25 staffers for a 5-man productionđŹ (including Stevenâs two buddies). I seriously donât think unscripted shows would cost this much manpower aside from editing (because editing is a bitch). I mean aside from production design and a staff coordinator, what else makes up for those 20+ people??
Because it shouldn't.
They're mismanaging shit. Hell, MoitCritical just put out a ghost hunting video on "The Other Channel" and while it features a bunch of people he's just fucking around with a group of friends. But he's also a creator who knows how to maximize his earnings with low cost content and fast and dirty edits to subsidize more expensive projects.
If you have a 25 person team, you should be pumping out daily content.
The problem is the money makers are Ryan and Shane, and the amount of content those two would have to film to make up for 80% of Watcherâs content roster would be so time consuming. They would need to come up with a way to film content that wonât take up as much time (like just doing narration work vis-a-vis animation for the visuals) or doing a sit-down style show where they can film everything in an hour or two, wham bam thank you maam style (like TMS).
I reckon the crew should be something like:
4 video editors
1 motion graphics designer (this can be freelance)
2 production designers (1 head, 1 assistant)
1 studio manager
2 coordinators (one for Ryan and Shaneâs shows, one for Steven)
1 graphic designer (this can be freelance, not even fulltime)
3 camera men (2 for R&Sâone for closeups, one for long/medium shots, 1 for Steven)
1 Social media manager (handles posting, scheduling and copywriting)
1 accountant
Plus 5 of them (R, S, S + 2 Travel Season dudes)
Am I missing anything?? Lmao
Ryan and Shane don't need to be present in every single video together - they could reduce their joint appearances to 2 videos a week and then match up with Steven for another video.
There's no excuse for not having daily content. I'm not going to expand on what they should be doing because that's solving their problem for them but there are multiple channels with a single host that pump out daily content each week with minimal fluff and manage multiple other projects on the side.
i think part of it is that they are inefficient creators and donât have the experience or saw the need to have a more complicated shooting schedule.
this is no shade whatsoever to their dev and production team, but the majority of their experience is from buzzfeed. ttg dev and production team have experience working on tv and film, not just digital content, and it shows because they block shoot a lot. for example, with WAR, they bake for several eps in a day and change into different outfits then do all the judging on the last day and ask repeat judges like rosanna to bring multiple outfits too. i highly suggest their producers reacts videos and podcast eps with rachel and nick if youâre interested in this stuff.
so many of watcherâs issues are self-inflicted yet are easy to address. i donât think they saw this being an issue until recently so maybe (hopefully) theyâre addressing it now.
I think they took success for granted and still are doing so. They had a huge audience with a extremely simple show, Unsolved numbers are ridiculous, and thought that there was no way a project with more production value wouldnât work. They focused on unsustainable grow by toking risks and now it feels like they are taking a bigger loan to pay another one.
> The problem is the money makers are Ryan and Shane, and the amount of content those two would have to film to make up for 80% of Watcherâs content roster would be so time consuming.
Charlie (M0istcritical) posts **at least** a daily video of easy content while also running an ad company and an E-sports team.
Linus (LTT) posts daily highly-edited videos on a sound stage.
Both people called them out on their move to a streaming service.
They either need to post cheap content (m0ist) or rely on their huge team to properly script, shoot, schedule and edit high quality videos like LTT.
Stuff like Are You Scared or Survival Mode **SHOULDN'T** take that much weekly time if they have 25 other people to set stuff up so that they can just roll in and shoot.
i keep thinking about their staffing compared to smosh because they often have their staff in videos and they definitely get towards the 25-30 employees range, but they pump out like 8 pieces of content a week all on schedule across 4 channels, what can the watcher staff possibly be doing?!
and also filming in shoot blocks is a thing too to save money on production (mythical filming model also adopted by smosh cause itâs efficient to consolidate the days the filming crews are in office/on set)
i wonder how much they get paid cause if their main cast are also owners and CEOs like no way they are just taking a normal ass day rate to be on set⌠oh to see their payroll
what would this situation be like if these dudes swallowed their pride and asked for help, literally just ONE email to any of their unscripted comedy channel friends would have saved them a world of hurt
Tbh at least for the Try Guys I assume this is roughly what they expected, and as such (helping in) fulfilling their goals.
Patreon was a good way to gauge how many people would currently be willing to pay, plus them continuing to post (their actually pretty high quality) content on YouTube will continue to attract subscribers (to both YouTube and their streaming service).
Meanwhile Watcher seemed to have assumed the majority of their YouTube subscribers would follow them and are currently only putting out low quality, low effort content, while hoping to convince more people to pay for that
someone on the main ttg sub theorized that they did those lives early this year to see how many active viewers they have that are watching their content immediately (about 22-25k). if so, thatâs a pretty f-ing smart way to get a pulse on how big your streamer audience could be.
edit to add: ttg is also keeping their patreon and shifting to podcasts for a lower price. they kept their patrons goodwill tho because they didnât blindside them and offered a pretty good discount - i think 3 months free + 40% off. some of them were even recruited by ttg to beta test and others to help moderate their discord.
meanwhile, watcher thought theyâd have 100k subscribers and is shutting down patreon.
Oh I know. I was mainly talking about Watcher.
Considering they shut down Patreon and are relying for the streamer now (heavily) to bring in money and save them from bankruptcy (as they claim) this isn't looking good. I know it's the first month, but if they're so desperate for money, i'm sure it hurts lmao
I know the try guys posted that they met their initial subscriber goal, at least.  I assume the actual number of subscribers for both apps is way higher, just because likeâŚhow often do any of us actually rate apps lmao.  that being said, watcher is definitely in trouble given they and the try guys have pretty much the same number of employees.  Assuming theyâre paid fairly and have a good benefits package, thatâs already going to be a couple million each year to cover
I think the app ratings to subscriber ratio would be a bit higher than normal because of the fan parasocial relationships. Both groupsâ viewers are more emotionally invested in seeing them succeed compared to your average Netflix subscriber.
Oh for sure.  That being said I think itâs probably higher in the sense of like, 1:20 instead of 1:50 or something.  Like I adore the dropout app and crew, but Iâve never even thought of dropping a rating for them.  Though maybe I should nowâŚ
i was audibly laughing the entirety of the new escape the kitchen ep. talk about high production fr like lighting? sound? set? graphics? research? insanity. they made so many improvements from the pilot ep that i love.
(also, jared catching the egg followed by a shining egg halo will never not be funny to me)
Man I just noticed even the descriptions highlight the difference between how the two launches promoted themselves. âCuriosity meets comedyâ âbinge your favorite old moments vs âunlock exclusive new showsâ âuncensored and without adsâ
Good catch! âDive into the Watcher archiveâ⌠you mean the one you were going to put behind a paywall before the pushback, Watcher? The one that now remains free to watch on YouTube? Smh.
I think they released the app like a month after their good bye video. A lot of ppl were looking for it, but it wasn't available for a long time. So that's why u probably didn't know about it.
I was thinking the same thing too. I only found out about the app (or rather, the lack of an app) because of the main and Snark pages. Some ppl just kept checking and found it and posted about it.
The fact they havenât even properly made their subscribers aware of the app just sums up the whole issue with watcher, in the same way that a huge amount of people only found out they had a Patreon because of the controversy with how they managed their patreon as they launched the subscription. They have no idea how to properly connect and communicate with their audience about things that matter
And at least 25 of those star ratings for Watcher are from their employees Lmao
I bet you're right.
25 staffers for a 5-man productionđŹ (including Stevenâs two buddies). I seriously donât think unscripted shows would cost this much manpower aside from editing (because editing is a bitch). I mean aside from production design and a staff coordinator, what else makes up for those 20+ people??
Because it shouldn't. They're mismanaging shit. Hell, MoitCritical just put out a ghost hunting video on "The Other Channel" and while it features a bunch of people he's just fucking around with a group of friends. But he's also a creator who knows how to maximize his earnings with low cost content and fast and dirty edits to subsidize more expensive projects. If you have a 25 person team, you should be pumping out daily content.
The problem is the money makers are Ryan and Shane, and the amount of content those two would have to film to make up for 80% of Watcherâs content roster would be so time consuming. They would need to come up with a way to film content that wonât take up as much time (like just doing narration work vis-a-vis animation for the visuals) or doing a sit-down style show where they can film everything in an hour or two, wham bam thank you maam style (like TMS). I reckon the crew should be something like: 4 video editors 1 motion graphics designer (this can be freelance) 2 production designers (1 head, 1 assistant) 1 studio manager 2 coordinators (one for Ryan and Shaneâs shows, one for Steven) 1 graphic designer (this can be freelance, not even fulltime) 3 camera men (2 for R&Sâone for closeups, one for long/medium shots, 1 for Steven) 1 Social media manager (handles posting, scheduling and copywriting) 1 accountant Plus 5 of them (R, S, S + 2 Travel Season dudes) Am I missing anything?? Lmao
Ryan and Shane don't need to be present in every single video together - they could reduce their joint appearances to 2 videos a week and then match up with Steven for another video. There's no excuse for not having daily content. I'm not going to expand on what they should be doing because that's solving their problem for them but there are multiple channels with a single host that pump out daily content each week with minimal fluff and manage multiple other projects on the side.
i think part of it is that they are inefficient creators and donât have the experience or saw the need to have a more complicated shooting schedule. this is no shade whatsoever to their dev and production team, but the majority of their experience is from buzzfeed. ttg dev and production team have experience working on tv and film, not just digital content, and it shows because they block shoot a lot. for example, with WAR, they bake for several eps in a day and change into different outfits then do all the judging on the last day and ask repeat judges like rosanna to bring multiple outfits too. i highly suggest their producers reacts videos and podcast eps with rachel and nick if youâre interested in this stuff. so many of watcherâs issues are self-inflicted yet are easy to address. i donât think they saw this being an issue until recently so maybe (hopefully) theyâre addressing it now.
I think they took success for granted and still are doing so. They had a huge audience with a extremely simple show, Unsolved numbers are ridiculous, and thought that there was no way a project with more production value wouldnât work. They focused on unsustainable grow by toking risks and now it feels like they are taking a bigger loan to pay another one.
> The problem is the money makers are Ryan and Shane, and the amount of content those two would have to film to make up for 80% of Watcherâs content roster would be so time consuming. Charlie (M0istcritical) posts **at least** a daily video of easy content while also running an ad company and an E-sports team. Linus (LTT) posts daily highly-edited videos on a sound stage. Both people called them out on their move to a streaming service. They either need to post cheap content (m0ist) or rely on their huge team to properly script, shoot, schedule and edit high quality videos like LTT. Stuff like Are You Scared or Survival Mode **SHOULDN'T** take that much weekly time if they have 25 other people to set stuff up so that they can just roll in and shoot.
You missed adding how much people is this, because Iâm kinda lazy and sleep deprived. Good arguments though.
i keep thinking about their staffing compared to smosh because they often have their staff in videos and they definitely get towards the 25-30 employees range, but they pump out like 8 pieces of content a week all on schedule across 4 channels, what can the watcher staff possibly be doing?! and also filming in shoot blocks is a thing too to save money on production (mythical filming model also adopted by smosh cause itâs efficient to consolidate the days the filming crews are in office/on set) i wonder how much they get paid cause if their main cast are also owners and CEOs like no way they are just taking a normal ass day rate to be on set⌠oh to see their payroll what would this situation be like if these dudes swallowed their pride and asked for help, literally just ONE email to any of their unscripted comedy channel friends would have saved them a world of hurt
Those are very low numbers. I mean... I'm sure that's not the exact number of their subscribers, but still...
Tbh at least for the Try Guys I assume this is roughly what they expected, and as such (helping in) fulfilling their goals. Patreon was a good way to gauge how many people would currently be willing to pay, plus them continuing to post (their actually pretty high quality) content on YouTube will continue to attract subscribers (to both YouTube and their streaming service). Meanwhile Watcher seemed to have assumed the majority of their YouTube subscribers would follow them and are currently only putting out low quality, low effort content, while hoping to convince more people to pay for that
someone on the main ttg sub theorized that they did those lives early this year to see how many active viewers they have that are watching their content immediately (about 22-25k). if so, thatâs a pretty f-ing smart way to get a pulse on how big your streamer audience could be. edit to add: ttg is also keeping their patreon and shifting to podcasts for a lower price. they kept their patrons goodwill tho because they didnât blindside them and offered a pretty good discount - i think 3 months free + 40% off. some of them were even recruited by ttg to beta test and others to help moderate their discord. meanwhile, watcher thought theyâd have 100k subscribers and is shutting down patreon.
But they made it $6 as it was affordable to everybody!!! /s
Oh I know. I was mainly talking about Watcher. Considering they shut down Patreon and are relying for the streamer now (heavily) to bring in money and save them from bankruptcy (as they claim) this isn't looking good. I know it's the first month, but if they're so desperate for money, i'm sure it hurts lmao
I know the try guys posted that they met their initial subscriber goal, at least.  I assume the actual number of subscribers for both apps is way higher, just because likeâŚhow often do any of us actually rate apps lmao.  that being said, watcher is definitely in trouble given they and the try guys have pretty much the same number of employees.  Assuming theyâre paid fairly and have a good benefits package, thatâs already going to be a couple million each year to cover
I think the app ratings to subscriber ratio would be a bit higher than normal because of the fan parasocial relationships. Both groupsâ viewers are more emotionally invested in seeing them succeed compared to your average Netflix subscriber.
Oh for sure.  That being said I think itâs probably higher in the sense of like, 1:20 instead of 1:50 or something.  Like I adore the dropout app and crew, but Iâve never even thought of dropping a rating for them.  Though maybe I should nowâŚ
I subscribed to 2ND Try and I am ROLLING on the floor laughing from some of their 2ND Try exclusive showsđđ
i was audibly laughing the entirety of the new escape the kitchen ep. talk about high production fr like lighting? sound? set? graphics? research? insanity. they made so many improvements from the pilot ep that i love. (also, jared catching the egg followed by a shining egg halo will never not be funny to me)
I just did a quick check of android downloads, and WatcherTV had 1000+ downloads and 58 reviews. 2nd Try has 10000+ downloads and 1000 reviews.
Man I just noticed even the descriptions highlight the difference between how the two launches promoted themselves. âCuriosity meets comedyâ âbinge your favorite old moments vs âunlock exclusive new showsâ âuncensored and without adsâ
Good catch! âDive into the Watcher archiveâ⌠you mean the one you were going to put behind a paywall before the pushback, Watcher? The one that now remains free to watch on YouTube? Smh.
Theyâre a comedy duo now? I didnât know that
funny like I'm a clown? I amuse you?
goodfellas mentioned đŻ
I guess they did write their business plan as a comedy. It just died on the stage and became tragedy.
You canât make this up.
Pure garbage
Wait.. when did they get an app for it? I subscribed a while ago and didnât even know about it.
I think they released the app like a month after their good bye video. A lot of ppl were looking for it, but it wasn't available for a long time. So that's why u probably didn't know about it.
Youâd think with so many people looking for it they would have made a big deal about it.
I was thinking the same thing too. I only found out about the app (or rather, the lack of an app) because of the main and Snark pages. Some ppl just kept checking and found it and posted about it.
The fact they havenât even properly made their subscribers aware of the app just sums up the whole issue with watcher, in the same way that a huge amount of people only found out they had a Patreon because of the controversy with how they managed their patreon as they launched the subscription. They have no idea how to properly connect and communicate with their audience about things that matter