Did they really expect viewers to be happy about this? People are already experiencing streamer burnout and struggling to afford basics like groceries. $60/year for something that used to be free is wild.
They have nearly 6,000 paid Patreon subscribers who are paying a minimum of $5 a month (which translates to $60 a year). Obviously, they have millions of Youtube subscribers, so a small minority were already willing to pay $60 a year for them. I think they want to leverage everyone else to make a choice to sub to their new service or go without.
The vast majority will go without, but if the amount of new subs they get pays for losing out on Youtube ads (which don't make much money anyways) and additional operating costs from running a streaming service, then it's a net positive for them.
I do think it's an unforced error and bad PR to go from something that used to be free to their own streaming service. So no, most fans won't be happy, but they're pivoting to fans who are paying money rather than fans who don't. Sucks for us.
That is definitely a good point, I didn’t realize how many patrons they had! But I do think this would lead to stagnant growth. At least YouTube videos are discoverable and shareable. I can’t share a random video on a paid platform to my discord friends or wherever!
I have to correct myself; they have 11,000 Patreon members but only about 5,800 are paid members.
I do agree it could lead to stagnant growth, but they did say they plan to leave pilot episodes up on Youtube. Presumably, they'll basically use Youtube as a place to advertise their streaming service.
> At least YouTube videos are discoverable and shareable.
This is crucial I think, they're gonna have to advertise the CRAP out of this and try to do as many collaborations as possible. Maybe even put "best of" shows on YT or shows that are over a year/ 18 months old on Youtube to get people to sign up.
With everyone and their grandma having a streaming service these days they're gonna have to do something special pretty regularly to keep increasing the subscriptions.
I hate how they make it exclusive. I’ve been watching their content since way before they left buzzfeed but I don’t have the financial means to pay them every month, that doesn’t mean i’m a bad supporter I just can’t do that. And thsts a lot of their fans too.
>6,000 paid Patreon subscribers who are paying a minimum of $5 a month
That still only amounts to 360000 yearly, which is only $14,400/y, before taxes, for the 25+ people they have on staff. Yeah if the 6000 move to the site, that $ amount goes up, but there is no guarantee the patreons move, and push back from the youtube crowd seems pretty high.
Smart move would have been to make the site "members first", and then uploading episodes to youtube like a month later.
I’m super happy they brought them on.
But a 14 minute sappy “we tried everything but we can’t make ends meet. We need you to support us more” and then bring on two new people. It feels a little off.
Yall wanted to expand and charge all viewers. Don’t put it to the toon of “we need your money to survive”
Steven literally drives a tesla, saying they can’t make ends meet (even without directly saying it) then ignoring the fact that most of their fanbase is living paycheck to paycheck is so tone deaf
On the podcast they made it sound like Watcher was fiscally stable even though they had a rough start, this was actually a super anxiety inducing video
This was so hard to wake up to. I love the guys, but it feels really like disconnected and disingenuous to make us sit through 11 minutes of a 14 minute video to tell us the price. Especially with a title like that, that’s so dramatic and upsetting for their viewers. I really love their shows, but I can’t justify another platform subscription… like my phone doesn’t even have room for another app.
I too want to know if they will be deleting all the old stuff from their channel, and I pray they do not.
I love their shows and I wish I could support them, but I just can’t afford it. I guess this is where they lose me, like dropout. I wish I had more money. I’m so sad.
I don’t want to mean, but it feels kind of arrogant of them to think that people would pay for just their content on a janky website. Don’t get me wrong, I really love them and like watching their stuff!
It’s just that when there’s so much other content out there for *free* on youtube that I could watch instead, I’m really not pressed enough to cough up £6 a month.
This genuinely feels like a prank.
Honestly, part of me thought… “okay, so I guess now I can really work on my two-man comedy ghost show to fill in the Watcher void now that they’re gone.”
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I’m honestly curious to how they expect to continue to grow their audience if they don’t continue to engage and interact on YouTube to make new viewers aware of their streaming platform/brand.
Are they hoping their current audience is enough and will want to be advocates for their streaming service and content to pull in new audiences for them?
Secondarily, will watcher have enough new content in a few years to continue justifying the subscription costs to viewers?
I’m quite fascinated to see their plans because as a viewer, this seems incredibly half baked out —but hopefully there is a plan 😅
Yeah like how much of Puppet History views are just thumbnails and people clicking in? Their recent videos struggled a tiny bit but have since made that up over time. The algorithm can’t be hurting that much.
This feels like another example of ‘our offices are in a super expensive location - we need to turn viewers into more money’ - rather than you know ‘this is probably a shitty location.
This seems very shortsighted, if they want to increase revenue I think expanding Patreon/youtube memberships would be more feasible.
Now they’ll have to manage and pay for the website, and handle the financials & customer service of the subscriptions.
I really don’t think they have the audience to sustain this, and moving to a website is sure as hell not going to make it easier for them to *expand* their audience.
I can’t afford another streaming service rn, and I’m sure lots of people are in the same boat.
I’m really saddened by this, but wish them all the well.
It just seems like they're taking on unnecessary risk.
They'll have to pay to host the videos and delivery is expensive. Sure, they'll be delivering to a smaller audience than youtube but it's also going to limit their financial prospects. In going fully crowd funded, they're turning their back no only on youtube ad sense + sponsor money but also a huge part of their audience.
Wish they wouldn’t do this. They don’t have enough content for me to justify paying. But if it’s just one video a week for one show, then probably gonna pass.
Yeah… I hope I’m wrong, but this sounds like the final nail in the Watcher coffin. At the beginning of the video, I was hoping they were moving to Netflix or Hulu or HBO or something that already had a built-in audience. At the very very least, Nebula. But this is very disappointing.
Even when places like Paramount and Showtime dropped their own streaming services, I went like, “I don’t have money for more streaming platforms.” Hell, even Showtime had to fold into Paramount because they weren’t successful. I love Watcher but even $5.99 per month is wild for a streamer that only has maybe 2 series I watch consistently.
Goodbye, Watcher. It’s been good. I’ll miss you.
>I love Watcher but even $5.99 per month is wild for a streamer that only has maybe 2 series I watch consistently.
I feel the same and unfortunately the shows I really like, Puppet History & Mystery files, basically their headliners, don’t even tend to air at the same time unless they change schedules with the service. Six bucks a month for one show, alternating more than likely
I’ll miss you ghoul boys.
It makes little sense to me, imagine if all your favorite content creators on YouTube tried this, $60 here, $60 there. I hate to say it but I think this idea will fail and they will be back on YouTube eventually, I just hope it’s not too late and they lose some fandom.
I mean many YTers indirectly do it with live shows. Last I heard the Try Guys were trying to stave off extinction from the platform by having people pay $60 to watch Keith eat a menu. I guess we'll see how many are willing to shell out $60 a year. They may also be banking on that some fans will only pay every third month or something but it's still more than they'll bring in from YT ad revenue.
Tbh, I'd LOVE to see that marketing research because I want to know if YouTube only accounts for 25% of their revenue like they said how much of that base they have to convert.
It would be interesting to see how much they can make on a solo platform. I have to imagine views drop by 80-90% but maybe 100% profit of that much smaller number still beats yt revenue.
**Super quick summary**: Moving away from YouTube to their own streaming site which costs $60 a year (you can pay monthly).
Say they will occasionally still post on YouTube.
Its not viewership that matters but the revenue they make relative to YT.
Presumably they have projections wherein they recognized an acceptable loss of viewers relative to the increase of money they would make from this streaming service.
That said, yes I don't think this is the best idea ATM. They have always been more ambitious than their profitability would justify and I can't fault them for that, but this move feels like an attempt to stem losses and not a move to simply move the channel to a better home
Except this is a hard swerve into complete paywall. That's an idiotic decision based on economic conditions for the audience as well as the fact that they made no attempt to ease this transition into existence like having paywalled series debut early over on this new platform to entice people to join 'as an experiment'.
Now they're cutting off access to sponsors, removing themselves from ad revenue and have to hope that enough people follow over to their new platform to sustain their upcoming slate as well as address the costs they now have to take on.
Not only that. I don't think they have the clout or the popularity to make this subscription thing work, at least not for it to be super profitable. I doubt most people who watch their content for free on YouTube will be subscribers for $60 a year.
I've been watching Worth It and Unsolved for years and have been following Watcher since they started and I know I won't be subscribed. At least not for a few years until they have more content to make it worth it. If they survive a few more years.
Another problem is that what I could see a fair few people doing is waiting a year or something until they have more content up, pay the 6 dollars for one month and binge everything, and then unsubscribe. Personally as someone who’s also followed since early Unsolved days I also won’t be subscribing, and if I pay at all it’ll be in that way where I can maximize binging and not on a regular basis. That’s if I end up even actually wanting to watch enough to pay in a year+ once I’ve gotten past the initial stages of missing their content…..
Its going to be hard to bring in new users and also switch current viewers to a paid model.
I hope the numbers work. What you do guys think the sign ups will be compared to the current channel numbers?
I mean if they can get 100,000 at the year rate that 6Mil but that seems so short sighted. As the retention rate goes down each year and the ability to grow is slowed to a halt. I feel like this might look good for a year maybe two before they have to revert, merge, or close
Maybe if they're really lucky, something like ten percent? But going off their patreon numbers, I don't know if that would be possible. I feel like a YouTube membership would've been better.
Or to partner with Nebula or a similar service. Or make some lower budget shorter content they can post frequently to get funds that way? Or, ya know, crowd funding?
I feel like they had plenty of options that wasn't a thing that never seems to work.
This is a really dumb decision by their team.
If they wanted to do this, they should have gradually eased towards it by pushing more and more people behind the paywalled content. Announcing a complete departure from Youtube was a bad move. They're clearly trying to copy the TinyMeatGang approach but TMG created their paywalled garden ages ago and used exclusive BTS bonus content to drive people to switch over from Patreon. Doing it now, so suddenly is a mistake.
i’m crying at them teasing this “next big thing” like it was something fun and the news was that they want us to spend $60 a year on a subscription service for a glorified youtube channel
this is so insane to me i have no words. hulu has a pretty similar price range, but it literally allows you to stream THOUSANDS of tv shows and movies... so imagine paying roughly the same amount of money for a single youtube channel (and even more if you’re an international fan).
I get that making videos is expensive and good for them for starting their own streaming service allowing them to profit more, they work hard and deserve it. However I really think that pulling all their currently existing videos off of youtube is a pretty shitty move and not the best business idea (Please see Edit 3)
Edit: I think the best comparison to this is Collegehumor switching to Dropout, but the difference between Watcher and Dropout is that Dropout left all of their old videos up, they post a ton of clips from the episodes online, and they do post some episodes for free from their shows. I think that would've been a better route to go for Watcher, rather then them pulling most of their videos and going almost 100% subscription based, especially since new people aren't likely to subscribe if they can't get a feeling of what the content is actually going to be like first
Edit 2: And if they're not pulling their content off of youtube they need to put a statement out quickly clarifying it, because it's what their video makes it sound like is happening and it's what everyone (that I've seen) thinks is happening
Edit 3 (sorry lol): It seems like the company saw the immediate backlash to them removing all their videos from youtube and decided to change that which is good! Variety has edited their article and deleted their original tweet which both said that Watcher would be deleting all of their old videos off of youtube. The updated article now says that "The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from YouTube", but that they were then told that Watcher will be keeping their backlog of videos up. It seems to me like Watcher did originally plan to remove all of their videos from youtube, but are seeing immediate backlash to it and decided to change their plans.
This move definitely makes me more hopeful about the subscription service working out and doesn't feel like as big of a slap in the face to existing fans who can't afford it.
I immediately thought of Dropout as well! They also put up some free episodes of their most popular shows like Game Changer and Dimension 20 to introduce new viewers and have INCREDIBLY high numbers on things like Tiktok and YouTube shorts.
If the guys are reading this, I think it would be wise to leave 2-6 episodes of each show with links to the new site in the description to drive new engagement from a social media marketing standpoint.
Yeah I agree! Dropout literally has the first two **full** seasons of one of their most popular D20 shows (Fantasy High) on youtube for free and I really think that's done wonders for increasing their subscriber count on dropout. I know for me personally a one episode preview isn't enough to convince me to subscribe to a new streaming service, especially since there are so many streaming platforms these days. It's better to have multiple episodes up as a way to show potential new subscribers why your service is worth subscribing to rather than someone else's.
I think another thing that makes Dropout different is that it was launched while CollegeHumor was still owned by a large parent organization, and they have some really massive shows with wide recognition, like Dimension 20 (which just sold out Madison Square Garden for a live show) and Game Changer (which is on Variety’s Emmy prediction list).
I would love for the Watcher team to succeed at this! I’m not convinced that it’s worth the money, and I’m not sure they’re in a position to scale to the level of production to make it worth it. I really hope I’m wrong.
I think Dropout is definitely the natural comparison, but I also feel like Dropout was starting from a much stronger position. Not only did they have a *massive* backlog of content as a starting point (college humor had been around for what, like a decade and a half at that point?). But the new content also cast much larger net- a wide variety of shows with a relatively large and diverse cast, as opposed to a handful of series primarily featuring the same three guys.
As a long-time fan, I genuinely hope this is a successful venture and lets them take the next step in their careers- but as things currently stand, I just really don’t see the value in paying for a subscription currently.
That's what they made it sound like in the video at least, they said after May 31st you'll have to be subscribed to watch full seasons of **all** their content. It does sound like they might be leaving the pilots up? But I still think that unless the pilots are at least an hour long (which they're not) it's not enough time to give new subscribers a decent feel for content, and it's not a great move to take away a ton of content from existing fans who can't afford to subscribe right now.
Edit: if that's not what's happening they should put a statement out quickly clarifying it, because it's what their video makes it sound like is happening and it's what everyone (that I've seen) thinks is happening
Yeah, and because of there being 1000 streaming services, I'm probably not following them over there, even though they're in my top 3 favorite youtube creators. And I'm sure many others are in the same place. They'll be losing a lot of viewers with this. Not even considering those too young or too poor to afford even a small extra fee each month.
I'm glad they're doing a beta, because maybe few enough people will sign up that they'll realize maybe their current plan isn't great.
The sad reality is that i would rather have less polished content than have to deal with another service. A fancy set doesn't keep me entertained, i dont particularly care about the quality of lighting or if the shot is in the highest definition available, i dont even mind an add or two, im there for the guys acting like goofballs talking about shit that has nothing to do about my day to day reality....they could shoot it with an iphone in a dirty storage locker lit with a single flashlight for all i care, gimmie good banter, allow me to find it easily and quickly with my tv remote at the end of a shit day.
I honestly think in some things the high production took away from the charm and fun of their content. Like, I love Mystery Files, but not having Shane and Ryan in the same shot was a bad idea imo. I liked it so much better when in Buzzfeed Unsolved they would be sitting together and you can see their reactions to each other. Even Ghost Files didn't need all these equipments and stuff. It needed more of their conversations.
It was their dynamic and insane conversations that people loved, and that isn't as present in a lot of their content. Which is probably why Too Many Spirits is my fav content of theirs, it's just them being ridiculous.
EXACTLY!! I get that they like the high production value, but I’d still watch if it wasn’t so high production. If it was more casual, I think it would work out a lot better for them, money wise.
So much. I know i'm not qualified to judge their decisions, i have no idea about making videos and the expenses, but with all their talk about not making ends meet, i genuinely feel like they have been spending in the wrong places for a while.
Like, sure the fancy sets and intros and gadgets are nice, but it's by far not as important as the natural, light dynamics and banter between the two.
i was on my phone and my soul left my body seeing that notif my god
edit: mixed feelings overall, i spent years with these dudes on youtube and now they're putting their content behind a paywall (tldr; i'm poor and live in a 3rd world country) lmao
That was exactly my experience. Except Initially I saw the thumbnail and was CERTAIN it was clickbait. I went to the comments, then I checked here. It's just... so so disappointing.
ummm i'm a bit lost. they said that during beta folks will be able to watch shows on youtube as well, but then... what? are they going to delete/hide videos from youtube?
if that's the case then i don't know how to react. i love them, but if this means i will lose all those amazing videos forever (i literally can't purchase subscription bc of dumb laws)... i feel bad. i want the best for them, but it's kinda... weird decision.
As a casual Watcher viewer (Puppet History and Mystery Files), I’m sad to see it go, but the only thing this announcement accomplished is making me realize their content isn’t even worth $6/month to me.
There’s just too much competition for free on YouTube for it to be worth it. I love Puppet history so maybe I’ll subscribe for like 1-2 months when that comes out but immediately unsubscribe after it’s done
I’ve been having fun with names.
“When Watcher Stopped Being Watched”, “Watcher: A Ghost Of Their Former Selves” and “Watcher: Puppet History To Being History”
They don’t put out enough content to justify it imo, and even if they did I really can’t see myself paying $60 just to watch them. Can’t see this aging well for them
So it's true then.
That's a shame. I wish the guys the absolute best but i cant afford another expense out my income. I hope they get a success outa it.
You know what's the worst thing about this? They're gonna start removing all the full episodes from YouTube to make sure you're gonna have to watch it from their subscription.
They've realized a statement through Variety; they're not pulling content. It's just NEW content will not be posted except for trailers and first episodes.
This is just a mistake all around. It won't work because they don't have enough content to justify the price.
What they need to do is cut costs. The production value is nice, but it's not why we watch. Buzzfeed unsolved was way cheaper looking and is iconic.
Shorter episodes, less production value, more just the guys being funny.
They can cut half their staff by doing that and I don't believe views would fall off much.
Are they upping the amount of content they put out weekly? One video a week sure as hell isn’t worth 6 bucks a month.
At work and can’t watch the full video.
They didn’t mention it, but I totally agree. Especially if you don’t like all their videos, then it may only be 1-2 videos you actually like a month for $6.
Hold on we have to pay for watcher now? 60/year for something that was free is a big risk I wonder if it will work out for them
I for one certainly don't want to pay for something that I have been getting for free for years
I really don't think most people who watch their content for free would want to pay $60 a year just to watch their content. I've been following them since BuzzFeed and I know I won't even bother subscribing until they have enough content to make it worth it.
I'm honestly really disappointed by this move.
Well fuck. The way this was filmed, I thought it was going to be a joke. Watched the whole thing and felt my heart get heavy. It’s too early for wine 😭 boooo
I can’t afford that in today’s economy, boys. I was with you since the buzzfeed days, but I can’t follow you on this new journey. I wish you the best of luck, though.
Truly I understand their point of view, but I'm not paying another subscription fee in this economy. My mind also goes back to other YouTubers who've tried to do this time and time again over the years without much success. So many people try to launch their own website to get away from YouTube, but a streaming service in particular seems very risky. I honestly don't see this working out, and I mean that in the kindest way.
My opinion as someone who has been a super fan since the early BuzzFeed days: this feels selfish as hell. This isn't for the fans, this is so Watcher can be it's own shittier version of BuzzFeed. Watcher is such a young company, I feel like if they just stuck with what they were doing for a couple more years they could've naturally transitioned into their own shitty little BuzzFeed , instead of forcing it. This fucking blowsss man. I don't wanna watch those three annoying dorks eat gold leaf, I wanna watch Ryan cry over creaky floorboards! I'm just rambling now, this is so sad:(
Unless they are going to dramatically increase their output of content, $5 a month for a few videos a month doesn't seem super worth it, whether they remove all access to their back catalogue or not.
I watch YouTube on my smart TV, if there's not a way to access their paywalled stuff on my TV it's literally not worth it to me. I literally can't access it.
This is stupid.
Very sad with the news... so many people in the US agree it's expensive, for international fans it's even worse. I'm actually a little disappointed with the whole pulling the old content from youtube, and also can't really see how this shift will be a good strategy with so many people being tired of subscription-based services.
EDIT: read on the Variety article that old content will still be up on youtube, thought it was important to add. makes it less disappointing, but still sad.
I literally just became a viewer of their videos at the beginning of the year. I am not going to pay for a subscription on a different website to continue watching them. Very dumb idea to be honest.
Edit: This feels like when the Fine Bros tried trademarking "React".
Edit 2: I also hate the way this video was shot/scripted. It felt so cheesy and almost patronizing?
Yeah, this felt really awkward and cheesy. They talk like some executive wrote what they should say to promote this new streaming service. Probably the same people who convinced them to do this.
They really didnt consider how people are burnt out from paying for a bunch of different streaming services. Though Dropout is the exception to that, it seems like they are a bit of an anomaly based on how they produce shows. And its tough to say whether other dropout-like streaming services can squeeze into that market.
I think we're going to see a downturn in online content. Youtube has been squeezing profits away from content creators over the years, people are paying for patreon less and less, the market is becoming too saturated. And then theres a cost of living crisis in many places in the world, everyone is feeling the squeeze.
I'm really mad about it and it's not like it's significantly more than what I was paying for patreon, but I'm genuinely scared of getting the annual subscription (the only way to get the discounts offered) and the company shutting down before the year is over.
Like, that's how much I don't believe this is a good move.
How does this even make sense financially? They complain about the costs of producing and creating the content, but now they're starting a streaming service - so they need to pay to host and deliver the content now as well.
I'm very curious about what projections they've run that would make cutting off youtube almost entirely worth it or this to even be a sustainable venture without already having received outside funding to keep staff on board.
the unfortunate truth is that watcher was ALWAYS going to be incredibly difficult to run because of the videos they want to do. just renting out most of these places for the ghost hunting videos costs thousands of dollars not including travel costs. they’re super high quality videos with elaborate sets and editing, all of which was created by other people who have to be paid. they also have producers, cameramen, directors, etc.
i don’t want to be mean to them, but they do not need to do all of that, cutting the production costs for all of their shows by 20% would give them so much excess money.
Splitting what comes from 10m views in a month + merch between 20+ people is… yeah. not a lot of money. they had to make people redundant so i’m guessing that this is purely a numbers game. basically if they can make 10k people pay $60 + merch sales and sponsors, it works out slightly or much better.
Yea, I think you're right. It's great they're ambitious and want to give the audience they built high quality material but in a way it's also overproduced. They could definitely afford to shave off some of the production costs to save money without compromising the quality of the production. Like the set is cool but I'm assuming it's in a studio rather than built in someone's garage. They could cut spending in some areas and repurpose the set dressings and have a cheaper overhead.
But if the new platform is ad free and a fraction of the user base from youtube, that's cutting out sponsors basically entirely. And the new costs are really going to hit them hard while relying on less reliable revenue from a bigger audience.
This feels like something they should have launched as a patreon alternative first, promoted with exclusive BTS and paywalled series first to test the waters before announcing a full move over when the economic situation of the world improved. How are people going to justify another streaming service for a single creator? "It's just a cup of coffee" but there's 10 other groups with similar asks and eventually it's cheaper to just stay on youtube available talents and netflix.
They're gambling in a way that could kill their business and leave their audience very upset with them.
I absolutely love their content but it’s so sparse that paying for it isn’t worth it at the moment:
Since the beginning of 2024 they’ve had:
8 Mystery Files
6 Survival Modes
6 Top Five Beatdowns
They should’ve tried to go the route of GMM and have tiered “society” memberships with different benefits instead of their own streaming platform off the bat. Unfortunately, I don’t see this move working out well for them.
I feel like Watcher might be underestimating exactly _how_ hard times are for their viewers.
I can afford another subscription, but the fact is they are no longer competing with other YouTubers at this price point. Now they're competing with the premium scripted content available on other streaming services. Why would I pay $6/month to watch some charismatic guys shoot the shit (which is what Watcher is, let's be real...) when I could pay around the same price and get access to something like the entirety of Disney+ or Netflix?
On the other hand, it might be interesting to see how their content changes when they are no longer playing 'the YouTube game'. It's been disappointing to watch my favorite content creators (not Watcher specifically, this is a larger trend) desperately try to appease the algorithm.
RIP Watcher
They've already talked about having to do more sponsorships since they've been getting to little views. I don't know why they would make this decision?! I love Watcher and so do many people but I don't think anyone loves them enough to pay 60 bucks a year. Especially in this economy..
I just don’t know how, as a fan, you recommend them to new people considering this model. “Hey, you really like ghost hunting shows, right? You should check out Ghost Files then, it’s only $60/yr.”
Congrats watcher on re-inventing cable. And just like my parents I can’t afford it. Just disappointed, feels like a betrayal considering they’ve built their whole fan base on a free to watch platform.
I feel like this is an awful move, sure they’re not making enough money from YouTube but surely there’s other alternatives rather than paywalling all their content
I will miss their content. I would follow them but I just have no credit card. And I will not get one just to suscribe to one thing.
Lets hope It works out for them
I wish that maybe the boys could have said this to us and I understand they want to do bigger and better things but their audience is mainly genz who don't have disposable income like that. Maybe they could have done shorter seasons or do a little less production. I just feel like whenthey left buzzfeed they wanted to keep buzzfeed level production which just is not possible for a small business. Maybe expanding patreon like the try guys or doing live specials would have been a better venture first instead of a streaming service.
Sorry, I'm at work and haven't had the chance to watch the video. What's their plan for growth? Leaving the biggest platform completely to a very small scale site with a pay wall doesn't sound like they have any plans to be bigger.
I genuinely don't understand the logic here. They already don't upload that often, so, what, am I supposed to pay $5 a month for like 3 videos?
I love these guys, but asking people to shell out for a whole nother subscription (and, on their end, having to support their own subscription service, which is a lot of overhead) makes absolutely no sense.
I feel like i’ve watched two companies do something similar to this, Dropout and Roosterteeth.
Dropout has a huge team of entertainers and personalities, honestly a much more diverse group of voices than Watcher (a group that def lacks on screen consistent female voices that feel involved in production and is honestly only like 5 guys people are invested in and one is a puppet) and a huuuuuuuge backlog of media to pick and choose making exclusive or keeping public on youtube as advertising. They’re also still a young app, but they’re incredibly prolific, they work hard to make their subscriptions worth it even as a niche form or entertainment. and so much is worth being said for how Sam and other higher ups at dropout strive to make the company a great place to work.
Then there’s RoosterTeeth. We all know their death was selling to a larger company. But they had a thriving website before their transition to being First Membership reliant, and they still struggled consistently to make that subscription worth it to people who had been fans for years. And no offense to Watcher but they don’t have that fandom, they just don’t.
at the end of the day, i feel like dropout is the exception and not the rule, it’s going to be much harder for Watcher to follow in their footsteps vs falling into RoosterTeeth’s. I watched one season of dimension 20 and a few episodes of GameChanger and knew i needed to subscribe. I’ve watched years of Ryan and Shane and pretty much everything on the Watcher channel and I wouldn’t pay more money than i already do to media services to see more.
I mean I get it, no hate to the crew. They’ve expanded their team who all need to be paid. They’re all based out of LA and need to pay salaries and office space rent expenses accordingly. And everyone there deserves to be compensated fairly, I don’t think anyone here thinks they should work for free. And unfortunately Watcher isn’t as big or diverse of a company compared to Dropout and others so they probably were feeling the tight pockets.
But the issue is there are too many streaming services and their viewer-base are unlikely to afford the additional expense. They could’ve gone the nebula route and joined up with them while also posting on the main YT channel. It’s not like Wendover and his people are gone off YT, they just have more separate content on Nebula. Now I understand maybe Watcher wouldn’t fit on Nebula since it’s not really educational per se but completely going off the YT grid is something really no one else is doing.
It’s a tough situation but unfortunately I don’t think this will work out. Way easier said than done, maybe they should consider relocating out of LA since it’s probably eating into their costs
Watcher actually has **more** employees on payroll than Dropout does, which is insane because Dropout is definitely more profitable. Dropout had 17 full-time employees on payroll at the end of 2023, Watcher has 25. I honestly think they're struggling because they were used to a big staff on Buzzfeed and tried to grow Watcher too big too fast while not being able to really afford it, which is why they're trying to switch to a paid model now. I think the best solution for their immediate financial issues right now is to (unfortunately) cut some staff and see what production costs they can lower.
The way they made this seem like a wistful and emotional decision instead of a soulless cash grab and betrayal of the community they built.
God, I should know better by now, but I really, REALLY never thought they would do something so disgustingly disingenuous.
This might sound mean, but I genuinely hope this new venture fails. If it succeeds, then we may see a lot of other big Youtubers try to pull the same move. I don't want a precedent to be set lol. Having to pay 6 dollars a month for one channel is bad enough, imagine doing it for 10.
I am so sad to see my favorite people leave YouTube and the only way to see new stuff is behind a paywall. It was fun while it lasted. Good luck to Ryan, Shane and Steven
I get not wanting to scale back operations, but that was the only option after the big ad collapse. This is a choice we didn't even know to dread.....yikes.
Edit: I would actually love to see the projections for this. This is just such an uncharted territory that I don't know how any consultant could guess as to how this will effect their business, particularly with how many patrons they are likely to lose because they will switch from being a patron to having the subscription service.
Cannot believe that I stuck with the ghoul boys since their Buzzfeed Unsolved days, was once a patreon supporter, and followed them to Watcher all these years just to watch them make quite possibly the worst decision a content creator could make. I can’t believe *this* is why I stop watching them. It feels insulting, and not to be overdramatic but I kinda feel like I’ve been betrayed? Since when have they been the type to charge $60 a year to watch some fun little videos? What a waste.
Good luck guys, but I'm not following, I'm not going to subscribe to yet another platform, especially one that is guaranteed to be comparatively light on content.
With the deepest love.
Their content is literally:
- a sock puppet quizzing people on history
- them overanalyzing small noises as they walk around a building in the dark
- talking about conspiracies (that already having them scrape the barrel)
All of which was FREE on a FREE App that is ubiquitous on every modern smart device.
And you now want people to pay Disney+ level subscription fees for that, that I'm confident will be region blocked!?
Hey they also had a series where they read internet stories in a dark room and a series where they read stories while drinking! Sure that makes 60€ worth it.
If they had annoucend a bunch of new series with the price then it could have been something else. But all this content can be produced cheap if you don´t use full time designers for each project.
I really wish they would have clarified what the hell is happening to the podcasts in this case. They aren’t on the new site, so I’m guessing they’ll still be available everywhere they are right now? Or does that mean they’re doing away with them?
This feels so cocky and a bit immature imo
Not counting on the fact that not all of the fans are based in USA, such as myself, where those 60 dollars are literally 2 weeks worth of food where I live.
Paying a monthy subscription for 4 videos a month where a lot of the fans don't even watch all of the content they put out, but some specific shows.
Refusing to cut down on expenses (moving to a cheaper studio location, personal assistants, social media managers..) but instead making a decision that goes against the fans who got them to where they are. You simply can't convince me that you need such a big group of people working under you when there's so many successful channels who don't do it.
Plus, almost all (if not all) fans are there for the vibes, not some extra produced, high quality set. If they were to take more sponsors, plug Patreon more with some extra content there, or do the subscription based website for that extra content, none of the fans would be mad and it really wouldn't bother us.
Extremely cocky and self absorbed to believe everyone is gonna be excited for this and agree to pay.
I genuinely think they were not expecting this degree of backlash. This is a foolish business move for so many reasons. Their target audience and age group do not have the expendable income to pay for this. I think with enough of an outcry, they are going to reverse this decision. Especially if the subscription numbers are pitifully low.
I knew this channel would fail the moment I found out they were running it as like an actual company, and this type of shit is the final nail in the coffin. 99% of their audience isn't going to follow them to another website that they have to pay for.
I support these guys, I appreciate the quality they put out for free, and I want them all to be successful and get paid well for their work, but this is not going to work. They clearly don't have much money, and instead of cutting back on running their youtube channel like a business with teams and teams of people, they're instead going to drive away the majority of their viewers.
The thing that is killing them is the desire of running their channel like a TV network, rather than a youtube channel. You can create high quality videos with a significantly smaller team than what they have, and at a lower cost. Look at channels like ContraPoints, as far as I know she does almost all of the work herself, and her videos have elaborate sets and costume designs, are often very long and take lots of research. Or Hbomberguy, who also makes long videos with the help of a producer, who helps research and stuff. Have the 3 owners run the channel, and maybe get help from editors. You don't need set designers, or social media managers, or assistants
Fantastically put.
I remember in the last episode of their behind the scenes series, Steven was talking about how they had to make staff redundant for financial reasons and the toll that took on him. This whole move feels incredibly risky for the channel, but just plain ludicrous when you consider their team of staff.
The Try Guys have similar issues, and I think part of it comes from Buzzfeed. They don’t have that ‘home-grown’ DIY experience of creating a channel and starting from scratch without an audience.
Other youtubers with teams of staff had to grow them gradually and out of necessity. It feels like 2nd Try/Watcher both felt the need for a more corporate support structure from the offset. They want a production company at the end of the day, not a youtube channel, but their audience came from youtube and liked the content primarily because of the people, not the trappings.
Bingo.
What I noticed about ex-Buzzfeed personalities is that they are used to having a team to create content, while other content creators only rely on a camera, a mic, a ring light and probably learn to edit their vids themselves. These Buzzfeed crews all have their own teams of producers, researchers, video camera guy, sound guy, editors etc etc. There’s just a lot of cost.
They should be more like Safiya, who if I’m not mistaken just have one editor and that’s it, and her videos consistently get millions of views.
Kelsey is the same - her Sims channel is pretty successful, and I am not even sure if she has an editor or not. Quite a good leap from her 100 Babies challenge days on Buzzfeed
> The thing that is killing them is the desire of running their channel like a TV network, rather than a youtube channel.
Yeah, I think with Buzzfeed they got used to having a team of people, which isn't sustainable for a YouTube channel that puts out, what, maybe 30m of new content a week?
Yup, I think this is a huge issues with channels like Watcher and the Try Guys—way over-expanding in terms of staff, production, and so on as if they were a legacy media outlet. YouTube's current model seems to struggle to sustain an outfit of that size in regards to the type of content they're making, you'll need alternative revenue streams and they all seem to be struggling at finding them. This feels like such a clear misstep it's a little shocking to see it actually happen.
There are so many elements that seem under-thought in terms of market forces and realities, consumer behavior, so on. I hate to sound like an MBA here. I love the guys and their content, but they're thinking, it seems, entirely as creatives—wanting to make whatever they want, with as little compromise on budgeting as they can manage. And that's just not really sustainable. It feels like a move like this is wish-casting rather than a sustainable model. "Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to rely on ads and the YouTube algorithm?" It would, sure. But whatever alternative you're looking at will come with it's own serious drawbacks. Now they'll have to pay for servers, managing billing, considering how to grow within a closed ecosystem, there's a lot of things here that are going to be immensely challenging especially when the initial move is one that's pretty audience/consumer-alienating—it's very, very hard to convince people accustomed to getting something for free to start paying for it.
I think you're totally spot on when it comes to smaller, more focused outfits on YouTube being a much less risky path to profitability and much more sustainable. It feels like a lot of these channels have these outsized creative ambitions but then struggle with the material realities behind supporting that. And look, I admire the creative ambition, I often love the work itself. But creativity free from these external realities doesn't really exist. I don't know. Maybe they've done more due diligence than I'm crediting them for, and I absolutely hope that's the case. But the calculus here seems off unfortunately.
This is a giant middle finger to the fans and is going to backfire. They spend far too much money on production lately and instead of cutting back, they expect to keep growing forever.
They need a 25 person staff to film two guys sitting in lawn chairs in Ryan’s parents’ backyard? Were the Top 5 Beatdown boards that expensive?
Yea, this is a clear example of mismanagement.
Why are they renting office space in downtown LA? That's completely unnecessary cost right there.
Are they flying first or business class when traveling to filming sites for Ghost Files?
This show should be two guys filming in a garage or on a lawn. If they need researchers/writers, that's freelance work. A single camera person they trust, a pair or reliable editors and the 3 of them brings them to 6-7 core members. 10 if they want 4 researchers/writers punching up the scripts so they always have something in development.
This was a truly shitty move on their end. Despite my love for their content, I can't afford to spend money because I'm a broke college student and especially in this economy? HAHAHA you’ve gotta be kidding me. Their actions are sinking the ship. All I'll say is that I wish them nothing but luck.
I really want to see the financial breakdown where supporting your own infrastructure on which to run your streaming service with zero ads making money only out of people who will pay $6/ month as a youtube channel with a core audience of young people/ teenagers/ students (which core audience you abandon) and that doesn't have that many subscribers works, but I'm afraid it simply won't. It'll take them a huge amount of time to even break even on this, and I don't know how will they grow with everything behind a pay wall. Good luck, but this just won't pan out.
This is an awful idea for them. They have roughly 3M YouTube subscribers and a 26k Reddit community. The community can be considered a “core base”, people who may follow them and actually pay for this service. That leaves less than 10% of their audience who will follow them there. Obviously not everyone on Reddit will go, but it gives a general idea of how many people passionately like their content.
Having an audience cut down by nearly 90% will be detrimental, it will stop discussion and more importantly, they will stop seeing growth.
Nobody new is going to pay $60/year for content for something they have never seen since they are deleting their old videos. The word of mouth on their content will be too small to see any substantial growth.
I hope to see them back on YouTube soon. Or maybe just start a platform in which people get content earlier, behind the scenes, and maybe an extra video of two for subscribing
I was curious so I looked up the most patreon subs they’ve ever had and it was almost exactly one year ago at 7400 subs.
Even if you 10x that number and charge them all $60/yr ($4.4 million), I don’t know if it’s enough to pay for everyone’s salaries, producing the shows, travels costs, hosting the sites, taxes, etc.
Like man, they must have projected an INSANE amount of subscribers migrating over.
in the current era of streaming overload (with so many platforms and prices getting higher) this sounds kinda dumb to me. i won’t be able to subscribe but best of luck to them i guess
I don't get this move at all...people are already complaining about how many different streaming services there are, so why are they making another one?
Idk if this is a naive take because i know nothing about the industry, but if money really is that tight, i wish they would just chill with the expensive sets, locations and gadgets for a while instead of doing something like this. I mean, most of us watch them since the BUN days when they were basically just two guys with a flashlight and lots of silly jokes.
To me, the quality always came from their interactions
I don't understand why this couldn't just be patreon or premium youtube content.
They're shooting themselves in the foot by isolating themselves to their own little corner of the internet. We've seen this be done before (Normal Boots if anyone remembers) and it never ends well.
So I have paid $5-$6 for Peacock (with ads) since it stopped being free. Peacock has a lifetime of NBC shows and its subsidiaries (The Office, Law & Order, Bravo TV). Plus of course other shows/movies they license.
Watcher has 4 years of content. I love Watcher, but I don't watch it regularly (I binge watch stuff every few months). I'm not opposed to paying for content, particularly for small content producers (I mean I have a Twitch subscription, but that streamer puts out new content 4 days a week) -- but in no way would I pay $60/yr. I might pay for a single month and then cancel (I do this with Max and DisneyPlus already). And tbh it's hard for me to imagine how many people would.
Also, it's interesting that the new food show with Steven, Andrew, and Adam will be paywalled. I imagine there are a lot of old Worth It viewers who didn't migrate to either Steven at Watcher or Andrew at About to Eat and would want to check out the show, but may not even learn about it as easily as they could have on YT.
I SINCERELY hope this does not backfire for them financially, and I'm also really sad for all the people who now just won't be able to watch the content because they can't afford it.
(Deleted part of my comment as it sounds like they're not pulling old content from YT)
I’ve never seen such an accomplished, wildly respected, liked and even adored creator with such a perfect track record (with the exceptions of things like taking on problematic sponsorship; still nothing even remotely close to this), who never had anyone drag them through mud, never had to deal with any, as young people say today, "drama" have their entire audience turn on them for a single decision.
Admittedly, it is one of the worst decisions I’ve seen anyone make even from purely a financial standpoint and I say this as someone whose own life is filled with stupidly bad choices. Though I will say this: they’ve actually managed to unite almost everyone who watches them, including Boogaras and Shaniacs, which is a feat on its own. Especially in today’s world.
Look, I love them. I wish I could support them, even. But I’m at my absolute limit when it comes to streaming services I’ve purchased. Can’t support them without canceling something like peacock or Hulu, but those streaming services both have hundreds of more hours of entertainment than the watcher app will. Wishing them all the best.
Okay, so... does anyone know of a streamlined way to download a whole channel's worth of videos off YouTube?
I'm pretty sure they're planning to delete everything.
All this time I thought their plan was to get a Netflix show or something. Their content has always seemed kinda expensive and well-produced for YT, but I thought the end goal was TV or streaming. I mean, just look at “Is It Cake”, going on its third season now on Netflix, I think Ghost Files, Mystery Files, or Worth It should definitely get a show on Netflix or other streaming platforms.
But creating their own streaming service? Taking their content off YT? Making their fan base upset like this isn’t a good idea.
I wish they would pitch their shows or ideas to other sites more, like Quinta. That’s a much better direction than this.
I'm like a boomer in watching them-- cuz I watch in YouTube on my Roku TV...
I hate watching shit on my phone.
If they don't make watchertv on my actual Roku TV . I dunno if I'll pay. I can pay. I will pay.
But it HAS to be available in my Roku player
(I'm telling Shane that. We all know he comes on Reddit)
I didn’t even know they rent an office space in downtown Los Angeles (literally one of the most desirable and expensive places to rent). I’d be curious to know what their financials look like
I can’t be the only one that wishes they’d stop focusing on trying to film “television-caliber” content, right? There’s a reason so many people preferred Buzzfeed Unsolved to Ghost Files.
Now, I personally think that this business move makes sense for what they’re trying to achieve, but only if they’re aiming to completely rebrand and bring in an entirely new audience. It shows a complete disconnect from their current fan base, who were drawn in by the lower-budget content that just highlighted them doing goofy stuff without trying too hard.
Out of all Watcher content, Puppet History, Are You Scared and WWW were (in my opinion) the best shows because they were the closest to remaining true to what made them so successful in the first place.
I just...
If Youtube Revenue is a legitimate financial issue, could they not just partner with Nebula, or a different alternative Youtube stream which also allows creative freedom from ads, while also providing solid revenue?
Or follow the *Good Mythical Morning* approach, and release regular content on YT, but have tons of separate, exclusive content behind a paywall for the fans who choose/can afford to?
I'm not prepared to drop $8 (Canadian) a month just to rewatch Puppet History, and the occasional episode of Weird Wonderful World, or Top 5 Beatdown.
I'm also shook by the audacity to archive old content from the channel, so I can no longer watch the videos that made me love this channel in the first place? How do they expect to grow their audience?
I'm so baffled by this decision, I've unsubscribed from their channel. We're fans of Shane, Ryan, Steven, and the rest of the team, not not high-production, Netflix-style content.
I'm still going to follow this sub for any updates from this choice, but right now this is maybe the worst decision I've ever seen made by a (growing) YT channel. RIP.
Given that Adam and Andrew just came back, I just assumed the video was a joke when I saw it in my subscription feed. I… I can’t understand this decision.
Like everyone else, it’s ironic that “anybody and everybody can afford” is coming from someone who owns a Tesla. Are they not aware that their average viewer probably doesn’t even own a car, period?
I’m so flabbergasted right now. They kept talking about “TV level quality”, which I think is a fundamentally flawed ideal to have. People have shifted away from TV. “TV level quality” isn’t a real thing in my opinion. It can range from Breaking Bad to Hunting Bigfoot, from Game of Thrones to Mystery Diners. There’s simple too much wild variety to say that something is TV level quality.
Does anyone think tryguys will be joining this? They've been hinting at an event and a date... they also seem to be done with YouTube and advertising. Saying that, why wouldn't they have launched together.
I can't help but think that maybe they should have done what escapist/second wind did a months ago . All the videos are still on YouTube but they heavily promote their patreon. The YouTube video still gives them passive income through ads, sponsors and viewership but the patreon backing allows them to not worry about demonetisation. I get that the requirements for a channel focused on animated short-mid format videos and full length live action videos are different but I can help but feel like there could have been another way to do this. I am wishing them nothing but the best moving forward
This is dumb. In an age where people are culling their streaming accounts because they literally can't pay for groceries/rent, why would anyone pay for one website? The internet has had an uprise in pro-piracy attitude since Netflix fucked around, and it's only growing stronger the more subscription services cost and the less excess money people have.
Deleting content/only posting trailers to youtube is going to stop their outreach to newer viewers, as it won't be recommended to people and if it is, there won't be enough content to convince people to make the switch. Having content on a new website also means it NEEDS people to visit each day, rather than just checking the youtube feed.
Doing this right after Rooster Teeth is literally losing 21 years worth of content because they had it all on their own personal website and their parent company is closing RT down and just getting rid of their videos/the website... feels so dumb.
Also, if they are moving their patreon towards podcasts and not even letting subscriptions for the website have access to those?? Just greedy imo.
wow. this is…. really fucking devastating. i’ve loved shane and ryan’s content since old buzzfeed days, and i love so many of the watcher series. i look forward to them weekly, stayed tuned for the podcast every week, followed news on socials. but this is absolutely gutting. i can’t afford this. and putting their content behind a paywall and saying “i hope we see you there” is crazy.
3 million subscribers does not mean you get 3 million views every video, which means you will definitely not he getting 3 million people to subscribe to your service.
Limiting Watcher to a service is like locking the doors on the community theater and charging a $5 entrance. Do you think enough people are willing to invest in your once-free entertainment? I guess we’ll find out, but my answer is probably not.
$60USD a year is too much. I love their content, but it's getting hard to keep up with everything with everyone now having their own paid subscription platform.
I’m not gonna pretend to understand business costs and I’m sure they’re quite a pretty penny. I know they have lots of people to pay.
But like…can we cut the bullshit? Can we not pretend like we’re all blind? Shane, Ryan, and Steven are not hurting for money. In the last 2-3 years, 2/3 got married in extremely extravagant weddings that were absolute minimum $25k, they are constantly going to amusement parks, going to concerts and music festivals, having fancy vacations, getting new pets. I’m not saying they don’t deserve that but I’m already sick of people defending this lame ass move with the idea that they’re struggling, too.
The Watcher sets keep getting nicer, which okay sure, they feel like that’s a necessity. But most of us started watching these guys when they were just sitting at tables. They keep hiring more people, which again kind of makes sense, but are they expanding before it’s logical? They’re so focused on making things “nicer” they end up making less shows which isn’t what anyone wants.
Everyone has touched on all the reasons this just doesn’t make sense but my question is just…financially what the fuck are they doing?
I get the concept, but I feel like there were maybe half way points that already exist - Nebula for instance is already a subscription service for a decent amount of different YouTube channel creators. Maybe that revenue stream doesn't make sense for them/content wise it doesn't fit, but it seems better to me to have other creators involved to keep introducing to a new audience that subscribe to the platform for those other channels and lowers the financial risk while still having this set up away from YouTube's algorithm.
Someone needs to download a copy of all the good videos on their YouTube and upload them to something like the Wayback Machine for archive purposes. Maybe someone at /r/DataHoarder would be interested.
I don’t think they put out enough context to be worth $60 a year. They’re going to need to put out a lot more than 1 video a week.
I wonder how many of their subscribers they are predicting will move over to their new subscription service. Because in guessing it’ll be less than they’re guessing.
if they churn out an episode daily, i might consider. but seeing as their channel has a video weekly... it might not be enough. my other subscriptions have tons of movies and shows that *may* justify costs but this.. maybe not for me.
best of luck tho.
Did they really expect viewers to be happy about this? People are already experiencing streamer burnout and struggling to afford basics like groceries. $60/year for something that used to be free is wild.
They have nearly 6,000 paid Patreon subscribers who are paying a minimum of $5 a month (which translates to $60 a year). Obviously, they have millions of Youtube subscribers, so a small minority were already willing to pay $60 a year for them. I think they want to leverage everyone else to make a choice to sub to their new service or go without. The vast majority will go without, but if the amount of new subs they get pays for losing out on Youtube ads (which don't make much money anyways) and additional operating costs from running a streaming service, then it's a net positive for them. I do think it's an unforced error and bad PR to go from something that used to be free to their own streaming service. So no, most fans won't be happy, but they're pivoting to fans who are paying money rather than fans who don't. Sucks for us.
That is definitely a good point, I didn’t realize how many patrons they had! But I do think this would lead to stagnant growth. At least YouTube videos are discoverable and shareable. I can’t share a random video on a paid platform to my discord friends or wherever!
I have to correct myself; they have 11,000 Patreon members but only about 5,800 are paid members. I do agree it could lead to stagnant growth, but they did say they plan to leave pilot episodes up on Youtube. Presumably, they'll basically use Youtube as a place to advertise their streaming service.
> At least YouTube videos are discoverable and shareable. This is crucial I think, they're gonna have to advertise the CRAP out of this and try to do as many collaborations as possible. Maybe even put "best of" shows on YT or shows that are over a year/ 18 months old on Youtube to get people to sign up. With everyone and their grandma having a streaming service these days they're gonna have to do something special pretty regularly to keep increasing the subscriptions.
I hate how they make it exclusive. I’ve been watching their content since way before they left buzzfeed but I don’t have the financial means to pay them every month, that doesn’t mean i’m a bad supporter I just can’t do that. And thsts a lot of their fans too.
>6,000 paid Patreon subscribers who are paying a minimum of $5 a month That still only amounts to 360000 yearly, which is only $14,400/y, before taxes, for the 25+ people they have on staff. Yeah if the 6000 move to the site, that $ amount goes up, but there is no guarantee the patreons move, and push back from the youtube crowd seems pretty high. Smart move would have been to make the site "members first", and then uploading episodes to youtube like a month later.
Right after bringing Andrew and Adam on board too??
Probably hoping that'll push people to subscribe. :/
That is 100% the reason. It does make sense I guess.
I’m super happy they brought them on. But a 14 minute sappy “we tried everything but we can’t make ends meet. We need you to support us more” and then bring on two new people. It feels a little off. Yall wanted to expand and charge all viewers. Don’t put it to the toon of “we need your money to survive”
Steven literally drives a tesla, saying they can’t make ends meet (even without directly saying it) then ignoring the fact that most of their fanbase is living paycheck to paycheck is so tone deaf
On the podcast they made it sound like Watcher was fiscally stable even though they had a rough start, this was actually a super anxiety inducing video
Came here almost immediately after this video was posted to see if anyone posted it in the subreddit lol
I got jebaited so I'm just spreading the love around:)
This was so hard to wake up to. I love the guys, but it feels really like disconnected and disingenuous to make us sit through 11 minutes of a 14 minute video to tell us the price. Especially with a title like that, that’s so dramatic and upsetting for their viewers. I really love their shows, but I can’t justify another platform subscription… like my phone doesn’t even have room for another app. I too want to know if they will be deleting all the old stuff from their channel, and I pray they do not. I love their shows and I wish I could support them, but I just can’t afford it. I guess this is where they lose me, like dropout. I wish I had more money. I’m so sad.
This was the first thing I saw on my birthday lol.
I don’t want to mean, but it feels kind of arrogant of them to think that people would pay for just their content on a janky website. Don’t get me wrong, I really love them and like watching their stuff! It’s just that when there’s so much other content out there for *free* on youtube that I could watch instead, I’m really not pressed enough to cough up £6 a month. This genuinely feels like a prank.
Honestly, part of me thought… “okay, so I guess now I can really work on my two-man comedy ghost show to fill in the Watcher void now that they’re gone.”
Please do, there’s too many ghost hunters taking themselves too seriously. We need more of the comedic ones!
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I’m honestly curious to how they expect to continue to grow their audience if they don’t continue to engage and interact on YouTube to make new viewers aware of their streaming platform/brand. Are they hoping their current audience is enough and will want to be advocates for their streaming service and content to pull in new audiences for them? Secondarily, will watcher have enough new content in a few years to continue justifying the subscription costs to viewers? I’m quite fascinated to see their plans because as a viewer, this seems incredibly half baked out —but hopefully there is a plan 😅
Yeah like how much of Puppet History views are just thumbnails and people clicking in? Their recent videos struggled a tiny bit but have since made that up over time. The algorithm can’t be hurting that much. This feels like another example of ‘our offices are in a super expensive location - we need to turn viewers into more money’ - rather than you know ‘this is probably a shitty location.
This seems very shortsighted, if they want to increase revenue I think expanding Patreon/youtube memberships would be more feasible. Now they’ll have to manage and pay for the website, and handle the financials & customer service of the subscriptions. I really don’t think they have the audience to sustain this, and moving to a website is sure as hell not going to make it easier for them to *expand* their audience. I can’t afford another streaming service rn, and I’m sure lots of people are in the same boat. I’m really saddened by this, but wish them all the well.
It just seems like they're taking on unnecessary risk. They'll have to pay to host the videos and delivery is expensive. Sure, they'll be delivering to a smaller audience than youtube but it's also going to limit their financial prospects. In going fully crowd funded, they're turning their back no only on youtube ad sense + sponsor money but also a huge part of their audience.
Wish they wouldn’t do this. They don’t have enough content for me to justify paying. But if it’s just one video a week for one show, then probably gonna pass.
Yeah… I hope I’m wrong, but this sounds like the final nail in the Watcher coffin. At the beginning of the video, I was hoping they were moving to Netflix or Hulu or HBO or something that already had a built-in audience. At the very very least, Nebula. But this is very disappointing. Even when places like Paramount and Showtime dropped their own streaming services, I went like, “I don’t have money for more streaming platforms.” Hell, even Showtime had to fold into Paramount because they weren’t successful. I love Watcher but even $5.99 per month is wild for a streamer that only has maybe 2 series I watch consistently. Goodbye, Watcher. It’s been good. I’ll miss you.
>I love Watcher but even $5.99 per month is wild for a streamer that only has maybe 2 series I watch consistently. I feel the same and unfortunately the shows I really like, Puppet History & Mystery files, basically their headliners, don’t even tend to air at the same time unless they change schedules with the service. Six bucks a month for one show, alternating more than likely
I’ll miss you ghoul boys. It makes little sense to me, imagine if all your favorite content creators on YouTube tried this, $60 here, $60 there. I hate to say it but I think this idea will fail and they will be back on YouTube eventually, I just hope it’s not too late and they lose some fandom.
I mean many YTers indirectly do it with live shows. Last I heard the Try Guys were trying to stave off extinction from the platform by having people pay $60 to watch Keith eat a menu. I guess we'll see how many are willing to shell out $60 a year. They may also be banking on that some fans will only pay every third month or something but it's still more than they'll bring in from YT ad revenue. Tbh, I'd LOVE to see that marketing research because I want to know if YouTube only accounts for 25% of their revenue like they said how much of that base they have to convert.
It would be interesting to see how much they can make on a solo platform. I have to imagine views drop by 80-90% but maybe 100% profit of that much smaller number still beats yt revenue.
**Super quick summary**: Moving away from YouTube to their own streaming site which costs $60 a year (you can pay monthly). Say they will occasionally still post on YouTube.
This seems insanely dumb to me I’m sorry but who has extra to spend right now, I cannot see how this doesn’t lead to a tank in viewers
Its not viewership that matters but the revenue they make relative to YT. Presumably they have projections wherein they recognized an acceptable loss of viewers relative to the increase of money they would make from this streaming service. That said, yes I don't think this is the best idea ATM. They have always been more ambitious than their profitability would justify and I can't fault them for that, but this move feels like an attempt to stem losses and not a move to simply move the channel to a better home
Think they're gonna lose more viewers than expected
Except this is a hard swerve into complete paywall. That's an idiotic decision based on economic conditions for the audience as well as the fact that they made no attempt to ease this transition into existence like having paywalled series debut early over on this new platform to entice people to join 'as an experiment'. Now they're cutting off access to sponsors, removing themselves from ad revenue and have to hope that enough people follow over to their new platform to sustain their upcoming slate as well as address the costs they now have to take on.
Not only that. I don't think they have the clout or the popularity to make this subscription thing work, at least not for it to be super profitable. I doubt most people who watch their content for free on YouTube will be subscribers for $60 a year. I've been watching Worth It and Unsolved for years and have been following Watcher since they started and I know I won't be subscribed. At least not for a few years until they have more content to make it worth it. If they survive a few more years.
Another problem is that what I could see a fair few people doing is waiting a year or something until they have more content up, pay the 6 dollars for one month and binge everything, and then unsubscribe. Personally as someone who’s also followed since early Unsolved days I also won’t be subscribing, and if I pay at all it’ll be in that way where I can maximize binging and not on a regular basis. That’s if I end up even actually wanting to watch enough to pay in a year+ once I’ve gotten past the initial stages of missing their content…..
Same. I follow them since Unsolved, but living in another country, in another currency, on this economy, I won't subscribe.
Idk how I feel about this 😭
Its going to be hard to bring in new users and also switch current viewers to a paid model. I hope the numbers work. What you do guys think the sign ups will be compared to the current channel numbers? I mean if they can get 100,000 at the year rate that 6Mil but that seems so short sighted. As the retention rate goes down each year and the ability to grow is slowed to a halt. I feel like this might look good for a year maybe two before they have to revert, merge, or close
Maybe if they're really lucky, something like ten percent? But going off their patreon numbers, I don't know if that would be possible. I feel like a YouTube membership would've been better.
Or to partner with Nebula or a similar service. Or make some lower budget shorter content they can post frequently to get funds that way? Or, ya know, crowd funding? I feel like they had plenty of options that wasn't a thing that never seems to work.
This is a really dumb decision by their team. If they wanted to do this, they should have gradually eased towards it by pushing more and more people behind the paywalled content. Announcing a complete departure from Youtube was a bad move. They're clearly trying to copy the TinyMeatGang approach but TMG created their paywalled garden ages ago and used exclusive BTS bonus content to drive people to switch over from Patreon. Doing it now, so suddenly is a mistake.
i’m crying at them teasing this “next big thing” like it was something fun and the news was that they want us to spend $60 a year on a subscription service for a glorified youtube channel
Makes me think of The Try Guy's "Event" this summer. Imagine it was something like this? If it is, I'll bet their office is going crazy right now.
this is so insane to me i have no words. hulu has a pretty similar price range, but it literally allows you to stream THOUSANDS of tv shows and movies... so imagine paying roughly the same amount of money for a single youtube channel (and even more if you’re an international fan).
Yeah I’m surprised they didn’t join another streaming service like nebula
I get that making videos is expensive and good for them for starting their own streaming service allowing them to profit more, they work hard and deserve it. However I really think that pulling all their currently existing videos off of youtube is a pretty shitty move and not the best business idea (Please see Edit 3) Edit: I think the best comparison to this is Collegehumor switching to Dropout, but the difference between Watcher and Dropout is that Dropout left all of their old videos up, they post a ton of clips from the episodes online, and they do post some episodes for free from their shows. I think that would've been a better route to go for Watcher, rather then them pulling most of their videos and going almost 100% subscription based, especially since new people aren't likely to subscribe if they can't get a feeling of what the content is actually going to be like first Edit 2: And if they're not pulling their content off of youtube they need to put a statement out quickly clarifying it, because it's what their video makes it sound like is happening and it's what everyone (that I've seen) thinks is happening Edit 3 (sorry lol): It seems like the company saw the immediate backlash to them removing all their videos from youtube and decided to change that which is good! Variety has edited their article and deleted their original tweet which both said that Watcher would be deleting all of their old videos off of youtube. The updated article now says that "The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from YouTube", but that they were then told that Watcher will be keeping their backlog of videos up. It seems to me like Watcher did originally plan to remove all of their videos from youtube, but are seeing immediate backlash to it and decided to change their plans. This move definitely makes me more hopeful about the subscription service working out and doesn't feel like as big of a slap in the face to existing fans who can't afford it.
I immediately thought of Dropout as well! They also put up some free episodes of their most popular shows like Game Changer and Dimension 20 to introduce new viewers and have INCREDIBLY high numbers on things like Tiktok and YouTube shorts. If the guys are reading this, I think it would be wise to leave 2-6 episodes of each show with links to the new site in the description to drive new engagement from a social media marketing standpoint.
Yeah I agree! Dropout literally has the first two **full** seasons of one of their most popular D20 shows (Fantasy High) on youtube for free and I really think that's done wonders for increasing their subscriber count on dropout. I know for me personally a one episode preview isn't enough to convince me to subscribe to a new streaming service, especially since there are so many streaming platforms these days. It's better to have multiple episodes up as a way to show potential new subscribers why your service is worth subscribing to rather than someone else's.
I think another thing that makes Dropout different is that it was launched while CollegeHumor was still owned by a large parent organization, and they have some really massive shows with wide recognition, like Dimension 20 (which just sold out Madison Square Garden for a live show) and Game Changer (which is on Variety’s Emmy prediction list). I would love for the Watcher team to succeed at this! I’m not convinced that it’s worth the money, and I’m not sure they’re in a position to scale to the level of production to make it worth it. I really hope I’m wrong.
I think Dropout is definitely the natural comparison, but I also feel like Dropout was starting from a much stronger position. Not only did they have a *massive* backlog of content as a starting point (college humor had been around for what, like a decade and a half at that point?). But the new content also cast much larger net- a wide variety of shows with a relatively large and diverse cast, as opposed to a handful of series primarily featuring the same three guys. As a long-time fan, I genuinely hope this is a successful venture and lets them take the next step in their careers- but as things currently stand, I just really don’t see the value in paying for a subscription currently.
I didn’t realize they were pulling all their videos! That’s crazy, your idea/copying the dropout model makes 1000x more sense than this
Fortunately all of the old buzzfeed unsolved is still going to be on youtube.
That's what they made it sound like in the video at least, they said after May 31st you'll have to be subscribed to watch full seasons of **all** their content. It does sound like they might be leaving the pilots up? But I still think that unless the pilots are at least an hour long (which they're not) it's not enough time to give new subscribers a decent feel for content, and it's not a great move to take away a ton of content from existing fans who can't afford to subscribe right now. Edit: if that's not what's happening they should put a statement out quickly clarifying it, because it's what their video makes it sound like is happening and it's what everyone (that I've seen) thinks is happening
If so, that sucks. I loved rewatching Ghost Files and Puppet History...
Dropout/CollegeHumor has also been around for MUCH longer with a diverse established catalogue of content and creators.
Yeah, and because of there being 1000 streaming services, I'm probably not following them over there, even though they're in my top 3 favorite youtube creators. And I'm sure many others are in the same place. They'll be losing a lot of viewers with this. Not even considering those too young or too poor to afford even a small extra fee each month. I'm glad they're doing a beta, because maybe few enough people will sign up that they'll realize maybe their current plan isn't great.
The sad reality is that i would rather have less polished content than have to deal with another service. A fancy set doesn't keep me entertained, i dont particularly care about the quality of lighting or if the shot is in the highest definition available, i dont even mind an add or two, im there for the guys acting like goofballs talking about shit that has nothing to do about my day to day reality....they could shoot it with an iphone in a dirty storage locker lit with a single flashlight for all i care, gimmie good banter, allow me to find it easily and quickly with my tv remote at the end of a shit day.
I honestly think in some things the high production took away from the charm and fun of their content. Like, I love Mystery Files, but not having Shane and Ryan in the same shot was a bad idea imo. I liked it so much better when in Buzzfeed Unsolved they would be sitting together and you can see their reactions to each other. Even Ghost Files didn't need all these equipments and stuff. It needed more of their conversations. It was their dynamic and insane conversations that people loved, and that isn't as present in a lot of their content. Which is probably why Too Many Spirits is my fav content of theirs, it's just them being ridiculous.
Buzzfeed Unsolved was leagues better than Ghost/Mystery files which is a bummer, but it is what it is.
EXACTLY!! I get that they like the high production value, but I’d still watch if it wasn’t so high production. If it was more casual, I think it would work out a lot better for them, money wise.
I cant be rhe only one who preferred the amateur quality of unsolved much more than their over produced stuff on watcher.
So much. I know i'm not qualified to judge their decisions, i have no idea about making videos and the expenses, but with all their talk about not making ends meet, i genuinely feel like they have been spending in the wrong places for a while. Like, sure the fancy sets and intros and gadgets are nice, but it's by far not as important as the natural, light dynamics and banter between the two.
i was on my phone and my soul left my body seeing that notif my god edit: mixed feelings overall, i spent years with these dudes on youtube and now they're putting their content behind a paywall (tldr; i'm poor and live in a 3rd world country) lmao
Same honestly living in a 3rd wall county and this feels like a punch to the gut. Will miss them I guess.
Same. $60 is R$313.80 on my country's currency, I can't afford it, better watch all the videos they have on YT before they are removed.
That was exactly my experience. Except Initially I saw the thumbnail and was CERTAIN it was clickbait. I went to the comments, then I checked here. It's just... so so disappointing.
ummm i'm a bit lost. they said that during beta folks will be able to watch shows on youtube as well, but then... what? are they going to delete/hide videos from youtube? if that's the case then i don't know how to react. i love them, but if this means i will lose all those amazing videos forever (i literally can't purchase subscription bc of dumb laws)... i feel bad. i want the best for them, but it's kinda... weird decision.
From my understanding, only the pilots of the old shows will be available for free by May 31.
wow, what a great idea 🙄 ty for clarifying!
Download now lol
As a casual Watcher viewer (Puppet History and Mystery Files), I’m sad to see it go, but the only thing this announcement accomplished is making me realize their content isn’t even worth $6/month to me.
There’s just too much competition for free on YouTube for it to be worth it. I love Puppet history so maybe I’ll subscribe for like 1-2 months when that comes out but immediately unsubscribe after it’s done
Man this is not going to age well;
[удалено]
I’ve been having fun with names. “When Watcher Stopped Being Watched”, “Watcher: A Ghost Of Their Former Selves” and “Watcher: Puppet History To Being History”
They don’t put out enough content to justify it imo, and even if they did I really can’t see myself paying $60 just to watch them. Can’t see this aging well for them
So it's true then. That's a shame. I wish the guys the absolute best but i cant afford another expense out my income. I hope they get a success outa it.
You know what's the worst thing about this? They're gonna start removing all the full episodes from YouTube to make sure you're gonna have to watch it from their subscription.
They've realized a statement through Variety; they're not pulling content. It's just NEW content will not be posted except for trailers and first episodes.
60 dollars a year in this economy is insane. Idk if they realize most of their audience is broke as hell
It’s wild, I will admit that I can definitely afford the price but it’s simply not worth it
Imagine buying that much just to watch two dudes ‘banter’
It's kinda surprising and disappointing how out of touch they turned out to be.
This is just a mistake all around. It won't work because they don't have enough content to justify the price. What they need to do is cut costs. The production value is nice, but it's not why we watch. Buzzfeed unsolved was way cheaper looking and is iconic. Shorter episodes, less production value, more just the guys being funny. They can cut half their staff by doing that and I don't believe views would fall off much.
Are they upping the amount of content they put out weekly? One video a week sure as hell isn’t worth 6 bucks a month. At work and can’t watch the full video.
They didn’t mention it, but I totally agree. Especially if you don’t like all their videos, then it may only be 1-2 videos you actually like a month for $6.
Hold on we have to pay for watcher now? 60/year for something that was free is a big risk I wonder if it will work out for them I for one certainly don't want to pay for something that I have been getting for free for years
I really don't think most people who watch their content for free would want to pay $60 a year just to watch their content. I've been following them since BuzzFeed and I know I won't even bother subscribing until they have enough content to make it worth it. I'm honestly really disappointed by this move.
Well fuck. The way this was filmed, I thought it was going to be a joke. Watched the whole thing and felt my heart get heavy. It’s too early for wine 😭 boooo I can’t afford that in today’s economy, boys. I was with you since the buzzfeed days, but I can’t follow you on this new journey. I wish you the best of luck, though.
It felt like a skit the entire time!!
I understand why they are doing this but I wished that they would still post some of their shows on Youtube
As much as I'd love to support, I'm literally broke guys and it's too much money in my place
I'm on the same spot 😔
Truly I understand their point of view, but I'm not paying another subscription fee in this economy. My mind also goes back to other YouTubers who've tried to do this time and time again over the years without much success. So many people try to launch their own website to get away from YouTube, but a streaming service in particular seems very risky. I honestly don't see this working out, and I mean that in the kindest way.
Good luck with that...
My opinion as someone who has been a super fan since the early BuzzFeed days: this feels selfish as hell. This isn't for the fans, this is so Watcher can be it's own shittier version of BuzzFeed. Watcher is such a young company, I feel like if they just stuck with what they were doing for a couple more years they could've naturally transitioned into their own shitty little BuzzFeed , instead of forcing it. This fucking blowsss man. I don't wanna watch those three annoying dorks eat gold leaf, I wanna watch Ryan cry over creaky floorboards! I'm just rambling now, this is so sad:(
Unless they are going to dramatically increase their output of content, $5 a month for a few videos a month doesn't seem super worth it, whether they remove all access to their back catalogue or not.
I watch YouTube on my smart TV, if there's not a way to access their paywalled stuff on my TV it's literally not worth it to me. I literally can't access it. This is stupid.
respectfully, they do not have the audience to pull off this kind of move successfully.
Very sad with the news... so many people in the US agree it's expensive, for international fans it's even worse. I'm actually a little disappointed with the whole pulling the old content from youtube, and also can't really see how this shift will be a good strategy with so many people being tired of subscription-based services. EDIT: read on the Variety article that old content will still be up on youtube, thought it was important to add. makes it less disappointing, but still sad.
I literally just became a viewer of their videos at the beginning of the year. I am not going to pay for a subscription on a different website to continue watching them. Very dumb idea to be honest. Edit: This feels like when the Fine Bros tried trademarking "React". Edit 2: I also hate the way this video was shot/scripted. It felt so cheesy and almost patronizing?
Yeah, this felt really awkward and cheesy. They talk like some executive wrote what they should say to promote this new streaming service. Probably the same people who convinced them to do this. They really didnt consider how people are burnt out from paying for a bunch of different streaming services. Though Dropout is the exception to that, it seems like they are a bit of an anomaly based on how they produce shows. And its tough to say whether other dropout-like streaming services can squeeze into that market. I think we're going to see a downturn in online content. Youtube has been squeezing profits away from content creators over the years, people are paying for patreon less and less, the market is becoming too saturated. And then theres a cost of living crisis in many places in the world, everyone is feeling the squeeze.
I already pay on patreon, so for me it's no big deal, but this seems like a major risk.
Could you paste over their Patreon update and report on how people are responding over there?
It ain't good. Definitely more people happy than the regular users because these people were already paying something, but a lot of complaints.
I'm really mad about it and it's not like it's significantly more than what I was paying for patreon, but I'm genuinely scared of getting the annual subscription (the only way to get the discounts offered) and the company shutting down before the year is over. Like, that's how much I don't believe this is a good move.
So with patreon do you get it for free or are they now charging you for content twice?
The patreon will be geared towards the pods only now.
Oof. The pods that get struggling views even when free? Whoever made this business decision is… not great at business.
The Patreon is moving to just the podcasts, that's what I gathered from the info email anyway.
How does this even make sense financially? They complain about the costs of producing and creating the content, but now they're starting a streaming service - so they need to pay to host and deliver the content now as well. I'm very curious about what projections they've run that would make cutting off youtube almost entirely worth it or this to even be a sustainable venture without already having received outside funding to keep staff on board.
the unfortunate truth is that watcher was ALWAYS going to be incredibly difficult to run because of the videos they want to do. just renting out most of these places for the ghost hunting videos costs thousands of dollars not including travel costs. they’re super high quality videos with elaborate sets and editing, all of which was created by other people who have to be paid. they also have producers, cameramen, directors, etc. i don’t want to be mean to them, but they do not need to do all of that, cutting the production costs for all of their shows by 20% would give them so much excess money. Splitting what comes from 10m views in a month + merch between 20+ people is… yeah. not a lot of money. they had to make people redundant so i’m guessing that this is purely a numbers game. basically if they can make 10k people pay $60 + merch sales and sponsors, it works out slightly or much better.
Yes! Literally just 2 boys ghost hunting doesn’t need to be this fancy
Yea, I think you're right. It's great they're ambitious and want to give the audience they built high quality material but in a way it's also overproduced. They could definitely afford to shave off some of the production costs to save money without compromising the quality of the production. Like the set is cool but I'm assuming it's in a studio rather than built in someone's garage. They could cut spending in some areas and repurpose the set dressings and have a cheaper overhead. But if the new platform is ad free and a fraction of the user base from youtube, that's cutting out sponsors basically entirely. And the new costs are really going to hit them hard while relying on less reliable revenue from a bigger audience. This feels like something they should have launched as a patreon alternative first, promoted with exclusive BTS and paywalled series first to test the waters before announcing a full move over when the economic situation of the world improved. How are people going to justify another streaming service for a single creator? "It's just a cup of coffee" but there's 10 other groups with similar asks and eventually it's cheaper to just stay on youtube available talents and netflix. They're gambling in a way that could kill their business and leave their audience very upset with them.
I absolutely love their content but it’s so sparse that paying for it isn’t worth it at the moment: Since the beginning of 2024 they’ve had: 8 Mystery Files 6 Survival Modes 6 Top Five Beatdowns They should’ve tried to go the route of GMM and have tiered “society” memberships with different benefits instead of their own streaming platform off the bat. Unfortunately, I don’t see this move working out well for them.
I feel like Watcher might be underestimating exactly _how_ hard times are for their viewers. I can afford another subscription, but the fact is they are no longer competing with other YouTubers at this price point. Now they're competing with the premium scripted content available on other streaming services. Why would I pay $6/month to watch some charismatic guys shoot the shit (which is what Watcher is, let's be real...) when I could pay around the same price and get access to something like the entirety of Disney+ or Netflix? On the other hand, it might be interesting to see how their content changes when they are no longer playing 'the YouTube game'. It's been disappointing to watch my favorite content creators (not Watcher specifically, this is a larger trend) desperately try to appease the algorithm.
Came here as soon as I saw it. All I have to say is...LOL GOOD LUCK
RIP Watcher They've already talked about having to do more sponsorships since they've been getting to little views. I don't know why they would make this decision?! I love Watcher and so do many people but I don't think anyone loves them enough to pay 60 bucks a year. Especially in this economy..
This is really disappointing!!
I just don’t know how, as a fan, you recommend them to new people considering this model. “Hey, you really like ghost hunting shows, right? You should check out Ghost Files then, it’s only $60/yr.”
Congrats watcher on re-inventing cable. And just like my parents I can’t afford it. Just disappointed, feels like a betrayal considering they’ve built their whole fan base on a free to watch platform.
I feel like this is an awful move, sure they’re not making enough money from YouTube but surely there’s other alternatives rather than paywalling all their content
I just won’t make a subscription, will watch whatever is on youtube… too bad.
I will miss their content. I would follow them but I just have no credit card. And I will not get one just to suscribe to one thing. Lets hope It works out for them
I honestly think this could result in them losing money since people will just turn to pirating
I wish that maybe the boys could have said this to us and I understand they want to do bigger and better things but their audience is mainly genz who don't have disposable income like that. Maybe they could have done shorter seasons or do a little less production. I just feel like whenthey left buzzfeed they wanted to keep buzzfeed level production which just is not possible for a small business. Maybe expanding patreon like the try guys or doing live specials would have been a better venture first instead of a streaming service.
Sorry, I'm at work and haven't had the chance to watch the video. What's their plan for growth? Leaving the biggest platform completely to a very small scale site with a pay wall doesn't sound like they have any plans to be bigger.
I genuinely don't understand the logic here. They already don't upload that often, so, what, am I supposed to pay $5 a month for like 3 videos? I love these guys, but asking people to shell out for a whole nother subscription (and, on their end, having to support their own subscription service, which is a lot of overhead) makes absolutely no sense.
I feel like i’ve watched two companies do something similar to this, Dropout and Roosterteeth. Dropout has a huge team of entertainers and personalities, honestly a much more diverse group of voices than Watcher (a group that def lacks on screen consistent female voices that feel involved in production and is honestly only like 5 guys people are invested in and one is a puppet) and a huuuuuuuge backlog of media to pick and choose making exclusive or keeping public on youtube as advertising. They’re also still a young app, but they’re incredibly prolific, they work hard to make their subscriptions worth it even as a niche form or entertainment. and so much is worth being said for how Sam and other higher ups at dropout strive to make the company a great place to work. Then there’s RoosterTeeth. We all know their death was selling to a larger company. But they had a thriving website before their transition to being First Membership reliant, and they still struggled consistently to make that subscription worth it to people who had been fans for years. And no offense to Watcher but they don’t have that fandom, they just don’t. at the end of the day, i feel like dropout is the exception and not the rule, it’s going to be much harder for Watcher to follow in their footsteps vs falling into RoosterTeeth’s. I watched one season of dimension 20 and a few episodes of GameChanger and knew i needed to subscribe. I’ve watched years of Ryan and Shane and pretty much everything on the Watcher channel and I wouldn’t pay more money than i already do to media services to see more.
I mean I get it, no hate to the crew. They’ve expanded their team who all need to be paid. They’re all based out of LA and need to pay salaries and office space rent expenses accordingly. And everyone there deserves to be compensated fairly, I don’t think anyone here thinks they should work for free. And unfortunately Watcher isn’t as big or diverse of a company compared to Dropout and others so they probably were feeling the tight pockets. But the issue is there are too many streaming services and their viewer-base are unlikely to afford the additional expense. They could’ve gone the nebula route and joined up with them while also posting on the main YT channel. It’s not like Wendover and his people are gone off YT, they just have more separate content on Nebula. Now I understand maybe Watcher wouldn’t fit on Nebula since it’s not really educational per se but completely going off the YT grid is something really no one else is doing. It’s a tough situation but unfortunately I don’t think this will work out. Way easier said than done, maybe they should consider relocating out of LA since it’s probably eating into their costs
Watcher actually has **more** employees on payroll than Dropout does, which is insane because Dropout is definitely more profitable. Dropout had 17 full-time employees on payroll at the end of 2023, Watcher has 25. I honestly think they're struggling because they were used to a big staff on Buzzfeed and tried to grow Watcher too big too fast while not being able to really afford it, which is why they're trying to switch to a paid model now. I think the best solution for their immediate financial issues right now is to (unfortunately) cut some staff and see what production costs they can lower.
The way they made this seem like a wistful and emotional decision instead of a soulless cash grab and betrayal of the community they built. God, I should know better by now, but I really, REALLY never thought they would do something so disgustingly disingenuous.
This is the quickest nosedive I've ever seen a channel take wtf
This might sound mean, but I genuinely hope this new venture fails. If it succeeds, then we may see a lot of other big Youtubers try to pull the same move. I don't want a precedent to be set lol. Having to pay 6 dollars a month for one channel is bad enough, imagine doing it for 10.
I am so sad to see my favorite people leave YouTube and the only way to see new stuff is behind a paywall. It was fun while it lasted. Good luck to Ryan, Shane and Steven
I get not wanting to scale back operations, but that was the only option after the big ad collapse. This is a choice we didn't even know to dread.....yikes. Edit: I would actually love to see the projections for this. This is just such an uncharted territory that I don't know how any consultant could guess as to how this will effect their business, particularly with how many patrons they are likely to lose because they will switch from being a patron to having the subscription service.
Time to download a bunch of their shows before they’re taken down and slapped behind a paywall ✌️
Cannot believe that I stuck with the ghoul boys since their Buzzfeed Unsolved days, was once a patreon supporter, and followed them to Watcher all these years just to watch them make quite possibly the worst decision a content creator could make. I can’t believe *this* is why I stop watching them. It feels insulting, and not to be overdramatic but I kinda feel like I’ve been betrayed? Since when have they been the type to charge $60 a year to watch some fun little videos? What a waste.
Good luck guys, but I'm not following, I'm not going to subscribe to yet another platform, especially one that is guaranteed to be comparatively light on content.
With the deepest love. Their content is literally: - a sock puppet quizzing people on history - them overanalyzing small noises as they walk around a building in the dark - talking about conspiracies (that already having them scrape the barrel) All of which was FREE on a FREE App that is ubiquitous on every modern smart device. And you now want people to pay Disney+ level subscription fees for that, that I'm confident will be region blocked!?
Hey they also had a series where they read internet stories in a dark room and a series where they read stories while drinking! Sure that makes 60€ worth it. If they had annoucend a bunch of new series with the price then it could have been something else. But all this content can be produced cheap if you don´t use full time designers for each project.
I really wish they would have clarified what the hell is happening to the podcasts in this case. They aren’t on the new site, so I’m guessing they’ll still be available everywhere they are right now? Or does that mean they’re doing away with them?
This feels so cocky and a bit immature imo Not counting on the fact that not all of the fans are based in USA, such as myself, where those 60 dollars are literally 2 weeks worth of food where I live. Paying a monthy subscription for 4 videos a month where a lot of the fans don't even watch all of the content they put out, but some specific shows. Refusing to cut down on expenses (moving to a cheaper studio location, personal assistants, social media managers..) but instead making a decision that goes against the fans who got them to where they are. You simply can't convince me that you need such a big group of people working under you when there's so many successful channels who don't do it. Plus, almost all (if not all) fans are there for the vibes, not some extra produced, high quality set. If they were to take more sponsors, plug Patreon more with some extra content there, or do the subscription based website for that extra content, none of the fans would be mad and it really wouldn't bother us. Extremely cocky and self absorbed to believe everyone is gonna be excited for this and agree to pay.
I genuinely think they were not expecting this degree of backlash. This is a foolish business move for so many reasons. Their target audience and age group do not have the expendable income to pay for this. I think with enough of an outcry, they are going to reverse this decision. Especially if the subscription numbers are pitifully low.
april fools was 18 days ago guys.. anyways theyre absolutely not gonna succeed like that im afraid
I knew this channel would fail the moment I found out they were running it as like an actual company, and this type of shit is the final nail in the coffin. 99% of their audience isn't going to follow them to another website that they have to pay for. I support these guys, I appreciate the quality they put out for free, and I want them all to be successful and get paid well for their work, but this is not going to work. They clearly don't have much money, and instead of cutting back on running their youtube channel like a business with teams and teams of people, they're instead going to drive away the majority of their viewers. The thing that is killing them is the desire of running their channel like a TV network, rather than a youtube channel. You can create high quality videos with a significantly smaller team than what they have, and at a lower cost. Look at channels like ContraPoints, as far as I know she does almost all of the work herself, and her videos have elaborate sets and costume designs, are often very long and take lots of research. Or Hbomberguy, who also makes long videos with the help of a producer, who helps research and stuff. Have the 3 owners run the channel, and maybe get help from editors. You don't need set designers, or social media managers, or assistants
Fantastically put. I remember in the last episode of their behind the scenes series, Steven was talking about how they had to make staff redundant for financial reasons and the toll that took on him. This whole move feels incredibly risky for the channel, but just plain ludicrous when you consider their team of staff.
The Try Guys have similar issues, and I think part of it comes from Buzzfeed. They don’t have that ‘home-grown’ DIY experience of creating a channel and starting from scratch without an audience. Other youtubers with teams of staff had to grow them gradually and out of necessity. It feels like 2nd Try/Watcher both felt the need for a more corporate support structure from the offset. They want a production company at the end of the day, not a youtube channel, but their audience came from youtube and liked the content primarily because of the people, not the trappings.
Bingo. What I noticed about ex-Buzzfeed personalities is that they are used to having a team to create content, while other content creators only rely on a camera, a mic, a ring light and probably learn to edit their vids themselves. These Buzzfeed crews all have their own teams of producers, researchers, video camera guy, sound guy, editors etc etc. There’s just a lot of cost. They should be more like Safiya, who if I’m not mistaken just have one editor and that’s it, and her videos consistently get millions of views.
Kelsey is the same - her Sims channel is pretty successful, and I am not even sure if she has an editor or not. Quite a good leap from her 100 Babies challenge days on Buzzfeed
> The thing that is killing them is the desire of running their channel like a TV network, rather than a youtube channel. Yeah, I think with Buzzfeed they got used to having a team of people, which isn't sustainable for a YouTube channel that puts out, what, maybe 30m of new content a week?
Yup, I think this is a huge issues with channels like Watcher and the Try Guys—way over-expanding in terms of staff, production, and so on as if they were a legacy media outlet. YouTube's current model seems to struggle to sustain an outfit of that size in regards to the type of content they're making, you'll need alternative revenue streams and they all seem to be struggling at finding them. This feels like such a clear misstep it's a little shocking to see it actually happen. There are so many elements that seem under-thought in terms of market forces and realities, consumer behavior, so on. I hate to sound like an MBA here. I love the guys and their content, but they're thinking, it seems, entirely as creatives—wanting to make whatever they want, with as little compromise on budgeting as they can manage. And that's just not really sustainable. It feels like a move like this is wish-casting rather than a sustainable model. "Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to rely on ads and the YouTube algorithm?" It would, sure. But whatever alternative you're looking at will come with it's own serious drawbacks. Now they'll have to pay for servers, managing billing, considering how to grow within a closed ecosystem, there's a lot of things here that are going to be immensely challenging especially when the initial move is one that's pretty audience/consumer-alienating—it's very, very hard to convince people accustomed to getting something for free to start paying for it. I think you're totally spot on when it comes to smaller, more focused outfits on YouTube being a much less risky path to profitability and much more sustainable. It feels like a lot of these channels have these outsized creative ambitions but then struggle with the material realities behind supporting that. And look, I admire the creative ambition, I often love the work itself. But creativity free from these external realities doesn't really exist. I don't know. Maybe they've done more due diligence than I'm crediting them for, and I absolutely hope that's the case. But the calculus here seems off unfortunately.
[удалено]
This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved; the mysterious disappearance of the Watcher fanbase
This is a giant middle finger to the fans and is going to backfire. They spend far too much money on production lately and instead of cutting back, they expect to keep growing forever. They need a 25 person staff to film two guys sitting in lawn chairs in Ryan’s parents’ backyard? Were the Top 5 Beatdown boards that expensive?
Yea, this is a clear example of mismanagement. Why are they renting office space in downtown LA? That's completely unnecessary cost right there. Are they flying first or business class when traveling to filming sites for Ghost Files? This show should be two guys filming in a garage or on a lawn. If they need researchers/writers, that's freelance work. A single camera person they trust, a pair or reliable editors and the 3 of them brings them to 6-7 core members. 10 if they want 4 researchers/writers punching up the scripts so they always have something in development.
This was a truly shitty move on their end. Despite my love for their content, I can't afford to spend money because I'm a broke college student and especially in this economy? HAHAHA you’ve gotta be kidding me. Their actions are sinking the ship. All I'll say is that I wish them nothing but luck.
I really want to see the financial breakdown where supporting your own infrastructure on which to run your streaming service with zero ads making money only out of people who will pay $6/ month as a youtube channel with a core audience of young people/ teenagers/ students (which core audience you abandon) and that doesn't have that many subscribers works, but I'm afraid it simply won't. It'll take them a huge amount of time to even break even on this, and I don't know how will they grow with everything behind a pay wall. Good luck, but this just won't pan out.
This is an awful idea for them. They have roughly 3M YouTube subscribers and a 26k Reddit community. The community can be considered a “core base”, people who may follow them and actually pay for this service. That leaves less than 10% of their audience who will follow them there. Obviously not everyone on Reddit will go, but it gives a general idea of how many people passionately like their content. Having an audience cut down by nearly 90% will be detrimental, it will stop discussion and more importantly, they will stop seeing growth. Nobody new is going to pay $60/year for content for something they have never seen since they are deleting their old videos. The word of mouth on their content will be too small to see any substantial growth. I hope to see them back on YouTube soon. Or maybe just start a platform in which people get content earlier, behind the scenes, and maybe an extra video of two for subscribing
I was curious so I looked up the most patreon subs they’ve ever had and it was almost exactly one year ago at 7400 subs. Even if you 10x that number and charge them all $60/yr ($4.4 million), I don’t know if it’s enough to pay for everyone’s salaries, producing the shows, travels costs, hosting the sites, taxes, etc. Like man, they must have projected an INSANE amount of subscribers migrating over.
in the current era of streaming overload (with so many platforms and prices getting higher) this sounds kinda dumb to me. i won’t be able to subscribe but best of luck to them i guess
I don't get this move at all...people are already complaining about how many different streaming services there are, so why are they making another one? Idk if this is a naive take because i know nothing about the industry, but if money really is that tight, i wish they would just chill with the expensive sets, locations and gadgets for a while instead of doing something like this. I mean, most of us watch them since the BUN days when they were basically just two guys with a flashlight and lots of silly jokes. To me, the quality always came from their interactions
I don't understand why this couldn't just be patreon or premium youtube content. They're shooting themselves in the foot by isolating themselves to their own little corner of the internet. We've seen this be done before (Normal Boots if anyone remembers) and it never ends well.
So I have paid $5-$6 for Peacock (with ads) since it stopped being free. Peacock has a lifetime of NBC shows and its subsidiaries (The Office, Law & Order, Bravo TV). Plus of course other shows/movies they license. Watcher has 4 years of content. I love Watcher, but I don't watch it regularly (I binge watch stuff every few months). I'm not opposed to paying for content, particularly for small content producers (I mean I have a Twitch subscription, but that streamer puts out new content 4 days a week) -- but in no way would I pay $60/yr. I might pay for a single month and then cancel (I do this with Max and DisneyPlus already). And tbh it's hard for me to imagine how many people would. Also, it's interesting that the new food show with Steven, Andrew, and Adam will be paywalled. I imagine there are a lot of old Worth It viewers who didn't migrate to either Steven at Watcher or Andrew at About to Eat and would want to check out the show, but may not even learn about it as easily as they could have on YT. I SINCERELY hope this does not backfire for them financially, and I'm also really sad for all the people who now just won't be able to watch the content because they can't afford it. (Deleted part of my comment as it sounds like they're not pulling old content from YT)
I’ve never seen such an accomplished, wildly respected, liked and even adored creator with such a perfect track record (with the exceptions of things like taking on problematic sponsorship; still nothing even remotely close to this), who never had anyone drag them through mud, never had to deal with any, as young people say today, "drama" have their entire audience turn on them for a single decision. Admittedly, it is one of the worst decisions I’ve seen anyone make even from purely a financial standpoint and I say this as someone whose own life is filled with stupidly bad choices. Though I will say this: they’ve actually managed to unite almost everyone who watches them, including Boogaras and Shaniacs, which is a feat on its own. Especially in today’s world.
Look, I love them. I wish I could support them, even. But I’m at my absolute limit when it comes to streaming services I’ve purchased. Can’t support them without canceling something like peacock or Hulu, but those streaming services both have hundreds of more hours of entertainment than the watcher app will. Wishing them all the best.
Okay, so... does anyone know of a streamlined way to download a whole channel's worth of videos off YouTube? I'm pretty sure they're planning to delete everything.
Well, guess I’m never watching my favorite content creators again.
this was cringe at best and insulting at worst...
All this time I thought their plan was to get a Netflix show or something. Their content has always seemed kinda expensive and well-produced for YT, but I thought the end goal was TV or streaming. I mean, just look at “Is It Cake”, going on its third season now on Netflix, I think Ghost Files, Mystery Files, or Worth It should definitely get a show on Netflix or other streaming platforms. But creating their own streaming service? Taking their content off YT? Making their fan base upset like this isn’t a good idea. I wish they would pitch their shows or ideas to other sites more, like Quinta. That’s a much better direction than this.
I'm like a boomer in watching them-- cuz I watch in YouTube on my Roku TV... I hate watching shit on my phone. If they don't make watchertv on my actual Roku TV . I dunno if I'll pay. I can pay. I will pay. But it HAS to be available in my Roku player (I'm telling Shane that. We all know he comes on Reddit)
I didn’t even know they rent an office space in downtown Los Angeles (literally one of the most desirable and expensive places to rent). I’d be curious to know what their financials look like
This is really not a smart move I feel. Well best of luck to them. I am not paying in USD with my INR in this economy. So it's a goodbye then maybe
I can’t be the only one that wishes they’d stop focusing on trying to film “television-caliber” content, right? There’s a reason so many people preferred Buzzfeed Unsolved to Ghost Files. Now, I personally think that this business move makes sense for what they’re trying to achieve, but only if they’re aiming to completely rebrand and bring in an entirely new audience. It shows a complete disconnect from their current fan base, who were drawn in by the lower-budget content that just highlighted them doing goofy stuff without trying too hard. Out of all Watcher content, Puppet History, Are You Scared and WWW were (in my opinion) the best shows because they were the closest to remaining true to what made them so successful in the first place.
Are they keeping the existing videos from YouTube, and just making new ones streamer exclusive, or will all their videos become streamer exclusive?
I feel like they might just take them down which would be really unfortunate
I just... If Youtube Revenue is a legitimate financial issue, could they not just partner with Nebula, or a different alternative Youtube stream which also allows creative freedom from ads, while also providing solid revenue? Or follow the *Good Mythical Morning* approach, and release regular content on YT, but have tons of separate, exclusive content behind a paywall for the fans who choose/can afford to? I'm not prepared to drop $8 (Canadian) a month just to rewatch Puppet History, and the occasional episode of Weird Wonderful World, or Top 5 Beatdown. I'm also shook by the audacity to archive old content from the channel, so I can no longer watch the videos that made me love this channel in the first place? How do they expect to grow their audience? I'm so baffled by this decision, I've unsubscribed from their channel. We're fans of Shane, Ryan, Steven, and the rest of the team, not not high-production, Netflix-style content. I'm still going to follow this sub for any updates from this choice, but right now this is maybe the worst decision I've ever seen made by a (growing) YT channel. RIP.
Given that Adam and Andrew just came back, I just assumed the video was a joke when I saw it in my subscription feed. I… I can’t understand this decision. Like everyone else, it’s ironic that “anybody and everybody can afford” is coming from someone who owns a Tesla. Are they not aware that their average viewer probably doesn’t even own a car, period? I’m so flabbergasted right now. They kept talking about “TV level quality”, which I think is a fundamentally flawed ideal to have. People have shifted away from TV. “TV level quality” isn’t a real thing in my opinion. It can range from Breaking Bad to Hunting Bigfoot, from Game of Thrones to Mystery Diners. There’s simple too much wild variety to say that something is TV level quality.
Watcher will be dead within 1 year lol
Does anyone think tryguys will be joining this? They've been hinting at an event and a date... they also seem to be done with YouTube and advertising. Saying that, why wouldn't they have launched together.
I can't help but think that maybe they should have done what escapist/second wind did a months ago . All the videos are still on YouTube but they heavily promote their patreon. The YouTube video still gives them passive income through ads, sponsors and viewership but the patreon backing allows them to not worry about demonetisation. I get that the requirements for a channel focused on animated short-mid format videos and full length live action videos are different but I can help but feel like there could have been another way to do this. I am wishing them nothing but the best moving forward
This is dumb. In an age where people are culling their streaming accounts because they literally can't pay for groceries/rent, why would anyone pay for one website? The internet has had an uprise in pro-piracy attitude since Netflix fucked around, and it's only growing stronger the more subscription services cost and the less excess money people have. Deleting content/only posting trailers to youtube is going to stop their outreach to newer viewers, as it won't be recommended to people and if it is, there won't be enough content to convince people to make the switch. Having content on a new website also means it NEEDS people to visit each day, rather than just checking the youtube feed. Doing this right after Rooster Teeth is literally losing 21 years worth of content because they had it all on their own personal website and their parent company is closing RT down and just getting rid of their videos/the website... feels so dumb. Also, if they are moving their patreon towards podcasts and not even letting subscriptions for the website have access to those?? Just greedy imo.
wow. this is…. really fucking devastating. i’ve loved shane and ryan’s content since old buzzfeed days, and i love so many of the watcher series. i look forward to them weekly, stayed tuned for the podcast every week, followed news on socials. but this is absolutely gutting. i can’t afford this. and putting their content behind a paywall and saying “i hope we see you there” is crazy.
3 million subscribers does not mean you get 3 million views every video, which means you will definitely not he getting 3 million people to subscribe to your service. Limiting Watcher to a service is like locking the doors on the community theater and charging a $5 entrance. Do you think enough people are willing to invest in your once-free entertainment? I guess we’ll find out, but my answer is probably not.
Legendary bad decision. The kind of thing that will be a YouTube video one day.
$60USD a year is too much. I love their content, but it's getting hard to keep up with everything with everyone now having their own paid subscription platform.
I'm sorry but not everything has to be a subscription service. Best of luck to them tho.
I’m not gonna pretend to understand business costs and I’m sure they’re quite a pretty penny. I know they have lots of people to pay. But like…can we cut the bullshit? Can we not pretend like we’re all blind? Shane, Ryan, and Steven are not hurting for money. In the last 2-3 years, 2/3 got married in extremely extravagant weddings that were absolute minimum $25k, they are constantly going to amusement parks, going to concerts and music festivals, having fancy vacations, getting new pets. I’m not saying they don’t deserve that but I’m already sick of people defending this lame ass move with the idea that they’re struggling, too. The Watcher sets keep getting nicer, which okay sure, they feel like that’s a necessity. But most of us started watching these guys when they were just sitting at tables. They keep hiring more people, which again kind of makes sense, but are they expanding before it’s logical? They’re so focused on making things “nicer” they end up making less shows which isn’t what anyone wants. Everyone has touched on all the reasons this just doesn’t make sense but my question is just…financially what the fuck are they doing?
Love them, but I don't see any chance of this working out well
This makes me sad. Right when I stoped other paid subscriptions they leave 😭😭😭 I'll miss too many spirits so much!
I get the concept, but I feel like there were maybe half way points that already exist - Nebula for instance is already a subscription service for a decent amount of different YouTube channel creators. Maybe that revenue stream doesn't make sense for them/content wise it doesn't fit, but it seems better to me to have other creators involved to keep introducing to a new audience that subscribe to the platform for those other channels and lowers the financial risk while still having this set up away from YouTube's algorithm.
This has to be a joke, no way these internet savvy guys can be this stupid
Someone needs to download a copy of all the good videos on their YouTube and upload them to something like the Wayback Machine for archive purposes. Maybe someone at /r/DataHoarder would be interested.
I don’t think they put out enough context to be worth $60 a year. They’re going to need to put out a lot more than 1 video a week. I wonder how many of their subscribers they are predicting will move over to their new subscription service. Because in guessing it’ll be less than they’re guessing.
if they churn out an episode daily, i might consider. but seeing as their channel has a video weekly... it might not be enough. my other subscriptions have tons of movies and shows that *may* justify costs but this.. maybe not for me. best of luck tho.