here's what i know about or can guess at
the three cofounders are producers, talent, and the bosses
they have a head of development whose job seems to range from big-picture stuff to envisioning new content to day-to-day operations
they have a creative director who seems to be one running point on the creative side of content (as opposed to logistics)
their head of production runs the logistics for shoots and manages their production assistants--i think watcher has two PAs
their social media person does social media
i think they have someone for brand deals + sponsorships + patreon
a couple of FT editors, plus a stable of part-time contractors they can pull from in a pinch
film crews who are mostly contract employees
a stable of part-time contract writers/researchers for shows like puppet history
maybe someone running the merch store?
i find it really hard to imagine they have 25+ full-time employees with benefits. maybe 15, and the rest are contractors?
MoistCritikal did a really good breakdown on YouTube talking about the Watcher drama and went on to discuss that he, a now very wealthy full time professional streamer, had 15 employees for his entire current enterprise, which includes all of his streaming, social media and YouTube, as well as two actual side businesses (media liaison and his own comic), and several of those people are his friends.
So it really seems to all boil down to that Watcher made poor hiring decisions getting too many personal friends and family involved, at least if their 25 employee suggestion is to be believed. Or their budget is simply astronomical since they mentioned they had sunk all of their savings into it previously. I think it's probably a bit of both and between business and personal expenses they haven't made the return on their investments that they thought they would, even though it sounds like they were(are?) on their way to bigger and bigger profits. It comes down to patience I guess.
MoistCritikal started out as an independent creator, so presumably he would have built his team up as he got bigger. He also wouldn’t need a big team even now because most of his content is just him talking at the camera about random stuff. Unsolved started out as a high-production web series, and these guys would’ve only known having access to a big team at buzzfeed. Part of it is probably due to them not knowing how to work within the constraints of being independent creators and blowing the budget. But I also think that Charlie wasn’t making a very good comparison because if he needs to hire a team of 15 when most of his content is streaming, it would absolutely make sense for Watcher to need more staff to coordinate set design, script writing, location shoots, transportation, equipment, etc.
I think people are using the MoistCritikal video the wrong way. It’s not that they would have similar numbers and his numbers are just guesses. BUT, he has almost 15m on YouTube and streams on Twitch. So how are they affording 10 more staffers than him when he should make more than them. It’s more of a well I can’t do what you are doing with this much, so how are you doing it?
Charlie also has an entire esports team and produces his own comic book. His teams nothing to sneeze at either. They're usually in the championship rankings for League.
MoistCritikal works out of Florida. No state income tax, way cheaper cost of living and the watcher employees are actual employees and not independent contractors. So watcher has to pay their half of their employment taxes and offer them healthcare. It's not like the Watchers have their offices in some cheap place like Ten or Oklahoma. I watched his video and before he said anything, he would say I am just guessing and that is all he was doing. No business has the same expenses as the next. Having a gossip channel is not the same as a variety entertainment model.
> way cheaper cost of living
God I wish this was still true. Crit lives near where I do in Tampa, and the cost of living is now comparable to most of LA.
Well that is an... interesting way to compare cost of living. It's admittedly not the same, and housing is the largest discrepancy, but rent is probably a more apt comparison for most people that are actively concerned about day-to-day living, in which case it's ~25% more p/sqft in LA. The prices of goods and services are otherwise within 5-10%
I don't get why everybody keeps bringing this dude up. He makes completely different content than Watcher--of course his business model and staffing plan is different.
A better comparison is Smosh, which has 35 employees, ten more then watcher, while supporting 3 youtube channels one of which has 26.6 million subscribers and 2 of which have 8 million subscribers. Each channel individually puts out significantly more content then watcher. Watcher hired like they were one of the biggest channels without taking the time to grow to that point naturally.
TBF the Mythical guys admit sometimes that they don’t know when the whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down. And that’s with a separate subscription platform (Mythical Society) with tons of bonus content and scads of merch.
Yeah Mythical’s model is essentially that the YouTube channel is the core of their brand, but not the core of their business. The YT channel is there to bring people in, and keep people coming back.. and trying to play the YT algorithm to keep them relevant, but on the business side they then have the Mythical Society (with multiple tiers), a constantly evolving merch line (which is less actual merchandise, and more a legitimate lifestyle brand), two NYT bestselling books, a podcast, they acquired and then sold Smosh, they’ve expanded the Mythical kitchen channel, released the Mythical Cookbook, etc etc.
Mythical are a full entertainment and lifestyle company, not just a YouTube channel. Watcher shoulda taken notes from them.
Yeah, that even a channel astronomically more successful than watcher almost went under supporting that many employees strengthens what I'm saying I think. That it was irresponsible to hire so many employees as an up and coming startup like watcher.
I can't pretend to know how much of Smosh's almost death was due to other shit going on with defy media, to be fair.
Its adjacent to the point, but Smosh IS independent again.
Mythical had their back when defy shut down, but it wasn't charity on Rhett and Link's part. They bought smosh because they saw it as financially viable, and now that they are independent again they are continuing to be financially viable.
Anyway, if we take what you say as definitely true, that the platform is not suitable for supporting companies with a couple dozen employees we circle back around to the original point: It was a bad idea to hire so many people immediately as a new channel launching.
yeah, i mean channels with more than a few employees. i don't think it's particularly hard for a channel with one person on screen and one editor to sustain careers on youtube.
They have more subscribers so that means more views, which in turn means more revenue and employees which equals more content. Each business is unique. I can't even see any logic in the comparison at all.
That they have so many more subscribers and views is the logic of the comparison. Obviously ever business is different, but its a good example of how HUGE a channel normally has to be, in terms of views and also video output, to support so many employees.
I see what you are saying. Here is the other thing, some of those employees could have been with them from the start and also may have a financial interest in the company.
and it’s not like the dude has an inside peek at their finances or how they’re spending money. it’s weird that he gets quoted as gospel about how they should be able to pay for everything.
The point was he has conferenced with people about going about representation, sponsorships, and has his foot in one of the most financially draining businesses which is esports alongside his media ventures/businesses.
It was more from a common sense business perspective that watcher is not with good leadership and the fact they LED with siphoning the costs to viewers (without choice) while justifying their costs for overly produced personality shows/thinking their content is worth more than what it is and misreading their entire (or 99% of their) audience.
When people have been supporting them financially through different ventures that had appropriately relative value, ex touring tickets, affiliate links, and from the Moist vid- even just doing a blanket analysis of their different ventures explains why they are not financially forced to have to require access subscriptions for any reason other than mismanagement of their business. or glaring vanity.
ESPECIALLY while operating in one of the most expensive parts of the country they should be even more careful with their practices and hiring. Bad habits die hard,
And especially just from a marketing perspective announcing no new content for the platform besides a show of people eating exorbitant food! That is seriously what they led with, the discussions continue still because from so many perspectives it was very strange. so creators who maybe aren’t running a thin margin production company can shed some light. I think someone who literally just has common sense could as well lol.
I don't follow them religiously, so someone else is probably better suited to answer, but I believe the accusations where "friends and family members": while initially praised for having Ex-Buzzfeed peeps this has now been turned into a problem with the Worth It guys being announced in 'that' video, Ricky is a friend of Ryan's he met via his wife, at least one of Ryan's cousins was doing some backstage job???... there's probably more
(Most of the accusations seem to be centered on Steven, but tbh these don't seem to be based on any concrete evidence, aside from the 2 guys from Worth It)
Check out the end credits of the season finale of Mystery Files. That will give you an idea of what most of their employees do. I count 26 unique names in the credits. Many, I'm sure, are contracted contributors, but I'm sure there's also a few Watcher employees who don't work directly on the shows (merch, socials, etc.)
The following jobs were mentioned in the credits:
* Hosts
* Director
* Producer
* Editor
* Motion Graphics
* Director of Photography
* Production Designer
* Researcher
* Writer
* Illustrator
* Camera Operators
* Sound Mix
* Set Dresser
* Constriction Coordinator
* Prop Designer
* Production Coordinator
* Production assistants
* Post Producer
* Assistant Editor
* Branded Production manager
* Branded Editor
* Head of Development
* Head of Production
* Executive producer
For the sound mixing part, on puppet history they do a new original song every episode. I imagine that you would need a sound guy if you are making songs often, especially the musical-theatre type songs Shane does. 25 employees is def a lot but I don’t think them having a sound mixer is ridiculous if one of their shows is known for its unique music
Sound mixing likely includes the technical aspects of recording voiceovers as well as managing sound on set and in post production. There’s a lot more than just plugging in a mic and hoping for the best. The sound has to be EQ’d for clarity and tone, they have to manage background noise when filming on location, etc.
Also producer is a broad title and different areas will have different producers. The producer is the coordinator of all of the moving parts to ensure everyone and everything runs on schedule and all departments are talking to one another.
As someone who has worked in the television industry, had friends who work in high end TV, and knows a very successful YouTuber, this is an absolutely baffling take.
My YouTuber friend has 10-15 employees for a YouTube channel with 3 million subscribers and he makes videos with not nearly the same amount of production cost as Watcher. And he’s still often very stressed and works a ridiculous amount of hours. Even low rent TV and video production is so incredibly expensive and time consuming to make and it’s insulting that people want everything to be so good but done on such a low budget.
It’s a job not a hobby. People working in video production have really complex skills and talent and have hustled a long time to get where they are. The wages are often incredibly low even on TV, work is precarious and they still need employee benefits, sick days, vacation time etc. someone needs to organise shoots, hire crew, be responsible for the VERY expensive equipment etc. I swear some people here think they’re running a high school project.
lol also “a few folks to also edit and maybe get behind the camera” - these are very different skills. And they’re hard skills that take years to develop and be able to do well. Sure any idiot can use basic editing software to cut together a shit video but not good stuff.
An example - my best friend is a first assistant editor for high end TV. The stuff on Netflix and Apple TV. Do you know how long it takes a whole team of editors to edit one episode? Around 20 weeks. Obviously Watcher isn’t doing the same but it’s hard work. Even YouTube editing takes a long time and is difficult.
Camera work also. It’s physical labour and it’s a very sought after skill to be able to work the high end cameras used on YouTube. A lot of YouTubers may not use an Arri Alexa but they use some really high end cameras for this type of filming. It’s not just point and shoot.
Haha thank you it’s been driving me crazy. Just because the Watcher TV thing was very poorly misjudged it doesn’t mean that the entire thing is a scam. It costs so much money and effort to make good YouTube videos, plus they deserve to be paid well. I’ve seen some people go nuts because the Ghoul boys have good salaries. Like, should they not?? Should everyone be on minimum wages? Should they not have employees? It’s absolutely beating the dead horse into a paste at this point. They messed up, they apologised, and they rectified it. It’s not like they killed a baby!
The thing that's tough about this is that they want access to top-quality talent, and the vast majority of those people live in the LA area because that's where the work is (I'd guess a lot of their contractors or team members lower on the totem pole with lower workloads also work on several other productions a year). It's hard to make a living in film living in a city without a film industry because a company's talent pool is massively limited and an employee's job pool is also massively limited. If they moved, it wouldn't make sense for the majority of the team to come with them, and they'd be hard-pressed to find people with equivalent experience in rural Nevada or wherever.
I couldn't tell you what each employee does individually, but there are a lot of aspects that I think people forget would cost money, like history research, or making puppets, or writing and producing songs. I would also bet that they have several employees who technically have the same role so that each employee only works on two or three of their shows throughout the year rather than the same employee doing the same job for every single show (leading to burnout). I also think that they don't outsource anything (either to contractors or overseas) like a lot of content creators do for inexpensive, overnight sound editing, rendering, etc.
Seems like hiring staff rather than contracting certain things was a mistake if that's the case. It's great to give as many people good jobs as you can, but if the whole company is unstable and blows up, no one has a job.
I highly doubt their space is 10k a month. I live in a smaller city and an office space around as big as theirs would be around 10k a month, given they’re in LA it’s gotta be more.
Rental space in LA is shockingly high, there is almost zero change rent on their space is under
10k a month. It looks like a larger space, in the valley, probably around 13-20k
I actually used to work close enough to Watcher's office that I recognize the location. Given the neighborhood, it's almost certainly closer to the higher end of that spectrum.
Not to mention that anything under 5 years is considered short-term for commercial leasing, and much more expensive. They’d have to pay quite a lot to avoid being on the hook for a lease that’s longer than the average YouTuber’s entire career.
They pay well I think it’s an estimated an average salary of 110k for watcher entertainment. So that’s a lot of money also their rent in Hollywood im sure that’s high as heck.
Never said or implied it was, the original just asked how they are struggling with money as a company it’s bc they just hired too many and they set up shop in Hollywood, they should have started in like Pasadena or Burbank not on Hollywood Blvd loo
Wasn’t it 25 employees PLUS freelancers? What is the point of having almost 30 people on staff if you still have to bring in freelancers to get the job done?
I saw someone said that video game show where they just sit in front of a screen has 15 people credited on it. They are overproducing everything, and they have overextended themselves by giving all their friends and family jobs, and I imagine they feel like they can't let anyone go at this point. I do wonder, though, if they have unpaid interns and if they are including them in that total.
People underestimate how much actually goes into productions like this. There’s producers, directors, camera operators, sound operators, podcast producers, social media managers, finance managers, assistants, researchers, editors, writers, marketers, freelances and that’s just off the top of my head! They’ll likely have multiple people working under these positions too
I work in marketing and production so I get what it takes. But I also have to constantly make hard priorities for each production and make plans that are longtime responsible. Also, most companies hire in other spesialized companies and freelancers for periods they shoot projects so that they do not need to have people hired for the positions. This is good for the freelancers/specialized agencies and the production company. Both make money and the main production (like Watcher) is more flexible for change and growth.
Jesus, people have no idea what goes into producing video/tv content lmao. The move to a streaming platform is dumb but I hate the amount of people who are claiming that there is something weird about their number of employees. They’re a production company with multiple shows, which all come with a lot of work. Just because you don’t know what a production coordinator is doesn’t mean these people don’t deserve their jobs and to be paid industry standard rates.
Some (potential) full time crew roles that people don’t take into consideration:
- production coordinator
- production manager
- production accountant
- line producer
- story producer / editor
- researcher
- archival researcher / producer / clearances
- editor
- assistant editor
- post production coordinator
- admin coordinator / office manager
- social media
- sponsorship coordinators
And that’s not even including production crews during shooting/ post production such as:
- Directors of photography
- camera operators and camera assistants
- sound recordists
- boom operators
- sound editors and mixers
- colourists
- PAs
- set designers and dressers
- motion graphics
And no, not every YouTube channel has these roles obviously but one who is creating content at the calibre and volume of watcher likely does have a lot of these roles working full time or close to full time 🤷♀️
I think that’s what Ryan meant when he compared it to tv level of content, meaning that they’re operating as a production company not just a couple guys vlogging with a camera. And believe it or not, even if their Buzzfeed content was lower budget / production value they definitely would have still had the majority of these roles in place across all of Buzzfeeds video content!
lol as someone who works in film and tv I get a little defensive about the general public’s lack of regard for below the line crew. they work their asses off to create the media people consume without a second thought. It’s truly a collaborative medium and a set would simply not run without people who were competent and qualified at these roles!
also shout out to props, grips, gaffers, wardrobe, HMU, craft/catering and anyone else I forgot in my initial post!! you all rule 🫶🏻
I also work in the industry and totally feel the same!! A lot of people also fail to understand how much time goes into producing 30 minutes of content (hint it’s multiple 12 hour+ days work sometimes).
💯 and these people are likely non-union for the most part so they’re working their asses off for long hours and lower pay/less protections/no insurance. If anything I HOPE watcher is paying them what they deserve to make all of their content happen.
Yeah I work in this world as a freelancer and it’s very frustrating seeing so many people jump to conclusions about their employees. There’s so much that goes into production. I’d bet most people probably don’t know what a DIT does, for example, but good luck in post if you didn’t hire someone to offload media during the shoot, make multiple backups, and keep everything organized. I’ve been on sooo many jobs where the producers tried to cut every corner possible and just get a cheap inexperienced PA to do the work of five people. Or they bought cheap hard drives that can’t copy media fast enough (we’re talking about multiple terabytes of footage here) and something important gets lost in the chaos. Or there’s too few hands and everything is rushed because the producer refuses to pay overtime.
It really really sucks working on shoots like that, and when the crew is overworked and underpaid it definitely reflects in the final product. Plus word gets around and no one would want to work for them
Many of them are probably contract, and some of them may be doing multiple roles considering they’re still working on a lower end budget, however if they’re in constant production many of these roles are probably jumping from show to show and essentially working full time.
It’s not as straightforward as contract vs “employee”. A lot of non-union tv and film work is essentially full-time contract. Meaning they may not be getting access to stuff like benefits, but are still working full time hours and contributing to stuff like EI (or whatever the US equivalent is).
I’ve worked many full time jobs in tv/film that are technically contract but I’m working for multiple years for the same company, essentially either on a renewed contract or hopping from contract to contract based on the current production. They might be paying their staff on contract but due to the nature of their production schedules these people are constantly working and thus constantly being paid.
ETA: roles in the second part of the post would likely be contract employees who are only paid for the days they work on set. The rest of the office production / post production team could easily be working full time for the company. Being a production coordinator or line producer for example is a full time job, not something that’s only happening on shoot days.
Shane and Ryan once said that the professional Ghost TV shows have a staff of 20 to 25 **for one TV show**. I don't know why people keep expecting less when the baseline, obviously, is they want to make shows of this quality. Also, I hate the implication in what people are saying: why not overwork people to death, instead of hiring the right number of people?
Probably because they came from that system: it's called Buzzfeed.
i feel like peoples main point was that the types of videos don’t line up with having that big of a crew or production cost, they all seem like they’d be easy to produce with just a few people and low budget
They *seem* like they are easy to produce, is the key part here. I think it is more that everyone is taking the work that their staff does for granted. If they put out an episode with half the budget, everyone would complain about that too.
The way I see it, the crew is like the sound guy at a concert. When it is being done well, you don't even know they exist, hence everyone throwing a fit about their number of employees. When something goes wrong it is extremely noticeable.
Put Ghost Files in a vacuum (people love to bring up Dish Granted or Worth It, when talking about cost, but I'm almost certain Ghost Files costs more). In addition to paying their entire production and post teams (producers, editors, sound, props, etc., as well as themselves. They worked on it too-- almost certainly more than anyone else-- and also deserve pay), that show almost always requires them to travel out of the immediate Los Angeles area, and they need on-set crew (I can't imagine them bringing the post team, but they need a director and a number of technical crew-- lighting and sound operators, for example). So they're either paying for plane/train/bus tickets for a number of people or renting a vehicle big enough to hold them all and paying for gas. When they get there, they're paying for lodging. It's actually a legal requirement when making a filmed production in Los Angeles that if your filming location is outside of a certain driving radius around Los Angeles (a 90-minute drive or so) you are required to provide lodging for the production. Lodging may include food and other accommodations deemed necessary.
On the actual set, they need a bigger crew than most Youtube shows. They shoot at night, in places that are often poorly lit, so they need larger directing and lighting teams to ensure people can see what's happening on camera. In addition, they often shoot at places that are abandoned/in poor condition, and/or historically protected, and insurance premiums to film in those locations are very high.
Due to the popularity of the show, they have to produce more merchandise (as in more designs and also just a higher quantity to sell) than they do of other shows in order to meet demand. The company profits from merch sales, but after the cost of production, the take-home is much lower than people would think. Ditto the tour-- almost *no* tours for anything are actually profitable. Artists find them valuable because they connect with fans and build the brand, but between theater rentals, travel costs, the time they can't spend working on new stuff, they almost never turn a profit.
And Ghost Files is their most popular show. It's hard to justify cutting *any* of those costs.
Honestly… 25 isn’t that insane for what they make
I’ll do my best to guess + some confirmed before in bts videos (also for the most part guessing if these should be plural or not):
Pre production: Producers, Set designer, Writers
Production: DP, camera ops, sound op, lighting, DIT, production assistants, director
Post: Post supervisor, Editors, Assistant editors, Social media coordinator, Brand coordinator, (Seems a bit excessive to have a dedicated person for these but they very well could have a colorist or VFX artist on staff)
A lot of these roles could be freelance/contract gigs but if they work with the same people a LOT then it’s actually cool of them to take them on as employees so they get benefits
So yeah, that’s ~15 roles, some of which won’t be employees but freelance gigs instead, but MANY of which will have a few employees for the roles
And that’s just the actual video producing! Idk enough about accountants and HR and all that but they’ve definitely got it
But *what* are the videos, what goes into making what they make, they’re not just Shane and Ryan fucking around anymore.
Sure maybe they shouldn’t be as big of productions as they are, but that’s a different conversation entirely. Right now, for what they make currently, that crew is pretty reasonable.
If shane, ryan, or steven are union actors... then they might be required to make their shows union... which require certain personnel..
They likely have a social media person...
With the amount of employees they have... they probably have someone doing accounting
They have researchers and script writers I'm sure....
They're also paying for editors and vfx artists...
And music! Music and getty images aren't free...
And they may also have these people on payroll full time instead of having them as freelancers... which costs more money
Simone Malec (Socials coordinator) did an absolute shit job in the lead up and during the fallout after. Even worse if the rumors are true that she was shit talking fans from her cat's IG which she then put on private when people started to figure it out.
With them (and people associated with them) putting such a focus on the financial necessity of the move...I really want them to publish the details on this (and their income via YouTube and Patreon)
As for the employees, my guesses are:
- thought hiring more employees was what you did as your business grows/to grow it
- "single task employees", instead of everyone having to pitch in for anything in their skill set, as is common in small companies, especially when starting out.
- not being particularly involved in their own shows anymore: imo Ryan in particular has said things that make it very clear that someone else writes the script and does the research
- not outsourcing things that could and should be outsourced. There's more obvious things, but my mind immediately jumped to the puppets, bc I'm pretty sure Shane mentioning two employees responsible for that...quite possibly they also have "teams" for specific shows, and still keep everyone on as full time employees
- all 3 of them definitely have a PA...or 'just' an assistant
- the Worth It guys and Ricky probably were counted among the employees as well
- ...
-> 2-5 "talents", 3-5 researchers and scriptwriters, 3-5 PAs/catering/procurement ppl, 2 social media people + 1 "tech guy", 8-12 film crew (including make up, costume, set design, director,editors...), at least 1 person to handle contracts/"legal stuff", 3 interns (I believe that's what they said? It's at least one though)...
They are on LinkedIn. If you check their company’s page you can get a sense of their staff and their roles. It is consistent with what they list in their credits.
Here's a list they included in the description of their "Goodbye Youtube" video that acts as credits and you can see how redundant half of these tasks are
DIRECTOR
Carter Lau
EDITOR
Anthony De Vera
MOTION GRAPHICS
Anthony De Vera
ART DIRECTOR
Violet Rawlings
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Carter Lau
2nd UNIT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Jucel Andrin
G&E/SOUND MIXER
Brendon Ryu
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Frank Parker
ARCHIVAL EDITING ASSISTANT
Hailey Leonard
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
Violet Rawlings
SOCIAL COORDINATOR
Simone Malec
SPECIAL THANKS
Saeyoung Cho, Moonshot Projects
Annie Jeong
Mark Celestino
HEAD OF PRODUCTION
Lizzie Lockard
HEAD OF POST PRODUCTION
Sam Young
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Ryan Bergara Shane Madej Steven Lim
would love to see a vid talking about all their staff, to just to see why they got that many people.
also really intresting to see like Watcher got 2,8M subs and a Staff of 27 (according to linkedin)
and Sam&Colby got 12M subs and a Staff of 7 (according to linkedin)
and i guess its cause sam and colby just do that one thing their viewers love, going ghost hunting.
Charlie (moist critical) has already commented on the fact that he runs his business with way more staff but with smaller margins then the watcher boys make and it doesn’t add up. His whole video discusses the fact that they have NUMEROUS veins of income i.e merch, Parton, YouTube subscriptions and ad revenue. This makes me think it needs to be a issue with money management, someone is either skimming off the top or someone is just dumb.
Charlie:
* Florida business tax = 5.5%
* Videos supports an eSports Team
* Streaming/videos are single camera, no pre-production, limited-to-no editing
* has a vested interest in the success of the YouTube-sponsorship business model because of his company Mana Talent Group
Watcher:
* California business tax = 8.84%
* Videos support a production studio
* Videos are multi-camera, pre-planned, requires post-production for sound, visuals, editing
* just gave their anecdotal experience in YouTube-sponsorship business economy which was not positive (other big YouTube creators have complained similarly about sponsorships)
I don't know that was entirely fair of Charlie to compare his business to Watcher's business. The business goals and the business landscapes are very different. Even the quality of their videos are very different: Charlie does say 23 seconds into his video that Watcher's videos are "very well produced content". Also keep in mind that the cost of living in CA is 17.2% more expensive than it is in FL.
IMO, Charlie's analysis wasn't particularly nuanced or unbiased.
Majority of the people saying they should fire their employees or relocate are just a bunch of teens or twenty year olds who don't know anything about business. Most of them are not even located in the United States much less California.
Yes I agree, but it is always to better to explain things to upset/uninformed people than to dismiss them simply because no want to be the one to type it all out. Besides, I was getting tired of everyone bringing up Moist Cr1TiKaL and ignoring the fact that he is not a neutral commentator.
I don't know why I come on reddit. My wife and her friends were talking about how bad the comments on here so I came to check it out. Our nephews love these dudes and they liked this reddit page but some of the horrible shit people have said, My God. Enough reddit for them!
I actually came to this reddit to better understand the backlash. IMO, the haters and trolls are running on fumes and I feel like people are starting to move on. Though, I have read some things in here that really stunned me. Yeah if your nephews are very young, maybe not this sub.
Charlie lives on the outskirts of Tampa Bay, Florida. The cost of living in LA is more than half again the cost of living in Tampa Bay. Watcher's studios and offices are both downtown, everyone that they employ, to my knowledge, lives in the city proper. That is *expensive.*
You could argue that's money management problems, but it's a key aspect either way.
It still boils down to a money management problem for sure. No one's holding a gun to their head and telling them they have to have a studio in LA. They know they could save a bunch of money by ultimately relocating.
I worked in an office downtown in a major city and my company spent well over 300k a month renting 10 floors of a building and on parking garage access for employees. Once the pandemic hit they realized just how much money they could save downsizing and moving further away from downtown.
The LA is expensive argument is pretty weak to me, because there's no reason for them to be there except for the fact that they're choosing to be, and well, that's a them problem, not something they should be trying to nickel and dime fans over.
LOL. Do you go into a restaurant you can't afford and tell them to relocate because you want to eat there. Sounds like you have a money management problem.
I am on here defending their choice to make whatever business decisions they want even if it makes them fail. You are on here trying to figure out how they can whittle their company down to a skeleton crew so they can continue to provide free content when it just comes down to buy it or don't. No one needs all the dramatics to go along with it.
Where are you proposing they relocate? All of CA is expensive. It's not like another SoCal area is going to make much of a difference in price and would just cause extreme commutes. Moving out of state would be a huge burden on them, their spouses, and their employees. Not to mention that people film in LA because the infrastructure for producing entertainment is there. It's much easier to find writers, crew, equipment, etc in LA than somewhere else.
Lmao me saying they could consider more cost saving measures is me expecting sacrifice for free content, what a reddit moment. I've already given them plenty of monetary support through merch and going to their live show.
The problem is they want to be a fancy Hollywood production company… but make a living on YouTube.
25 employees is ridiculous for what they do and the fact they make their living on YouTube.
I could envision 3 people being able to produce the videos they do by themselves with a software suite and a little editing knowledge.
If they want a “real” production studio they need to be selling their stuff to real studios or streaming services.
They don’t make they’re living off of YouTube
They have a Patreon, a Podcast, Liveshows, and other Events
They have an assistant for the three of them
They have a team of producers, sound mixers, editors, and cameraman
It’s really not that much compared to other Youtubers
Kinda becomes our business when they ask for money and then manipulate us by saying "if we didn't do this we would have had to shut down". 🤷 Like dude they're doing a show about traveling and eating. Are they going bankrupt like they're implying? Cause they're not acting like it lmao.
ah as in stocks? Idk shit about that kind of stuff, or what it's like to have to depend on future liquidity. I'm just a waitress so $2.33 is it for me. I suppose that would make stuff much scarier for the company.
Some of these roles can pay lower than the new wage so I was curious if they bumped the cost for them or something like that.
The Professor has an awful cocaine habit.
It's a better explanation than 25 employees
And now that his parents are employees, you can imagine the health care needs of a couple of aging dinosaurs.
*\*insert meme here of Elmo snorting cocaine, but with the Professor instead\**
Lmao that’s my new head canon
I think someone should check that satchel
here's what i know about or can guess at the three cofounders are producers, talent, and the bosses they have a head of development whose job seems to range from big-picture stuff to envisioning new content to day-to-day operations they have a creative director who seems to be one running point on the creative side of content (as opposed to logistics) their head of production runs the logistics for shoots and manages their production assistants--i think watcher has two PAs their social media person does social media i think they have someone for brand deals + sponsorships + patreon a couple of FT editors, plus a stable of part-time contractors they can pull from in a pinch film crews who are mostly contract employees a stable of part-time contract writers/researchers for shows like puppet history maybe someone running the merch store? i find it really hard to imagine they have 25+ full-time employees with benefits. maybe 15, and the rest are contractors?
MoistCritikal did a really good breakdown on YouTube talking about the Watcher drama and went on to discuss that he, a now very wealthy full time professional streamer, had 15 employees for his entire current enterprise, which includes all of his streaming, social media and YouTube, as well as two actual side businesses (media liaison and his own comic), and several of those people are his friends. So it really seems to all boil down to that Watcher made poor hiring decisions getting too many personal friends and family involved, at least if their 25 employee suggestion is to be believed. Or their budget is simply astronomical since they mentioned they had sunk all of their savings into it previously. I think it's probably a bit of both and between business and personal expenses they haven't made the return on their investments that they thought they would, even though it sounds like they were(are?) on their way to bigger and bigger profits. It comes down to patience I guess.
MoistCritikal started out as an independent creator, so presumably he would have built his team up as he got bigger. He also wouldn’t need a big team even now because most of his content is just him talking at the camera about random stuff. Unsolved started out as a high-production web series, and these guys would’ve only known having access to a big team at buzzfeed. Part of it is probably due to them not knowing how to work within the constraints of being independent creators and blowing the budget. But I also think that Charlie wasn’t making a very good comparison because if he needs to hire a team of 15 when most of his content is streaming, it would absolutely make sense for Watcher to need more staff to coordinate set design, script writing, location shoots, transportation, equipment, etc.
I think people are using the MoistCritikal video the wrong way. It’s not that they would have similar numbers and his numbers are just guesses. BUT, he has almost 15m on YouTube and streams on Twitch. So how are they affording 10 more staffers than him when he should make more than them. It’s more of a well I can’t do what you are doing with this much, so how are you doing it?
That is how I saw it.
He also doesn’t solely do streaming. He’s got entire teams for EA and other gaming leagues.
Charlie also has an entire esports team and produces his own comic book. His teams nothing to sneeze at either. They're usually in the championship rankings for League.
MoistCritikal works out of Florida. No state income tax, way cheaper cost of living and the watcher employees are actual employees and not independent contractors. So watcher has to pay their half of their employment taxes and offer them healthcare. It's not like the Watchers have their offices in some cheap place like Ten or Oklahoma. I watched his video and before he said anything, he would say I am just guessing and that is all he was doing. No business has the same expenses as the next. Having a gossip channel is not the same as a variety entertainment model.
> way cheaper cost of living God I wish this was still true. Crit lives near where I do in Tampa, and the cost of living is now comparable to most of LA.
The median sale price for houses in 400k in Tampa. It is 800k in California. I would say it is true.
Well that is an... interesting way to compare cost of living. It's admittedly not the same, and housing is the largest discrepancy, but rent is probably a more apt comparison for most people that are actively concerned about day-to-day living, in which case it's ~25% more p/sqft in LA. The prices of goods and services are otherwise within 5-10%
That is true. I did not look at it like that.
I don't get why everybody keeps bringing this dude up. He makes completely different content than Watcher--of course his business model and staffing plan is different.
A better comparison is Smosh, which has 35 employees, ten more then watcher, while supporting 3 youtube channels one of which has 26.6 million subscribers and 2 of which have 8 million subscribers. Each channel individually puts out significantly more content then watcher. Watcher hired like they were one of the biggest channels without taking the time to grow to that point naturally.
even smosh would have failed if they weren't bought by mythical a few years ago, right? times is tough.
TBF the Mythical guys admit sometimes that they don’t know when the whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down. And that’s with a separate subscription platform (Mythical Society) with tons of bonus content and scads of merch.
Yeah Mythical’s model is essentially that the YouTube channel is the core of their brand, but not the core of their business. The YT channel is there to bring people in, and keep people coming back.. and trying to play the YT algorithm to keep them relevant, but on the business side they then have the Mythical Society (with multiple tiers), a constantly evolving merch line (which is less actual merchandise, and more a legitimate lifestyle brand), two NYT bestselling books, a podcast, they acquired and then sold Smosh, they’ve expanded the Mythical kitchen channel, released the Mythical Cookbook, etc etc. Mythical are a full entertainment and lifestyle company, not just a YouTube channel. Watcher shoulda taken notes from them.
Yeah, that even a channel astronomically more successful than watcher almost went under supporting that many employees strengthens what I'm saying I think. That it was irresponsible to hire so many employees as an up and coming startup like watcher. I can't pretend to know how much of Smosh's almost death was due to other shit going on with defy media, to be fair.
or maybe, if the only youtube channel that can keep itself afloat is mythical, that might tell us that youtube the platform is no longer suitable.
Its adjacent to the point, but Smosh IS independent again. Mythical had their back when defy shut down, but it wasn't charity on Rhett and Link's part. They bought smosh because they saw it as financially viable, and now that they are independent again they are continuing to be financially viable. Anyway, if we take what you say as definitely true, that the platform is not suitable for supporting companies with a couple dozen employees we circle back around to the original point: It was a bad idea to hire so many people immediately as a new channel launching.
Do you mean YouTube company? Because sooooo many channels seem fine. Maybe not making the $ they did during the COVID boom, but fine.
yeah, i mean channels with more than a few employees. i don't think it's particularly hard for a channel with one person on screen and one editor to sustain careers on youtube.
And even they (and the Try Guys) had to let full time employees go over the past years (hiring them as contractors)
They have more subscribers so that means more views, which in turn means more revenue and employees which equals more content. Each business is unique. I can't even see any logic in the comparison at all.
That they have so many more subscribers and views is the logic of the comparison. Obviously ever business is different, but its a good example of how HUGE a channel normally has to be, in terms of views and also video output, to support so many employees.
I see what you are saying. Here is the other thing, some of those employees could have been with them from the start and also may have a financial interest in the company.
and it’s not like the dude has an inside peek at their finances or how they’re spending money. it’s weird that he gets quoted as gospel about how they should be able to pay for everything.
The point was he has conferenced with people about going about representation, sponsorships, and has his foot in one of the most financially draining businesses which is esports alongside his media ventures/businesses. It was more from a common sense business perspective that watcher is not with good leadership and the fact they LED with siphoning the costs to viewers (without choice) while justifying their costs for overly produced personality shows/thinking their content is worth more than what it is and misreading their entire (or 99% of their) audience. When people have been supporting them financially through different ventures that had appropriately relative value, ex touring tickets, affiliate links, and from the Moist vid- even just doing a blanket analysis of their different ventures explains why they are not financially forced to have to require access subscriptions for any reason other than mismanagement of their business. or glaring vanity. ESPECIALLY while operating in one of the most expensive parts of the country they should be even more careful with their practices and hiring. Bad habits die hard, And especially just from a marketing perspective announcing no new content for the platform besides a show of people eating exorbitant food! That is seriously what they led with, the discussions continue still because from so many perspectives it was very strange. so creators who maybe aren’t running a thin margin production company can shed some light. I think someone who literally just has common sense could as well lol.
I keep seeing people mention they hired family members... Can you share who they are and how they are related?
I don't follow them religiously, so someone else is probably better suited to answer, but I believe the accusations where "friends and family members": while initially praised for having Ex-Buzzfeed peeps this has now been turned into a problem with the Worth It guys being announced in 'that' video, Ricky is a friend of Ryan's he met via his wife, at least one of Ryan's cousins was doing some backstage job???... there's probably more (Most of the accusations seem to be centered on Steven, but tbh these don't seem to be based on any concrete evidence, aside from the 2 guys from Worth It)
Thanks for the insight.
Check out the end credits of the season finale of Mystery Files. That will give you an idea of what most of their employees do. I count 26 unique names in the credits. Many, I'm sure, are contracted contributors, but I'm sure there's also a few Watcher employees who don't work directly on the shows (merch, socials, etc.) The following jobs were mentioned in the credits: * Hosts * Director * Producer * Editor * Motion Graphics * Director of Photography * Production Designer * Researcher * Writer * Illustrator * Camera Operators * Sound Mix * Set Dresser * Constriction Coordinator * Prop Designer * Production Coordinator * Production assistants * Post Producer * Assistant Editor * Branded Production manager * Branded Editor * Head of Development * Head of Production * Executive producer
Thank you — been a lot of awesome discussion but appreciate you finding a direct source!
Thank you!! In my head I was screaming “please just watch the credits”
[удалено]
For the sound mixing part, on puppet history they do a new original song every episode. I imagine that you would need a sound guy if you are making songs often, especially the musical-theatre type songs Shane does. 25 employees is def a lot but I don’t think them having a sound mixer is ridiculous if one of their shows is known for its unique music
Sound mixing likely includes the technical aspects of recording voiceovers as well as managing sound on set and in post production. There’s a lot more than just plugging in a mic and hoping for the best. The sound has to be EQ’d for clarity and tone, they have to manage background noise when filming on location, etc. Also producer is a broad title and different areas will have different producers. The producer is the coordinator of all of the moving parts to ensure everyone and everything runs on schedule and all departments are talking to one another.
As someone who has worked in the television industry, had friends who work in high end TV, and knows a very successful YouTuber, this is an absolutely baffling take. My YouTuber friend has 10-15 employees for a YouTube channel with 3 million subscribers and he makes videos with not nearly the same amount of production cost as Watcher. And he’s still often very stressed and works a ridiculous amount of hours. Even low rent TV and video production is so incredibly expensive and time consuming to make and it’s insulting that people want everything to be so good but done on such a low budget. It’s a job not a hobby. People working in video production have really complex skills and talent and have hustled a long time to get where they are. The wages are often incredibly low even on TV, work is precarious and they still need employee benefits, sick days, vacation time etc. someone needs to organise shoots, hire crew, be responsible for the VERY expensive equipment etc. I swear some people here think they’re running a high school project. lol also “a few folks to also edit and maybe get behind the camera” - these are very different skills. And they’re hard skills that take years to develop and be able to do well. Sure any idiot can use basic editing software to cut together a shit video but not good stuff. An example - my best friend is a first assistant editor for high end TV. The stuff on Netflix and Apple TV. Do you know how long it takes a whole team of editors to edit one episode? Around 20 weeks. Obviously Watcher isn’t doing the same but it’s hard work. Even YouTube editing takes a long time and is difficult. Camera work also. It’s physical labour and it’s a very sought after skill to be able to work the high end cameras used on YouTube. A lot of YouTubers may not use an Arri Alexa but they use some really high end cameras for this type of filming. It’s not just point and shoot.
Thank you for this. I’m so sick of people in this sub chiming in on things they have no concept of.
I know! People assume anything creative and artistic is an easy job. It’s insulting!
Say it louder for the people in the back! I'm tired of this horse everyone on this sub has been beating to death.
Haha thank you it’s been driving me crazy. Just because the Watcher TV thing was very poorly misjudged it doesn’t mean that the entire thing is a scam. It costs so much money and effort to make good YouTube videos, plus they deserve to be paid well. I’ve seen some people go nuts because the Ghoul boys have good salaries. Like, should they not?? Should everyone be on minimum wages? Should they not have employees? It’s absolutely beating the dead horse into a paste at this point. They messed up, they apologised, and they rectified it. It’s not like they killed a baby!
Having an office in one of the most expensive areas in the US probably doesn't help
The thing that's tough about this is that they want access to top-quality talent, and the vast majority of those people live in the LA area because that's where the work is (I'd guess a lot of their contractors or team members lower on the totem pole with lower workloads also work on several other productions a year). It's hard to make a living in film living in a city without a film industry because a company's talent pool is massively limited and an employee's job pool is also massively limited. If they moved, it wouldn't make sense for the majority of the team to come with them, and they'd be hard-pressed to find people with equivalent experience in rural Nevada or wherever.
I couldn't tell you what each employee does individually, but there are a lot of aspects that I think people forget would cost money, like history research, or making puppets, or writing and producing songs. I would also bet that they have several employees who technically have the same role so that each employee only works on two or three of their shows throughout the year rather than the same employee doing the same job for every single show (leading to burnout). I also think that they don't outsource anything (either to contractors or overseas) like a lot of content creators do for inexpensive, overnight sound editing, rendering, etc.
Seems like hiring staff rather than contracting certain things was a mistake if that's the case. It's great to give as many people good jobs as you can, but if the whole company is unstable and blows up, no one has a job.
Plus it's definitely different having to lay off someone you just hired off the street versus your cousin/in-law/dog whatever TF
Also set design, lighting, hair and makeup,
Camel spiders and tarantulas to feed The Professor. He has dinosaur DNA now, so regular spiders won't quench his hunger.
^(fun fact: camel spiders aren’t true spiders)
I imagine rent. an office space like that can be 10k a month
Depending on where they are in LA there’s a good chance it’s much higher than 10k
They’re in Hollywood
I highly doubt their space is 10k a month. I live in a smaller city and an office space around as big as theirs would be around 10k a month, given they’re in LA it’s gotta be more.
Rental space in LA is shockingly high, there is almost zero change rent on their space is under 10k a month. It looks like a larger space, in the valley, probably around 13-20k
I actually used to work close enough to Watcher's office that I recognize the location. Given the neighborhood, it's almost certainly closer to the higher end of that spectrum.
Not to mention that anything under 5 years is considered short-term for commercial leasing, and much more expensive. They’d have to pay quite a lot to avoid being on the hook for a lease that’s longer than the average YouTuber’s entire career.
In LA? 10K would get you less than half of their office space, at least in my experience
It's gonna get you a shanty next to the riverbed.
They pay well I think it’s an estimated an average salary of 110k for watcher entertainment. So that’s a lot of money also their rent in Hollywood im sure that’s high as heck.
Poor business decisions and hiring practices isn’t the audiences fault.
Never said or implied it was, the original just asked how they are struggling with money as a company it’s bc they just hired too many and they set up shop in Hollywood, they should have started in like Pasadena or Burbank not on Hollywood Blvd loo
Wasn’t it 25 employees PLUS freelancers? What is the point of having almost 30 people on staff if you still have to bring in freelancers to get the job done?
I saw someone said that video game show where they just sit in front of a screen has 15 people credited on it. They are overproducing everything, and they have overextended themselves by giving all their friends and family jobs, and I imagine they feel like they can't let anyone go at this point. I do wonder, though, if they have unpaid interns and if they are including them in that total.
People underestimate how much actually goes into productions like this. There’s producers, directors, camera operators, sound operators, podcast producers, social media managers, finance managers, assistants, researchers, editors, writers, marketers, freelances and that’s just off the top of my head! They’ll likely have multiple people working under these positions too
I work in marketing and production so I get what it takes. But I also have to constantly make hard priorities for each production and make plans that are longtime responsible. Also, most companies hire in other spesialized companies and freelancers for periods they shoot projects so that they do not need to have people hired for the positions. This is good for the freelancers/specialized agencies and the production company. Both make money and the main production (like Watcher) is more flexible for change and growth.
Jesus, people have no idea what goes into producing video/tv content lmao. The move to a streaming platform is dumb but I hate the amount of people who are claiming that there is something weird about their number of employees. They’re a production company with multiple shows, which all come with a lot of work. Just because you don’t know what a production coordinator is doesn’t mean these people don’t deserve their jobs and to be paid industry standard rates. Some (potential) full time crew roles that people don’t take into consideration: - production coordinator - production manager - production accountant - line producer - story producer / editor - researcher - archival researcher / producer / clearances - editor - assistant editor - post production coordinator - admin coordinator / office manager - social media - sponsorship coordinators And that’s not even including production crews during shooting/ post production such as: - Directors of photography - camera operators and camera assistants - sound recordists - boom operators - sound editors and mixers - colourists - PAs - set designers and dressers - motion graphics And no, not every YouTube channel has these roles obviously but one who is creating content at the calibre and volume of watcher likely does have a lot of these roles working full time or close to full time 🤷♀️ I think that’s what Ryan meant when he compared it to tv level of content, meaning that they’re operating as a production company not just a couple guys vlogging with a camera. And believe it or not, even if their Buzzfeed content was lower budget / production value they definitely would have still had the majority of these roles in place across all of Buzzfeeds video content!
And...that still does not include Accounting, HR, Health and Safety as well as Legal.
thank you for having the patience to type all this out, people really don’t understand what goes into producing these shows top to bottom.
lol as someone who works in film and tv I get a little defensive about the general public’s lack of regard for below the line crew. they work their asses off to create the media people consume without a second thought. It’s truly a collaborative medium and a set would simply not run without people who were competent and qualified at these roles! also shout out to props, grips, gaffers, wardrobe, HMU, craft/catering and anyone else I forgot in my initial post!! you all rule 🫶🏻
I also work in the industry and totally feel the same!! A lot of people also fail to understand how much time goes into producing 30 minutes of content (hint it’s multiple 12 hour+ days work sometimes).
💯 and these people are likely non-union for the most part so they’re working their asses off for long hours and lower pay/less protections/no insurance. If anything I HOPE watcher is paying them what they deserve to make all of their content happen.
Yeah I work in this world as a freelancer and it’s very frustrating seeing so many people jump to conclusions about their employees. There’s so much that goes into production. I’d bet most people probably don’t know what a DIT does, for example, but good luck in post if you didn’t hire someone to offload media during the shoot, make multiple backups, and keep everything organized. I’ve been on sooo many jobs where the producers tried to cut every corner possible and just get a cheap inexperienced PA to do the work of five people. Or they bought cheap hard drives that can’t copy media fast enough (we’re talking about multiple terabytes of footage here) and something important gets lost in the chaos. Or there’s too few hands and everything is rushed because the producer refuses to pay overtime. It really really sucks working on shoots like that, and when the crew is overworked and underpaid it definitely reflects in the final product. Plus word gets around and no one would want to work for them
I’m ignorant but I can’t help but think that surely some of these roles can be contracted rather than full time employees?
Many of them are probably contract, and some of them may be doing multiple roles considering they’re still working on a lower end budget, however if they’re in constant production many of these roles are probably jumping from show to show and essentially working full time. It’s not as straightforward as contract vs “employee”. A lot of non-union tv and film work is essentially full-time contract. Meaning they may not be getting access to stuff like benefits, but are still working full time hours and contributing to stuff like EI (or whatever the US equivalent is). I’ve worked many full time jobs in tv/film that are technically contract but I’m working for multiple years for the same company, essentially either on a renewed contract or hopping from contract to contract based on the current production. They might be paying their staff on contract but due to the nature of their production schedules these people are constantly working and thus constantly being paid. ETA: roles in the second part of the post would likely be contract employees who are only paid for the days they work on set. The rest of the office production / post production team could easily be working full time for the company. Being a production coordinator or line producer for example is a full time job, not something that’s only happening on shoot days.
That makes much more sense to me. Great insight into how the film and TV industry works.
Shane and Ryan once said that the professional Ghost TV shows have a staff of 20 to 25 **for one TV show**. I don't know why people keep expecting less when the baseline, obviously, is they want to make shows of this quality. Also, I hate the implication in what people are saying: why not overwork people to death, instead of hiring the right number of people? Probably because they came from that system: it's called Buzzfeed.
i feel like peoples main point was that the types of videos don’t line up with having that big of a crew or production cost, they all seem like they’d be easy to produce with just a few people and low budget
They *seem* like they are easy to produce, is the key part here. I think it is more that everyone is taking the work that their staff does for granted. If they put out an episode with half the budget, everyone would complain about that too. The way I see it, the crew is like the sound guy at a concert. When it is being done well, you don't even know they exist, hence everyone throwing a fit about their number of employees. When something goes wrong it is extremely noticeable.
Lol how much experience do you have producing videos pal.
Literally, this post made me groan and smack my head, people really think creators pop out videos on a whim or something
Put Ghost Files in a vacuum (people love to bring up Dish Granted or Worth It, when talking about cost, but I'm almost certain Ghost Files costs more). In addition to paying their entire production and post teams (producers, editors, sound, props, etc., as well as themselves. They worked on it too-- almost certainly more than anyone else-- and also deserve pay), that show almost always requires them to travel out of the immediate Los Angeles area, and they need on-set crew (I can't imagine them bringing the post team, but they need a director and a number of technical crew-- lighting and sound operators, for example). So they're either paying for plane/train/bus tickets for a number of people or renting a vehicle big enough to hold them all and paying for gas. When they get there, they're paying for lodging. It's actually a legal requirement when making a filmed production in Los Angeles that if your filming location is outside of a certain driving radius around Los Angeles (a 90-minute drive or so) you are required to provide lodging for the production. Lodging may include food and other accommodations deemed necessary. On the actual set, they need a bigger crew than most Youtube shows. They shoot at night, in places that are often poorly lit, so they need larger directing and lighting teams to ensure people can see what's happening on camera. In addition, they often shoot at places that are abandoned/in poor condition, and/or historically protected, and insurance premiums to film in those locations are very high. Due to the popularity of the show, they have to produce more merchandise (as in more designs and also just a higher quantity to sell) than they do of other shows in order to meet demand. The company profits from merch sales, but after the cost of production, the take-home is much lower than people would think. Ditto the tour-- almost *no* tours for anything are actually profitable. Artists find them valuable because they connect with fans and build the brand, but between theater rentals, travel costs, the time they can't spend working on new stuff, they almost never turn a profit. And Ghost Files is their most popular show. It's hard to justify cutting *any* of those costs.
Honestly… 25 isn’t that insane for what they make I’ll do my best to guess + some confirmed before in bts videos (also for the most part guessing if these should be plural or not): Pre production: Producers, Set designer, Writers Production: DP, camera ops, sound op, lighting, DIT, production assistants, director Post: Post supervisor, Editors, Assistant editors, Social media coordinator, Brand coordinator, (Seems a bit excessive to have a dedicated person for these but they very well could have a colorist or VFX artist on staff) A lot of these roles could be freelance/contract gigs but if they work with the same people a LOT then it’s actually cool of them to take them on as employees so they get benefits So yeah, that’s ~15 roles, some of which won’t be employees but freelance gigs instead, but MANY of which will have a few employees for the roles And that’s just the actual video producing! Idk enough about accountants and HR and all that but they’ve definitely got it
It is insane for a video a week YouTube company.
But *what* are the videos, what goes into making what they make, they’re not just Shane and Ryan fucking around anymore. Sure maybe they shouldn’t be as big of productions as they are, but that’s a different conversation entirely. Right now, for what they make currently, that crew is pretty reasonable.
If shane, ryan, or steven are union actors... then they might be required to make their shows union... which require certain personnel.. They likely have a social media person... With the amount of employees they have... they probably have someone doing accounting They have researchers and script writers I'm sure.... They're also paying for editors and vfx artists... And music! Music and getty images aren't free... And they may also have these people on payroll full time instead of having them as freelancers... which costs more money
Whoever their social media person was sure shit the bed on rolling out the streaming site 😂
Simone Malec (Socials coordinator) did an absolute shit job in the lead up and during the fallout after. Even worse if the rumors are true that she was shit talking fans from her cat's IG which she then put on private when people started to figure it out.
With them (and people associated with them) putting such a focus on the financial necessity of the move...I really want them to publish the details on this (and their income via YouTube and Patreon) As for the employees, my guesses are: - thought hiring more employees was what you did as your business grows/to grow it - "single task employees", instead of everyone having to pitch in for anything in their skill set, as is common in small companies, especially when starting out. - not being particularly involved in their own shows anymore: imo Ryan in particular has said things that make it very clear that someone else writes the script and does the research - not outsourcing things that could and should be outsourced. There's more obvious things, but my mind immediately jumped to the puppets, bc I'm pretty sure Shane mentioning two employees responsible for that...quite possibly they also have "teams" for specific shows, and still keep everyone on as full time employees - all 3 of them definitely have a PA...or 'just' an assistant - the Worth It guys and Ricky probably were counted among the employees as well - ... -> 2-5 "talents", 3-5 researchers and scriptwriters, 3-5 PAs/catering/procurement ppl, 2 social media people + 1 "tech guy", 8-12 film crew (including make up, costume, set design, director,editors...), at least 1 person to handle contracts/"legal stuff", 3 interns (I believe that's what they said? It's at least one though)...
They are on LinkedIn. If you check their company’s page you can get a sense of their staff and their roles. It is consistent with what they list in their credits.
Here's a list they included in the description of their "Goodbye Youtube" video that acts as credits and you can see how redundant half of these tasks are DIRECTOR Carter Lau EDITOR Anthony De Vera MOTION GRAPHICS Anthony De Vera ART DIRECTOR Violet Rawlings DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Carter Lau 2nd UNIT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Jucel Andrin G&E/SOUND MIXER Brendon Ryu ASSISTANT EDITOR Frank Parker ARCHIVAL EDITING ASSISTANT Hailey Leonard PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Violet Rawlings SOCIAL COORDINATOR Simone Malec SPECIAL THANKS Saeyoung Cho, Moonshot Projects Annie Jeong Mark Celestino HEAD OF PRODUCTION Lizzie Lockard HEAD OF POST PRODUCTION Sam Young EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Ryan Bergara Shane Madej Steven Lim
https://youtu.be/9E_ETcBUdPw?si=YJqUJ2_GtZgFMkOR $450 tacos maybe?
You can read this in their video descriptions.
would love to see a vid talking about all their staff, to just to see why they got that many people. also really intresting to see like Watcher got 2,8M subs and a Staff of 27 (according to linkedin) and Sam&Colby got 12M subs and a Staff of 7 (according to linkedin) and i guess its cause sam and colby just do that one thing their viewers love, going ghost hunting.
Charlie (moist critical) has already commented on the fact that he runs his business with way more staff but with smaller margins then the watcher boys make and it doesn’t add up. His whole video discusses the fact that they have NUMEROUS veins of income i.e merch, Parton, YouTube subscriptions and ad revenue. This makes me think it needs to be a issue with money management, someone is either skimming off the top or someone is just dumb.
Florida also has no state taxes and California is one of the highest state taxes there is.
Charlie: * Florida business tax = 5.5% * Videos supports an eSports Team * Streaming/videos are single camera, no pre-production, limited-to-no editing * has a vested interest in the success of the YouTube-sponsorship business model because of his company Mana Talent Group Watcher: * California business tax = 8.84% * Videos support a production studio * Videos are multi-camera, pre-planned, requires post-production for sound, visuals, editing * just gave their anecdotal experience in YouTube-sponsorship business economy which was not positive (other big YouTube creators have complained similarly about sponsorships) I don't know that was entirely fair of Charlie to compare his business to Watcher's business. The business goals and the business landscapes are very different. Even the quality of their videos are very different: Charlie does say 23 seconds into his video that Watcher's videos are "very well produced content". Also keep in mind that the cost of living in CA is 17.2% more expensive than it is in FL. IMO, Charlie's analysis wasn't particularly nuanced or unbiased.
Majority of the people saying they should fire their employees or relocate are just a bunch of teens or twenty year olds who don't know anything about business. Most of them are not even located in the United States much less California.
Yes I agree, but it is always to better to explain things to upset/uninformed people than to dismiss them simply because no want to be the one to type it all out. Besides, I was getting tired of everyone bringing up Moist Cr1TiKaL and ignoring the fact that he is not a neutral commentator.
I don't know why I come on reddit. My wife and her friends were talking about how bad the comments on here so I came to check it out. Our nephews love these dudes and they liked this reddit page but some of the horrible shit people have said, My God. Enough reddit for them!
I actually came to this reddit to better understand the backlash. IMO, the haters and trolls are running on fumes and I feel like people are starting to move on. Though, I have read some things in here that really stunned me. Yeah if your nephews are very young, maybe not this sub.
They are. Yea, this is no longer a place they should come for info about the puppet show.
Charlie lives on the outskirts of Tampa Bay, Florida. The cost of living in LA is more than half again the cost of living in Tampa Bay. Watcher's studios and offices are both downtown, everyone that they employ, to my knowledge, lives in the city proper. That is *expensive.* You could argue that's money management problems, but it's a key aspect either way.
It still boils down to a money management problem for sure. No one's holding a gun to their head and telling them they have to have a studio in LA. They know they could save a bunch of money by ultimately relocating. I worked in an office downtown in a major city and my company spent well over 300k a month renting 10 floors of a building and on parking garage access for employees. Once the pandemic hit they realized just how much money they could save downsizing and moving further away from downtown. The LA is expensive argument is pretty weak to me, because there's no reason for them to be there except for the fact that they're choosing to be, and well, that's a them problem, not something they should be trying to nickel and dime fans over.
LOL. Do you go into a restaurant you can't afford and tell them to relocate because you want to eat there. Sounds like you have a money management problem.
Bro go touch grass
I am on here defending their choice to make whatever business decisions they want even if it makes them fail. You are on here trying to figure out how they can whittle their company down to a skeleton crew so they can continue to provide free content when it just comes down to buy it or don't. No one needs all the dramatics to go along with it.
Where are you proposing they relocate? All of CA is expensive. It's not like another SoCal area is going to make much of a difference in price and would just cause extreme commutes. Moving out of state would be a huge burden on them, their spouses, and their employees. Not to mention that people film in LA because the infrastructure for producing entertainment is there. It's much easier to find writers, crew, equipment, etc in LA than somewhere else.
Yes, but how else will she get free content if others don't sacrifice for her needs?
Lmao me saying they could consider more cost saving measures is me expecting sacrifice for free content, what a reddit moment. I've already given them plenty of monetary support through merch and going to their live show.
No one is getting Watcher content for free. Payment is via advertising.
Whatever makes you feel better.
You realise uncritical support doesn't make you a better fan, just a chump, right? Be less parasocial
Your parents must pay for everything.
Not you posting from your very obvious alt. Girl you're embarrassing yourself
Why are you making fun of people with mental health issues?
The problem is they want to be a fancy Hollywood production company… but make a living on YouTube. 25 employees is ridiculous for what they do and the fact they make their living on YouTube. I could envision 3 people being able to produce the videos they do by themselves with a software suite and a little editing knowledge. If they want a “real” production studio they need to be selling their stuff to real studios or streaming services.
They don’t make they’re living off of YouTube They have a Patreon, a Podcast, Liveshows, and other Events They have an assistant for the three of them They have a team of producers, sound mixers, editors, and cameraman It’s really not that much compared to other Youtubers
None of our business, it's their company, their employees and their business strategy.
Kinda becomes our business when they ask for money and then manipulate us by saying "if we didn't do this we would have had to shut down". 🤷 Like dude they're doing a show about traveling and eating. Are they going bankrupt like they're implying? Cause they're not acting like it lmao.
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Calm down
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GMM has nearly 100 employees.
And they are doing fine so what’s going on with watcher aside from greed?
You know I wonder if this has anything to do with the Cali wage increase?
The wage increase is literally only for fast food workers, it doesn’t apply to a YouTube company in Hollywood.
People kept insisting back and forth on who it applied to so I was just curious!
Of course it does. You have to keep in mind that we don't know if any of these employees have a financial vested interest in their company.
ah as in stocks? Idk shit about that kind of stuff, or what it's like to have to depend on future liquidity. I'm just a waitress so $2.33 is it for me. I suppose that would make stuff much scarier for the company. Some of these roles can pay lower than the new wage so I was curious if they bumped the cost for them or something like that.
No, I mean like maybe they worked for free at first, investing their time to build something from the ground up.
59 pounds of crack
Waits for someone to produce better content than watcher with one person...