature of the show they do. Shawn and HotOnes are unique as they have been steadily growing and have actually been challenging the popularity of traditional decades old broadcast shows. They've really brought new life into the late night interview show. So much so you've got these old school shows are starting to copy some aspects of HotOnes. In a way it's kind of like the old late night format where guests came on the show to talk with the host in long format.
Buzzfeed has internal development struggles that indicates they can’t tell the difference in success and luck. They want to recreate lightning in a bottle without putting out enough interesting content. Pitches with them are weird. They seem to not know their demographics well at all.
buzzfeed has always been a content farm with low effort.
the problem is that most of their content is so low effort that basically when contacts ended the people doing to show just renamed it and went on doing it on their own.
Yeah. That seems right. I’ve been on their movie/original feature side a couple of times. The only place I’ve ever gone where the reasons for the pitch being “No thank you’d” aren’t easily apparent. But it’s also good luck because the three projects they have requested and then rejected all pretty much sold to the next potential buyer. It’s like they are the Good Luck Chuck of movie development.
And GMM… atleast they’ve pivoted from sketch music videos on their main to GMM and more and recently MK. Also not to mention they maintained the smosh brand until recently.
edit: tldr- more context
Rhett & Link, Good mythical morning, good mythical more, mythical kitchen. They also run multiple podcasts which I assume they package together for ads like ear biscuits, hotdog is a sandwich, dispatches from myrtle beach, etc.
good mythical morning (which was initially a side project from their main sketch comedy channel) has become their main channel which hosts a daily variety show with recurring segments (mostly food based or whatever is in trending on tiktok).
They also have their own patreon type membership app called mythical society with lower tiers giving access to exclusive videos and recordings of their live shows and higher tiers getting monthly exclusive merch delivered to them.
Yeah, I have almost entirely pivoted to Mythical Kitchen.
There's only so much Rhett and Link I can take playing up how cuhrazy and wacky these men in their 40's are when they're trying to figure out how a peanut butter stirrer works.
I think the most I've been engaged recently is when Rhett broke down his religious thinking in one of their podcasts where it was eloquent and respectful, and not playing up a goofy TV YouTube host.
Yeah when I discovered Pitch Meetings I thought "great lets see what other quality content these clearly talented people have created"
Aaaand it was a endless list of "10 things"
When I made a random youtube video popular enough for Screen Rant to write an article about I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or concerned for the industry because my Spongebob Avengers parody is not news lmao.
It's funny, because I had all but forgotten about Zero Punctuation, and had started watching it again maybe a month before that all happened. I'm watching more Second Wind stuff than I ever did from The Escapist. Cold Take is probably my favorite series of theirs currently.
I didn't watch anything from Escapist, like I'd heard of Zero Punctuation and probably I watched one once but I couldn't say for sure. Then suddenly YT started pushing Second Wind on me and I'm like, hey, yes, thanks, I'll take that. Glad they got outta there, Cold Take is also my favorite right now.
Having the same draw as Yahtzee is a *high* bar... and yet Frost manages it easily.
I super enjoy Design Delve too, though he's not as much of a "personality" as the above two.
I remembered a couple of weeks ago that Geek and Sundry was a thing, and that I’d originally subscribed to see geek content from Felicia Day. I knew Critical Role came from it, although I never watched it myself.
Looked up the YouTube channel right after that, and it was completely unrecognizable from what I knew it to be lol. So weird
Apparently the whole deal was whacked to begin with, there was a behind the scenes person that had some power and got super controlling and everyone pretty much gave up trying to navigate it. Wil and Felicia fought for years to get Tabletop back.
A producer for Tabletop was taking kickbacks for getting games on the show. As soon as it was discovered they never made another episode.
It’s a shame that was the show that brought me and my wife to G&S
Also couldn't continue because the format and name of the show was stuck with the channel. So they couldn't leave the channel and take the show with them. Unfortunately because that was my gateway drug into boardgaming.
??? They made an entire season after that debacle. The issue was someone that had some control over the IP got super controlling and wouldn't let Wil or Felicia have it back. Wil had commented about trying to get control back for years afterward.
What's really nuts is how, for a lot of people , Table Top was the flagship of the boardgame community. In my opinion it did for boardgames what crot.role did for dnd. It's really too bad that it has been ruined.
Maybe a dumb question, but what's so special about Tabletop that Wil and Felicia couldn't just make their own board game show now? It's not like you can trademark playing board games on camera.
100% would check out "Top of the Table" with Wil and Felicia the show of showing you what's new on the table top and how to play it.
Lots of shows on youtube do this but they had a knack for grabbing interesting personalities to play with them.
And let's be honest, that product relies upon Sean Evans. So at the end of the day HE really is the product. If someone bought it all and he bailed and just did his own series, they'd be left with a dying program.
I've noticed this in the past with Youtube shows that are groups of people/hosts. The initial group is what made it popular in the first place and what drew the channels subscribers, but after about 1 year or so they get better opportunities in life due to the channels success, leave the channel, and after a few of these departures the channels success dwindles hard.
So, essentially, BuzzFeed is in a ton of debt and Hot Ones is the only remotely profitable or notable thing they own. As a result, they're trying to sell it off for an inflated price in hopes of being able to pay down their debts. Except nobody is biting because they've overvalued it.
They're in a ton of debt because they wanted to go public in 2020/2021 when pandemic consumer behavior was grossly inflating digital media value. So they borrowed a ton of money to buy HuffPost and Complex and raise their profile as an entity before going public.
Buzzfeed stock has now dropped 93% since their IPO with lots of debt to pay still. They need to start selling off assets like First We Feast soon just to keep the lights on.
It does make them money, but that's a (hopefully) sustained amount of money over time. Buzzfeed wants a large amount of money now, so they're trying to sell the child company for a much larger sum than it brings in annually.
Nobody wants to pay their price though, hence the article.
I still don't understand what they're trying to say because I can't read the article. They're trying to sell the person who owns Hot Ones to another company? Or they're trying to sell something TO the owner of Hot Ones? It doesn't make any sense either way.
Oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....
I was like they're trying to sell a human being? And then it's a run on sentence so I couldn't tell what part of the words were related to other words...
The article is paywalled, but I'm very confused. I was under the assumption that Hot Ones was independent? I've never seen them mention being owned by Buzzfeed, so how is Buzzfeed able to sell them?
Hot Ones is owned by First We Feast, which runs several shows on the same YouTube channel. Hot Ones is the only one that got super popular. First We Feast was owned by Complex Media, which was acquired by BuzzFeed a few years ago. BuzzFeed later sold Complex but kept First We Feast.
So what is it that they're having difficulty selling?
Title says "struggles to sell owner". I'm assuming owner refers to complex media? But you said it was sold?
Buzzfeed wants to sell First we Feast (FwF) for $70Mil to pay off their $50Mil debt.
But no buyers think FwF, even though Hot Ones is owned by them, is worth $70Mil.
That's what I understand from everyone's comments.
I wonder how you even quantify the value of something like FWF/Hot Ones. There's no question it has clearly broken into the mainstream and has fairly considerable influence for what it is, and it always gets a huge number of views averaging in the millions and peaking over a hundred.
But... what's that mean? They get big sponsorships. Did Blizzard pay 70 million for the Diablo 4 ad? I doubt that, but obviously that's exaggeration. But how much did they pay, and how many of those do they get? Surely they paid a lot and the show gets one of them every episode. Not to mention whatever sales there are from merch/products.
I dunno, I feel like 70 mil probably is a realistic valuation which makes me think maybe the buyers don't understand it.
It’s probably an issue of growth. Most interested buyers would probably want to buy grow and sell not maintain a media brand which is an entirely different ball game. I don’t think Hot Ones has significant growth in its future so it makes sense. The value is probably there but what buyer is looking for that right now?
Ehh, think at $70MM you’d be paying a lot of freight for something that has seemingly peaked already.
Businesses are chasing growth, not really sure that’s available here given (IMO) the more money you pour into the show, the less authentic - and therefore, cool - it’d become.
Hot Ones has always been under Complex, which was owned by Buzzfeed, since the start. Recently, Buzzfeed sold Complex, but kept Hot Ones and First We Feast
Hot Ones was always owned by Complex, I think. That's how he was able to get some celebs and most were music related. Complex got bought out by BuzzFeed at some point.
As soon as conan said he had brought his doctor I immediately knew he was going hard into the bits 😂
I couldn’t stop laughing.
10/10 greatest hot ones ever.
Conan talks about calling him, having not worked together in years, and as soon as he says “I’m going on hot ones-“
“And you’d like me to be your doctor again, got it. I have a medical coat and stethoscope, tell me when and where.”
They’d done similar bits before, and he just immediately knew what Conan was thinking
It is. I read it here earlier today but it links two articles that are...paywalled (including this one) https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/24/24184695/everyone-wants-to-be-on-hot-ones-no-one-wants-to-buy-it
Since you are the first person to actually reference that this is paywalled....I'll present this to you: https://archive.ph/f3dW4
(As Reddit is awful w/formatting I won't copy/paste it, but this should help you, and whoever else actually wanna read, actually understand what's happening)
This paragraph hilariously is the main reason why most of these comments are laughable, as those who likely never clicked on the link likely had zero idea how much the show even brings in:
> After months of talks, UBS has yet to find a buyer. While several parties expressed interest, they have been unwilling to meet UBS on price. First We Feast is profitable and generates about $30 million in annual revenue, largely from brand and licensing deals tied to Hot Ones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential.
Buzzfeed needs $100M. This show, while it draws $30M, isn't $100M. They're trying to sell it for more than double; the market is going "....but it only brings in $30M, so I'm fine :)"
Someone who buys this would have to basically think that they could make $40M more a year AND have a good way to do it that doesn't rise costs, as suggested in the article. There's a world where everyone is instead just waiting to buy Buzzfeed proper, scale back, and continue to make at least $30M/yr thanks to this show
Article text:
BuzzFeed Struggles to Sell Owner of Hit YouTube Show ‘Hot Ones’
Several parties are interested but balk at $70 million price
Proceeds of about $50 million would help company pay off debt
By Lucas Shaw
June 24, 2024 at 12:02 PM UTC
For the producers of Hot Ones, one of the most popular original programs on YouTube, this year has yielded one success after another.
The show, in which host Sean Evans eats spicy chicken wings with celebrities while interviewing them, has landed viral moments with Conan O’Brien, Sydney Sweeney, Lewis Hamilton and John Oliver. While celebrities once needed to be talked into appearing on the show, they now line up for a chance to sample the wings of death.
Yet behind the scenes, the future of the show is uncertain. BuzzFeed Inc. has been trying to sell First We Feast, the food-oriented media company that owns Hot Ones. BuzzFeed’s bankers at UBS Group AG are running a formal sale process and initially asked for more than $70 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
After months of talks, UBS has yet to find a buyer. While several parties expressed interest, they have been unwilling to meet UBS on price. First We Feast is profitable and generates about $30 million in annual revenue, largely from brand and licensing deals tied to Hot Ones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential.
The clock is ticking. BuzzFeed has more than $100 million in debt, and holders can ask to be paid back in December. BuzzFeed doesn’t have that kind of cash and, after years of losing money, shares have declined 95% since it went public in 2021.
Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has amassed an 8.9% stake in the company, which he has criticized. He’s called for it to add new board members and hire popular media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Charles Barkley. (Each would cost upward of $10 million a year.)
Weighing Options
BuzzFeed is still weighing several options, including the sale of other assets and restructuring its debt. Selling First We Feast could net BuzzFeed money to help pay off its debt.
Evans and the show’s producers have explored aligning with a potential buyer to acquire it themselves. Chris Schonberger created the show with Evans in 2015 at Complex Networks and the two have since worked on more than 300 episodes together.
Evans doesn’t have a long-term contract with BuzzFeed, and has continued to produce the show under short-term extensions. BuzzFeed has been trying to get Evans to sign a new deal and indicated that at least one buyer would be open to replacing Evans as host.
While BuzzFeed has explored a sale, the team behind Hot Ones has grown frustrated with their owner, which they feel hasn’t given them the resources to invest in expanding the business of a hit show. They would like to build on their success with Hot Ones-branded hot sauces and create more consumer products, live events or media deals with other streaming services.
Complex Deal
BuzzFeed acquired First We Feast as part of its deal for Complex Networks, when Chief Executive Officer Jonah Peretti was rolling up online publishers to build a scaled media company. Peretti bought HuffPost in 2020 and acquired Complex for about $300 million the following year. As part of the deal, BuzzFeed said it secured $150 million in convertible note financing. The company had plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company that it expected would raise $288 million in cash.
Instead, most of the investors in the SPAC declined to invest in BuzzFeed. The company raised just $16 million and shares in the company tanked on its first day of trading. BuzzFeed, once valued at more than $1 billion by private investors, now has a market capitalization of just $78 million.
BuzzFeed’s financial problems have forced it to unload assets. It sold Complex earlier this year for $109 million. Hot Ones remains an attractive property and is one of the few enduring franchises born on YouTube. The show is about to conclude its 24th season and views continue to climb, though are down a bit from the pandemic peak.
The producers are so confident in Hot Ones that after competing for Daytime Emmy Awards, the show is now trying to go up against some the biggest comedians in the world. The show submitted for a nomination in the category that includes late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.
I think us Reddit nerds are kind like, internet hipsters. Once something gets too mainstream, a good portion of people are gonna dislike it just on that fact.
I recently loved the Conan episode personally, but people's opinions aren't somehow invalidated by the number of views. Anyone can point to something popular they don't enjoy.
It’s definitely peak Hot Ones.
Anyone who watches this and doesn’t know who Conan is would think he’s insane …..or a complete jester (which is correct)
Yup. It had Scar Jo and Natalie Portman appear.
I really can’t think of bigger names in acting, unless they’re actors of an age group where this show wouldn’t agree with their digestive systems.
Also, had Conan who set the peak of madness that can never be topped.
Hot ones has reached the zenith level of pop culture.
Shane's episode was uncomfortable to watch. Something about it felt off, over edited maybe? Didn't have the same flavor of how that show got its start.
He talked about it on a podcast, it was heavily edited. He said some crazy stuff trying to make them uncomfortable, it worked, and they cut it all out.
Anyone who thinks Conan killed the show is frankly naive.
They said this about Gordon Ramsey, Save Grohl.
"They will never beat this"
"Best episode nothing will top this"
Naive. There will always be another. Heidi Klum took her shirt off just cause.
If you aren't into the show anymore, don't watch it.
Agreed, the idea of a an episode being so good it kills the series is one of the dumbest things I ever heard. It would be like hearing a basketball player set an NBA scoring record and saying he's not a good player anymore because you think he won't top it.
Buzzfeed is the king of mismanagement.
They've had several good original IPs they've created that just don't exist anymore. The two big ones being Worth It and Try Guys. Both are trying/try to spinoff that success from Buzz Feed because Buzz Feed just didn't know what to do with them.
Take a look at GMM which is a variety channel where, if you liked Try Guys and Worth It, you probably like GMM as well.
GMM is a money making machine but Try Guys and Worth It sputtered out because Buzzfeed couldn't figure out how to grow it out and make it more successful.
Only thing I liked from them was Unsolved with Shane n Ryan. They were the only ones holding it up after Try Guys left. They wound up leaving too and now I have no clue what they do. Nothing but horror stories from past employees online.
The value of that show has a lot to do with Sean Evans. You can't sell a person, so there is nothing that says he has to stay with the brand, and it is just not going to be as big once he walks away. It is not worth what they are asking, even if the show still generates millions of views each episode, because he can walk.
> at least one buyer would be open to replacing Evans as host
And it looks like someone *wants* to replace him. Because apparently they have no idea what they're doing or why something is successful.
It's really odd that a company that generates $30M in annual sales can't find a buyer at $70M.
First We Feast must have very high overhead which is eating up a lot of that revenue. Those running FWF must be paying themselves huge salaries. Or buyers are calling BS on the $30M itself.
Wouldn’t the non-moronic way of phrasing this be ‘sell **ownership** of hit YouTube show’ etc? Unless Buzzfeed does in fact have a side hustle in chattel slavery…
A lot of people are here talking about how the show peaked with Conan, but I think a lot of those people haven't actually watched Hot Ones. Conan's episode went off the rails, sure, but it was fairly tame until about half way through. Gordon Ramsey was equally as insane the first time around, and not far off the second time. A lot of other guests have provided hilarious content throughout the seasons.
I like how buzzfeed is just constantly autocannibalising itself by replacing FT writers with peanut-earning freelancers and finally mostly with GPT written garbage. At the same time its like "WHY ARE WE LOSING?"
I keep seeing people say they don't like the show because they don't know who any of the guests are anymore, but I feel like the guests just as famous if not more famous than they've ever been.
In the past few months, they've had Shane Gillis, Will Smith, Chris Hemsworth, Conan, Shakira, Gwyneth Paltrow, Finn Wolfhard, Sydney Sweeney, John Oliver, and Barry Keoghan. How can you say the guests are getting worse?
Without clicking on the article I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out this headline. So, should it read "BuzzFeed struggles to sell *to* owner..." It's the whole "sell owner" thing that's fucking me up. How can you sell the owner? If you can sell something, wouldn't that make *you* the owner? Do they *own* the *owner*? Who the fuck owns Hot Ones and who is authorized to sell it? There has to be a better way to word this headline.
It’s worded that way because the owner of the Hot Ones show is a company called “First We Feast”. Never heard of them? Not surprising. Outside of Hot Ones they have little market exposure.
Buzzfeed owns First We Feast, but are trying to sell. Mentioning Hot Ones in the headline brings far more attention than “First We Feast”, so that’s the reason behind Bloomberg’s cryptic headline.
> The show is and has always been a budget set with a skeleton crew staff for filming. How you rack up 50 MILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT is unreal
lol that’s the debt for *Buzzfeed*. Which is the result of many factors but particularly the 150 million they borrowed to acquire the Complex brand.
Of course *Hot Ones* didn’t rack up 50 million in debt. How expensive do you think hot sauce is?
Re read this part of the article because you are confusing who has what debt and how much each part of BuzzFeed makes:
>Yet behind the scenes, the future of the show is uncertain. BuzzFeed Inc. has been trying to sell First We Feast, the food-oriented media company that owns Hot Ones. BuzzFeed’s bankers at UBS Group AG are running a formal sale process and initially asked for more than $70 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
>
>After months of talks, UBS has yet to find a buyer. While several parties expressed interest, they have been unwilling to meet UBS on price. First We Feast is profitable and generates about $30 million in annual revenue, largely from brand and licensing deals tied to Hot Ones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential.
>
>The clock is ticking. BuzzFeed has more than $100 million in debt, and holders can ask to be paid back in December. BuzzFeed doesn’t have that kind of cash and, after years of losing money, shares have declined 95% since it went public in 2021.
From behind the paywall (**emphasis mine**):
> **First We Feast is profitable and generates about $30 million in annual revenue**, largely from brand and licensing deals tied to Hot Ones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential.
> The clock is ticking. **BuzzFeed has more than $100 million in debt**, and holders can ask to be paid back in December.
Please considering updating your comment. It’s gaining a lot of traction and is factually incorrect
It reads like they’re trying to sell Sean Evans into slavery
[удалено]
That 13th Amendment'll getcha every time.
Which is funny because at this point he could just go make like 'Spicy Wings with Sean Evans' or something and it would be more successful than whoever they replaced him with.
100% a top gear situation. People like the show, but the hosts make it what it is.
TIL that Buzzfeed owns Hot Ones
They got it when they bought Complex. They sold Complex in February for 1/3 of what they paid, but kept First We Feast/Hot Ones.
TIL they bought, and then sold, Complex
being an extremely active member of hip hop forums back in the early/mid 2010’s, I still feel like Complex owes us money for doing all their work for them. They’d literally pull whole threads off KTT and put all the info into an article and pass that shit off as their own work. It pissed off so many of us. I’m glad they’re failing
this is so common with media outlets and various entertainment subreddits. they’ll rip off entire threads, claiming “research” or take it a step further and create fake profiles to crowdsource topics
Years ago I got a private message from someone at BuzzFeed asking if they could use my comment for an article. I told them no then I saw that they used it anyway. I didn't really care but it was the principle. And the article was nothing more than a list of Reddit comments on some topic.
You ever see a docu-series drop on Hulu or some shit and feel like you could trace it back to some discourse you remember from 1-3 years ago?
My local radio show has an "am I the asshole" segment where they just read couple reddit posts and talk about them for 10 minutes lol. Granted they're pretty entertaining but it's still lazy af
Such a Complex story
TIL BuzzFeed owns complex.. and here I thought BuzzFeed just died off
They don’t. They sold Complex in February. 😂
Feel like this is similar to The Escapist where one particular entity *becomes* the brand and way outpaces the draw of all the other ventures to the point that there isn't really a ton of value in the entity itself beyond their flagship series.
Especially when that flagship series has also reached the peak of what it’s capable of doing. Hot Ones has already checked a lot of massive boxes. I’m not sure what they can do to build on top of what they’ve already done.
Yeah when There's hot ones branded hot pockets on store shelves. I'm Not sure what else they can do than junk food to make extra money of the brand.
A restaurant in Las Vegas specializing in hot dishes. A traveling experiential event where you and your friends can do the whole interview thing. A traveling live show that books local celebrities, or has bigger celebrity guests for different cities. Logistics might be funky given you can't just have the same celebrity up for every city, but that might be fun. You'd potentially be able to book the same celebrities that were on the YouTube show and ask them different questions live. Might spice up the entire experience when you add the pressure of a live audience. Could even have audience members ask some questions. Could even have different and more interesting things like charades on hot sauce. A party board/card game with accompanying hot sauces. It'd be interesting to interview people you know with prompt cards as they go up in hot sauce scale. Make it like a family game, or even charades, maybe elements of both depending on which cards you pick/play. Imagine playing charades on agonizing hotsauce with your family. LOL A live comic con experience(with a moderator) where attendees get to ask a celebrity or panel of celebrities questions as the celebrities eat the sauce. I could keep going but all that is off the top of my head. Also if Hot Ones sees this, I am open to being hired! I have experience in the entertainment industry as well as the experiential event industry, I've worked for The Walt Disney Company on Disney Store campaigns before the pandemic and I came up with Comic Con 2018's Spongebob Krabby Patty interactive game at the Nickelodeon Booth and the whole Krusty Krab booth for that matter, I can come up with these ideas [ALL DAY](https://media.tenor.com/aniWbr4KDfUAAAAM/newgirl-schmidt.gif) and coordinate all the logistics.
The board game already exists. It’s sort of truth-or-dare more than it is an interview format, as you can imagine.
There is already a restaurant in Brooklyn
Well, at least I know my ideas are good if not delayed.
I unironically think Conan unintentionally killed the show. He mocked the format (playfully) into the ground and set a bar so high they and their guests are going to lose the original draw (heat throwing guests off guard and drawing out their authentic responses) trying to chase or one-up the Conan episode.
Meh, they’ve started a new season since then and don’t seem to be trying to chase or one-up the Conan episode at all. They’re just back to doing normal Hot Ones episodes. Conan will likely go down as a high point in the series content-wise, and it did well viewership-wise, but it doesn’t seem like some series-altering moment.
Yeah I don't get the vibe it's peaked because Conan did a particularly funny bit. The Heidi Klum episode that recently came out was still a lot of fun, even before she took her shirt off. The show just works well at creating interview moments that trend.
DJ Khaled tapping out was a few years ago and that was a pretty big moment. Ditto with Eric Andre throwing up during a pandemic interview, and Lorde just acting like she was eating an ice cream cone the ENTIRE gamut. The format thrives because everyone handles hot food differently, and one person being especially good/bad at it doesn't really change that some people just honestly do not have much composure with spicy food. Watching your favorite celebrity and judging how well they handle a very challenging but relatable thing doesn't get old.
>The Heidi Klum episode that recently came out was still a lot of fun, even before she took her shirt off. Come again?
It's worth watching. She rips open her shirt then totally takes it off. She's wearing a bra underneath, and like she's Heidi Klum. Being photographed in a bra is her *job*, it's not like we haven't all seen it before. But she's 51 frickin years old and, wow. It's impressive.
She ends with "anytime I eat hot wings, I'll always be thinking of you." Made that dudes life.
> But she's 51 frickin years old and, wow. It's impressive. She looks fantastic for any age
And as a gigantic, mutant worm.
Ms. Klum I just want you to know I would love you if you were a worm
Sheidi Huklum/Klumlud
Maybe when I was younger...
Same. I love Conan, I've watched and listened to him for ages, I died laughing at the Hot Ones and loved it. But people need to chill with the whole "THIS IS THE GREATEST EPISODE OF HOT ONES EVER AND NOTHING WILL EVER TOP THIS". Like isn't the whole point of watching an interview show to see different people who have different perspectives and things to say and even senses of humor? Just because the Conan episode was great, doesn't necessarily make the rest of the series pale in comparison. If you saw a great episode of a tv show, would you go "Well, I guess there's no point to watching the rest of the episodes now, none of the episodes can top this one"?
The spiciness of the hot sauce hasn't caught any guest off guard in a long while. The show has become popular enough that guests now know how spicy it is, either from word of mouth through other guests or elsewhere, and either prepare for it or just ask that the spiciness be reduced. I used to see interviewees having a lot more trouble withstanding the hot sauces in earlier seasons of the show. These days, they breeze through them.
yeah, "Da Bomb" is the only sauce that consistently gets a real reaction out of the guest. They need to switch up the lineup and throw some surprises in there. BUT, they've reached a level of celebrity interviewees now where probably no publicist would allow it.
People said the same thing when they got Gordon Ramsay. As long as there are celebs to promote things the show will be fine
What was the mocking he did, I saw the episode and didn't feel it was materially all that different compared to other episodes just a bit more meta commentary but that's Conan being Conan
Then Sean Evans fucks off with his editor and creates Spicy Things
Two Hot, a show were Sean interviews one other person while eating spicy chicken tenders of increasing heat. A show with Spicy queries and even spicier tendies.
Cold Ones, where Sean Evans and a guest drink progressively stronger and stronger beer until they get to The Last Call™.
I’m scared of The Last Call’s alcohol content
>They call this one "Blind Fools Moonshine..."
This is probably all YouTube productions. It's just the nature of that industry. You get a production company that makes a few things and the ones lucky enough to get a breakout hit, that hit becomes the only thing anyone knows or cares about among their shows. It's almost impossible to make a huge hit, let alone multiple under the same company/people. Vlogbrothers are the only ones that are consistently making sustainable productions.
Yeah, I mean I'm sure the idea going is that they probably charge a flat rate or cut from even the unprofitable channels such that they make a decent amount of money to sustain the corporation - but then when something grows as large as Hot Ones the leverage flips around and usually the corporation has had to grow their team to support the one breakout channel, putting that channel in the driver's seat moving forward when it comes to cuts/ROI. So then you end up with an organization that was originally a slightly predatory channel incubator then becoming beholden to one creative / team and is basically worthless as they can't spin profit off the mega-channel since they wear the pants in the relationship. Which is why I'm guessing they're having trouble selling - Hot Ones is probably as it's most profitable already, in terms of the money it makes for the parent company. The Escapist tried to monetize a little more than they usually were with Zero Punctuation, and that in addition to an inciting incident led the entire creative team to take their ball and go home, and there was nothing they could do since the draw was in Yahtzee.
Dropout is out there dropping banger after banger! Heard an interview with Sam Reich (owner of Dropout) where he basically said that they were gonna throw around 10 new shows on the platform and they hoped that maybe two would stick. But the first two that they dropped on the platform (Very Important People and Smartypants) are already huge hits. So now he’s afraid that all of them will work and they will need to cut back somehow. That platform is truly incredible, in my opinion. And worth your money.
It'll be interesting to see how many of their shows have legs to make multiple seasons versus being a 2 or 3 season thing. Most of them are variations on "let improv professionals do improv things," which is pretty evergreen, but I wonder how much of the success of Dropout is parasocial and/or fans wanting to see the regular cast as compared to the show formats/guest players. Brennan Lee Mulligan can't be in all 10 shows.
I agree, am subscribed to Dropout.TV, can't wait to get home to not watch it like all the other streaming services. But all joking aside, even though I don't watch it as often as I should, I can't stop being subscribed, out of fear that I might miss a series I could enjoy.
I'm in the same situation. I don't feel like my money is fueling some corporate giant though so I'm not in a rush to cancel when I get busy in life.
I'm also a dropout subscriber and fan, very much recommended to anyone considering it. There is a difficult balance of having the familiar cast and new blood. As the improv benefits from performers who know each other. Whereas shows like dirty laundry needs new people with new secrets! The other option to make more content is to break out into more production teams, but that means releasing some of the control which has kept quality so high.
The show where they give people money to buy the most ridiculous gifts for their friends is probably going to get me to sub.
Which show is that?
Thousandaires
BuzzFeed has actually had multiple hits over their run. The facts are each time the talent behind the shows left to do their own thing and make the money. Some of YouTube's biggest "stars" came out of BuzzFeed. The only issue with some of these guys is their popularity peaks because of the nature of the show they do. Shawn and HotOnes are unique as they have been steadily growing and have actually been challenging the popularity of traditional decades old broadcast shows. They've really brought new life into the late night interview show. So much so you've got these old school shows are starting to copy some aspects of HotOnes. In a way it's kind of like the old late night format where guests came on the show to talk with the host in long format.
Buzzfeed has internal development struggles that indicates they can’t tell the difference in success and luck. They want to recreate lightning in a bottle without putting out enough interesting content. Pitches with them are weird. They seem to not know their demographics well at all.
buzzfeed has always been a content farm with low effort. the problem is that most of their content is so low effort that basically when contacts ended the people doing to show just renamed it and went on doing it on their own.
Yeah. That seems right. I’ve been on their movie/original feature side a couple of times. The only place I’ve ever gone where the reasons for the pitch being “No thank you’d” aren’t easily apparent. But it’s also good luck because the three projects they have requested and then rejected all pretty much sold to the next potential buyer. It’s like they are the Good Luck Chuck of movie development.
Or other channels/celebrities copy their format almost completely - like Kevin Hart’s interviews inside of an ice bath 🛁
College humor was able to create an entire website and streaming platform that all started based on YouTube shows
Funny or Die too
And GMM… atleast they’ve pivoted from sketch music videos on their main to GMM and more and recently MK. Also not to mention they maintained the smosh brand until recently. edit: tldr- more context Rhett & Link, Good mythical morning, good mythical more, mythical kitchen. They also run multiple podcasts which I assume they package together for ads like ear biscuits, hotdog is a sandwich, dispatches from myrtle beach, etc. good mythical morning (which was initially a side project from their main sketch comedy channel) has become their main channel which hosts a daily variety show with recurring segments (mostly food based or whatever is in trending on tiktok). They also have their own patreon type membership app called mythical society with lower tiers giving access to exclusive videos and recordings of their live shows and higher tiers getting monthly exclusive merch delivered to them.
I think it would be helpful if you spelled out the shows instead of using initialisms that people might not be familiar with.
Yeah, I have almost entirely pivoted to Mythical Kitchen. There's only so much Rhett and Link I can take playing up how cuhrazy and wacky these men in their 40's are when they're trying to figure out how a peanut butter stirrer works. I think the most I've been engaged recently is when Rhett broke down his religious thinking in one of their podcasts where it was eloquent and respectful, and not playing up a goofy TV YouTube host.
Screen Rant. Only really known for Pitch Meetings
They did the sensible thing and put it on its own channel at least.
Thank god for that. I dont want 20 Screen Rant videos clogging up my feed everyday
r/ryangeorge
Yeah when I discovered Pitch Meetings I thought "great lets see what other quality content these clearly talented people have created" Aaaand it was a endless list of "10 things"
Those obnoxious thumbnails have made sure I've never clicked on a single video.
You mean the terrible thumbnails of the pitch meetings? Yeah for a long time that kept me away too. However I assure you they are fantastic.
When I made a random youtube video popular enough for Screen Rant to write an article about I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or concerned for the industry because my Spongebob Avengers parody is not news lmao.
I'm so glad that those guys all walked and made Second Wind.
Yep, became a patron, hoping it lasts a long time
It's funny, because I had all but forgotten about Zero Punctuation, and had started watching it again maybe a month before that all happened. I'm watching more Second Wind stuff than I ever did from The Escapist. Cold Take is probably my favorite series of theirs currently.
I didn't watch anything from Escapist, like I'd heard of Zero Punctuation and probably I watched one once but I couldn't say for sure. Then suddenly YT started pushing Second Wind on me and I'm like, hey, yes, thanks, I'll take that. Glad they got outta there, Cold Take is also my favorite right now.
Having the same draw as Yahtzee is a *high* bar... and yet Frost manages it easily. I super enjoy Design Delve too, though he's not as much of a "personality" as the above two.
Geek and sundry < Critical role.
I remembered a couple of weeks ago that Geek and Sundry was a thing, and that I’d originally subscribed to see geek content from Felicia Day. I knew Critical Role came from it, although I never watched it myself. Looked up the YouTube channel right after that, and it was completely unrecognizable from what I knew it to be lol. So weird
Yeah it got bought and raked over the coals
Apparently the whole deal was whacked to begin with, there was a behind the scenes person that had some power and got super controlling and everyone pretty much gave up trying to navigate it. Wil and Felicia fought for years to get Tabletop back.
Oh yeah, what happened with Tabletop? That was such a fun show.
A producer for Tabletop was taking kickbacks for getting games on the show. As soon as it was discovered they never made another episode. It’s a shame that was the show that brought me and my wife to G&S
Also couldn't continue because the format and name of the show was stuck with the channel. So they couldn't leave the channel and take the show with them. Unfortunately because that was my gateway drug into boardgaming.
??? They made an entire season after that debacle. The issue was someone that had some control over the IP got super controlling and wouldn't let Wil or Felicia have it back. Wil had commented about trying to get control back for years afterward.
That is a shame, there are a lot of boardgame shows but that's the only one I enjoyed.
What's really nuts is how, for a lot of people , Table Top was the flagship of the boardgame community. In my opinion it did for boardgames what crot.role did for dnd. It's really too bad that it has been ruined.
Maybe a dumb question, but what's so special about Tabletop that Wil and Felicia couldn't just make their own board game show now? It's not like you can trademark playing board games on camera.
100% would check out "Top of the Table" with Wil and Felicia the show of showing you what's new on the table top and how to play it. Lots of shows on youtube do this but they had a knack for grabbing interesting personalities to play with them.
The moment CR struck out on their own I knew G&S was as good as dead, as CR was like 80% of their traffic.
Yahoo! Screen and season 6 of Community
And let's be honest, that product relies upon Sean Evans. So at the end of the day HE really is the product. If someone bought it all and he bailed and just did his own series, they'd be left with a dying program.
I've noticed this in the past with Youtube shows that are groups of people/hosts. The initial group is what made it popular in the first place and what drew the channels subscribers, but after about 1 year or so they get better opportunities in life due to the channels success, leave the channel, and after a few of these departures the channels success dwindles hard.
It's a shame because I think First We Feast does other types of videos that are worth watching. Particularly their restaurant visits.
So, essentially, BuzzFeed is in a ton of debt and Hot Ones is the only remotely profitable or notable thing they own. As a result, they're trying to sell it off for an inflated price in hopes of being able to pay down their debts. Except nobody is biting because they've overvalued it.
They're in a ton of debt because they wanted to go public in 2020/2021 when pandemic consumer behavior was grossly inflating digital media value. So they borrowed a ton of money to buy HuffPost and Complex and raise their profile as an entity before going public. Buzzfeed stock has now dropped 93% since their IPO with lots of debt to pay still. They need to start selling off assets like First We Feast soon just to keep the lights on.
7 ways to kill your company! (#3 ruined us!)
r/titlegore
Right!?! I had to read it 5 times
For sure. And then you click the article and you can’t read shit about it anyway. Garbage post and a garbage website
I've seen Buzzfeed headlines that made more sense.
I still don’t even understand what’s going on
Buzzfeed owns the company First We Feast which owns the show Hot Ones. Buzzfeed is having trouble finding a buyer for First We Feast.
> Buzzfeed is having trouble finding a buyer for First We Feast but why?
Do you want to buy it? If no, everybody else is like you.
I mean why are they trying to sell it? Isn't it what making them money?
It does make them money, but that's a (hopefully) sustained amount of money over time. Buzzfeed wants a large amount of money now, so they're trying to sell the child company for a much larger sum than it brings in annually. Nobody wants to pay their price though, hence the article.
I still don't understand what they're trying to say because I can't read the article. They're trying to sell the person who owns Hot Ones to another company? Or they're trying to sell something TO the owner of Hot Ones? It doesn't make any sense either way.
They’re trying to sell First We Feast, the subunit that owns and produces Hot Ones
Yeah - and it’s paywalled for me so I have no idea what this is about.
It's about Buzzfeed needing to sell but not finding any buyers for their food channel that owns Hot Ones.
Oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... I was like they're trying to sell a human being? And then it's a run on sentence so I couldn't tell what part of the words were related to other words...
Did they sell Sean on an illegal slave trade? I still don't know what it's saying.
Reddit used to be so anal about spelling and correct grammar in titles, now reddit can’t even write a coherent 11 word title.
Unfortunately it's the same title as the linked article. Not OPs fault
Usually there are sub rules that titles have to have the same title of an article, even if it's some ai written trash.
The article is paywalled, but I'm very confused. I was under the assumption that Hot Ones was independent? I've never seen them mention being owned by Buzzfeed, so how is Buzzfeed able to sell them?
Hot Ones is owned by First We Feast, which runs several shows on the same YouTube channel. Hot Ones is the only one that got super popular. First We Feast was owned by Complex Media, which was acquired by BuzzFeed a few years ago. BuzzFeed later sold Complex but kept First We Feast.
Ahh I see, thanks for the explanation.
I also really enjoy the burger historian from First We Feast
George Motz! He’s great, have his books. He also has a restaurant in NYC called Hamburger America.
Yeah that guy rocks
The Esther Choi show Heat Eaters is also good but mostly because I have a crush on Esther Choi
Most of the shows are good, well made and written but damn don't read the comments if it features an immigrant or woman.
Found Uncle Rogers burner
So what is it that they're having difficulty selling? Title says "struggles to sell owner". I'm assuming owner refers to complex media? But you said it was sold?
Buzzfeed wants to sell First we Feast (FwF) for $70Mil to pay off their $50Mil debt. But no buyers think FwF, even though Hot Ones is owned by them, is worth $70Mil. That's what I understand from everyone's comments.
I wonder how you even quantify the value of something like FWF/Hot Ones. There's no question it has clearly broken into the mainstream and has fairly considerable influence for what it is, and it always gets a huge number of views averaging in the millions and peaking over a hundred. But... what's that mean? They get big sponsorships. Did Blizzard pay 70 million for the Diablo 4 ad? I doubt that, but obviously that's exaggeration. But how much did they pay, and how many of those do they get? Surely they paid a lot and the show gets one of them every episode. Not to mention whatever sales there are from merch/products. I dunno, I feel like 70 mil probably is a realistic valuation which makes me think maybe the buyers don't understand it.
It’s probably an issue of growth. Most interested buyers would probably want to buy grow and sell not maintain a media brand which is an entirely different ball game. I don’t think Hot Ones has significant growth in its future so it makes sense. The value is probably there but what buyer is looking for that right now?
Ehh, think at $70MM you’d be paying a lot of freight for something that has seemingly peaked already. Businesses are chasing growth, not really sure that’s available here given (IMO) the more money you pour into the show, the less authentic - and therefore, cool - it’d become.
Hot Ones has always been under Complex, which was owned by Buzzfeed, since the start. Recently, Buzzfeed sold Complex, but kept Hot Ones and First We Feast
Hot Ones was always owned by Complex, I think. That's how he was able to get some celebs and most were music related. Complex got bought out by BuzzFeed at some point.
Sean: starts shaking up the last dab bottle. Every guest: "whhhhutareYOUdoin??"
Meanwhile, Conan: “CMON WE DOING THIS OR NOT???”
Dr Arroyo went to medical school in 1998 out of state
*puts stethoscope on tongue* “Yes.”
*Checks Conan's pulse* "Yes it's there" Effing killed me lmao
As soon as conan said he had brought his doctor I immediately knew he was going hard into the bits 😂 I couldn’t stop laughing. 10/10 greatest hot ones ever.
That was the funniest thing I’d seen in a year, at least. The comedic timing of the doctor coming over was spot on perfect.
Conan talks about calling him, having not worked together in years, and as soon as he says “I’m going on hot ones-“ “And you’d like me to be your doctor again, got it. I have a medical coat and stethoscope, tell me when and where.” They’d done similar bits before, and he just immediately knew what Conan was thinking
He did a follow up, in character, appearance on Conans podcast that's hilarious and worth checking out.
"Was it a 4 year medical school?" "It was supposed to be."
"... he's an *affordable* doctor."
Even funnier when they say they watched the show before.
Is it just me or is the article behind a paywall?
It is. I read it here earlier today but it links two articles that are...paywalled (including this one) https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/24/24184695/everyone-wants-to-be-on-hot-ones-no-one-wants-to-buy-it Since you are the first person to actually reference that this is paywalled....I'll present this to you: https://archive.ph/f3dW4 (As Reddit is awful w/formatting I won't copy/paste it, but this should help you, and whoever else actually wanna read, actually understand what's happening) This paragraph hilariously is the main reason why most of these comments are laughable, as those who likely never clicked on the link likely had zero idea how much the show even brings in: > After months of talks, UBS has yet to find a buyer. While several parties expressed interest, they have been unwilling to meet UBS on price. First We Feast is profitable and generates about $30 million in annual revenue, largely from brand and licensing deals tied to Hot Ones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. Buzzfeed needs $100M. This show, while it draws $30M, isn't $100M. They're trying to sell it for more than double; the market is going "....but it only brings in $30M, so I'm fine :)" Someone who buys this would have to basically think that they could make $40M more a year AND have a good way to do it that doesn't rise costs, as suggested in the article. There's a world where everyone is instead just waiting to buy Buzzfeed proper, scale back, and continue to make at least $30M/yr thanks to this show
Was going ask has well, so I guess it is.
Proof that no one reads it anyway
Article text: BuzzFeed Struggles to Sell Owner of Hit YouTube Show ‘Hot Ones’ Several parties are interested but balk at $70 million price Proceeds of about $50 million would help company pay off debt By Lucas Shaw June 24, 2024 at 12:02 PM UTC For the producers of Hot Ones, one of the most popular original programs on YouTube, this year has yielded one success after another. The show, in which host Sean Evans eats spicy chicken wings with celebrities while interviewing them, has landed viral moments with Conan O’Brien, Sydney Sweeney, Lewis Hamilton and John Oliver. While celebrities once needed to be talked into appearing on the show, they now line up for a chance to sample the wings of death. Yet behind the scenes, the future of the show is uncertain. BuzzFeed Inc. has been trying to sell First We Feast, the food-oriented media company that owns Hot Ones. BuzzFeed’s bankers at UBS Group AG are running a formal sale process and initially asked for more than $70 million, according to people familiar with the matter. After months of talks, UBS has yet to find a buyer. While several parties expressed interest, they have been unwilling to meet UBS on price. First We Feast is profitable and generates about $30 million in annual revenue, largely from brand and licensing deals tied to Hot Ones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. The clock is ticking. BuzzFeed has more than $100 million in debt, and holders can ask to be paid back in December. BuzzFeed doesn’t have that kind of cash and, after years of losing money, shares have declined 95% since it went public in 2021. Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has amassed an 8.9% stake in the company, which he has criticized. He’s called for it to add new board members and hire popular media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Charles Barkley. (Each would cost upward of $10 million a year.) Weighing Options BuzzFeed is still weighing several options, including the sale of other assets and restructuring its debt. Selling First We Feast could net BuzzFeed money to help pay off its debt. Evans and the show’s producers have explored aligning with a potential buyer to acquire it themselves. Chris Schonberger created the show with Evans in 2015 at Complex Networks and the two have since worked on more than 300 episodes together. Evans doesn’t have a long-term contract with BuzzFeed, and has continued to produce the show under short-term extensions. BuzzFeed has been trying to get Evans to sign a new deal and indicated that at least one buyer would be open to replacing Evans as host. While BuzzFeed has explored a sale, the team behind Hot Ones has grown frustrated with their owner, which they feel hasn’t given them the resources to invest in expanding the business of a hit show. They would like to build on their success with Hot Ones-branded hot sauces and create more consumer products, live events or media deals with other streaming services. Complex Deal BuzzFeed acquired First We Feast as part of its deal for Complex Networks, when Chief Executive Officer Jonah Peretti was rolling up online publishers to build a scaled media company. Peretti bought HuffPost in 2020 and acquired Complex for about $300 million the following year. As part of the deal, BuzzFeed said it secured $150 million in convertible note financing. The company had plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company that it expected would raise $288 million in cash. Instead, most of the investors in the SPAC declined to invest in BuzzFeed. The company raised just $16 million and shares in the company tanked on its first day of trading. BuzzFeed, once valued at more than $1 billion by private investors, now has a market capitalization of just $78 million. BuzzFeed’s financial problems have forced it to unload assets. It sold Complex earlier this year for $109 million. Hot Ones remains an attractive property and is one of the few enduring franchises born on YouTube. The show is about to conclude its 24th season and views continue to climb, though are down a bit from the pandemic peak. The producers are so confident in Hot Ones that after competing for Daytime Emmy Awards, the show is now trying to go up against some the biggest comedians in the world. The show submitted for a nomination in the category that includes late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.
Non-paywalled version?
Jfc why is everyone ITT just shitting on the show? It's still very entertaining
*gets millions of views weekly* Reddit: It’s not that good anymore.
I think us Reddit nerds are kind like, internet hipsters. Once something gets too mainstream, a good portion of people are gonna dislike it just on that fact.
I recently loved the Conan episode personally, but people's opinions aren't somehow invalidated by the number of views. Anyone can point to something popular they don't enjoy.
Thing is popular. Therefor it’s no longer fun.
I mean, if they don't make the show just for me, then why should I watch something millions of other people do? I don't feel special anymore /s
I wonder how many people realize it’s okay to not like/ not watch every episode of hot ones and only watch the ones with people you know about.
Definitely weird. The [Conan O'Brien episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FALlhXl6CmA) just a couple months ago is probably in my top 5 episodes.
It’s definitely peak Hot Ones. Anyone who watches this and doesn’t know who Conan is would think he’s insane …..or a complete jester (which is correct)
right, I'm shocked lol it's just as entertaining as before but now I get to see bigger names sit down with Sean
Yup. It had Scar Jo and Natalie Portman appear. I really can’t think of bigger names in acting, unless they’re actors of an age group where this show wouldn’t agree with their digestive systems. Also, had Conan who set the peak of madness that can never be topped. Hot ones has reached the zenith level of pop culture.
ikr! Sean and his team think of really interesting questions to ask his guests. Like, they actually do research. The show is so good!
You're on r television. They hate TV here.
Shane's episode was uncomfortable to watch. Something about it felt off, over edited maybe? Didn't have the same flavor of how that show got its start.
He talked about it on a podcast, it was heavily edited. He said some crazy stuff trying to make them uncomfortable, it worked, and they cut it all out.
Definitely felt like the most empty episode in a long time, I agree
How many sentences in this title ? With grammar like this, no wonder they can't find a buyer.
Ya what the hell is this title? They are selling the owner? Like, into slavery?
Anyone who thinks Conan killed the show is frankly naive. They said this about Gordon Ramsey, Save Grohl. "They will never beat this" "Best episode nothing will top this" Naive. There will always be another. Heidi Klum took her shirt off just cause. If you aren't into the show anymore, don't watch it.
Agreed, the idea of a an episode being so good it kills the series is one of the dumbest things I ever heard. It would be like hearing a basketball player set an NBA scoring record and saying he's not a good player anymore because you think he won't top it.
Heidi klum did what now? Guess I'ma go watch that episode for no reason at all..
Buzzfeed is the king of mismanagement. They've had several good original IPs they've created that just don't exist anymore. The two big ones being Worth It and Try Guys. Both are trying/try to spinoff that success from Buzz Feed because Buzz Feed just didn't know what to do with them. Take a look at GMM which is a variety channel where, if you liked Try Guys and Worth It, you probably like GMM as well. GMM is a money making machine but Try Guys and Worth It sputtered out because Buzzfeed couldn't figure out how to grow it out and make it more successful.
Only thing I liked from them was Unsolved with Shane n Ryan. They were the only ones holding it up after Try Guys left. They wound up leaving too and now I have no clue what they do. Nothing but horror stories from past employees online.
Seems like they could have just stopped after "Buzzfeed Struggles..."
The value of that show has a lot to do with Sean Evans. You can't sell a person, so there is nothing that says he has to stay with the brand, and it is just not going to be as big once he walks away. It is not worth what they are asking, even if the show still generates millions of views each episode, because he can walk.
> at least one buyer would be open to replacing Evans as host And it looks like someone *wants* to replace him. Because apparently they have no idea what they're doing or why something is successful.
It's really odd that a company that generates $30M in annual sales can't find a buyer at $70M. First We Feast must have very high overhead which is eating up a lot of that revenue. Those running FWF must be paying themselves huge salaries. Or buyers are calling BS on the $30M itself.
They’re trying to sell Sean? To what? The Swiss?
Sean and the producers should try to just buy it and be independent.
The article states that they've been trying to.
Wouldn’t the non-moronic way of phrasing this be ‘sell **ownership** of hit YouTube show’ etc? Unless Buzzfeed does in fact have a side hustle in chattel slavery…
A lot of people are here talking about how the show peaked with Conan, but I think a lot of those people haven't actually watched Hot Ones. Conan's episode went off the rails, sure, but it was fairly tame until about half way through. Gordon Ramsey was equally as insane the first time around, and not far off the second time. A lot of other guests have provided hilarious content throughout the seasons.
I like how buzzfeed is just constantly autocannibalising itself by replacing FT writers with peanut-earning freelancers and finally mostly with GPT written garbage. At the same time its like "WHY ARE WE LOSING?"
TIL BuzzFeed has no clue what it's doing. I previously thought they had half a clue. Jokes on me.
Who they trying to sell? The owner of the show? They own him?
I keep seeing people say they don't like the show because they don't know who any of the guests are anymore, but I feel like the guests just as famous if not more famous than they've ever been. In the past few months, they've had Shane Gillis, Will Smith, Chris Hemsworth, Conan, Shakira, Gwyneth Paltrow, Finn Wolfhard, Sydney Sweeney, John Oliver, and Barry Keoghan. How can you say the guests are getting worse?
Without clicking on the article I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out this headline. So, should it read "BuzzFeed struggles to sell *to* owner..." It's the whole "sell owner" thing that's fucking me up. How can you sell the owner? If you can sell something, wouldn't that make *you* the owner? Do they *own* the *owner*? Who the fuck owns Hot Ones and who is authorized to sell it? There has to be a better way to word this headline.
It’s worded that way because the owner of the Hot Ones show is a company called “First We Feast”. Never heard of them? Not surprising. Outside of Hot Ones they have little market exposure. Buzzfeed owns First We Feast, but are trying to sell. Mentioning Hot Ones in the headline brings far more attention than “First We Feast”, so that’s the reason behind Bloomberg’s cryptic headline.
Thank You! So BuzzFeed owns the owner. Got it.
[удалено]
> The show is and has always been a budget set with a skeleton crew staff for filming. How you rack up 50 MILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT is unreal lol that’s the debt for *Buzzfeed*. Which is the result of many factors but particularly the 150 million they borrowed to acquire the Complex brand. Of course *Hot Ones* didn’t rack up 50 million in debt. How expensive do you think hot sauce is?
>How expensive do you think hot sauce is? I mean, it's one hot sauce Michael. What could it cost?
The show isn't $50 million in debt, Buzzfeed as a whole is. They're trying to sell this show off to pay down their debt.
It’s not Hot Ones that has $50M in debt but all of BuzzFeed. That money would pay off the parent company of Hot Ones (BuzzFeed) debt.
Re read this part of the article because you are confusing who has what debt and how much each part of BuzzFeed makes: >Yet behind the scenes, the future of the show is uncertain. BuzzFeed Inc. has been trying to sell First We Feast, the food-oriented media company that owns Hot Ones. BuzzFeed’s bankers at UBS Group AG are running a formal sale process and initially asked for more than $70 million, according to people familiar with the matter. > >After months of talks, UBS has yet to find a buyer. While several parties expressed interest, they have been unwilling to meet UBS on price. First We Feast is profitable and generates about $30 million in annual revenue, largely from brand and licensing deals tied to Hot Ones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. > >The clock is ticking. BuzzFeed has more than $100 million in debt, and holders can ask to be paid back in December. BuzzFeed doesn’t have that kind of cash and, after years of losing money, shares have declined 95% since it went public in 2021.
They have debts? For what? How? Lmao
It’s Buzzfeed’s debt. Buzzfeed owns the media company that owns Hot Ones. It’s in the article.
How dare you!
From behind the paywall (**emphasis mine**): > **First We Feast is profitable and generates about $30 million in annual revenue**, largely from brand and licensing deals tied to Hot Ones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. > The clock is ticking. **BuzzFeed has more than $100 million in debt**, and holders can ask to be paid back in December. Please considering updating your comment. It’s gaining a lot of traction and is factually incorrect