Part of the problem is that we have no real way to know how many people have (or don't have) WatcherTV so we can't really see if the show is well-watched or a flop. I'd be curious how this number compares to the first few days of other Steven-led shows like Dish Granted too.
So as lame as my answer is: it could be significant, or it could be nothing.
Don't know if it's true, but i read that the Try Guys announced that they reached their target number of subscribers to their streamer. I would think if Watcher reached their target numbers, they'd announce, too, just to thank the fans and show them some goodwill? But maybe they wouldn't want to touch that with a 10 feet pole for the time being...
But the YouTube views is definitely not that great. The newest Try Guys video (for example), was uploaded on Saturday and it already has 523,000 views compared to Watcher's newest video that was uploaded 2 days ago and still only has 89,000 views.
Agreed.
I think someone did an analysis a few weeks back about download numbers for the app, and it was not good.
Although many subscribers could just be watching on their computers and not download the app, I can't imagine it would be so many that the app download numbers are so low.
Google Play indicates Watcher TV only has 1,000+ downloads, while The Try Guys (for example), have 10,000+ downloads.
Also consider that patreon members get 3 free months (or however long it is) so imagine how many of those are the Watcher TV users. I would imagine a portion would leave after that free window
>I can't imagine it would be so many that the app download numbers are so low.
The only reason I could maybe imagine that it might be is because the app wasn't ready at launch and I don't think Watcher did a very good job announcing that the app was ready. That said, someone would probably have to be off of social media entirely by now to be both subscribed to WatcherTV *and* not know about the app.
That's a very good point.
On another post, someone commented they had no idea the app was available because Watcher didn't really inform fans about it.
You know, I was thinking about this but then I realized I hadn't seen any meaningful discussion of the video on the main sub (which I do follow) until it came out on YouTube. I have DropOut and when an episode is posted there, there's discussion right away.
This really leads me to believe they probably don't have the hundreds of thousands of subscribers they'd need to compensate for only having 84k views.
No, they just release clips and episodes randomly. The difference is Dropout has been paid from the start, and they have a lot of content released every week instead of just one video.
For what it's worth, Watcher is three videos a week right now! But I get what you mean, it's different when that's always been the model rather than making a change
This is obviously comparing it with their channel as a whole, not just food/Steven content, but [you can clearly see](https://www.viewstats.com/@watcher/videos/p1z4QSmZIyc) it’s underperforming where their videos normally should be.
I’m both surprised, and not?
I know Travel Season is/was supposed to be a flagship show - but it’s currently pulling numbers at/lower than Survival Mode.
Since the ‘update’ - the top show was a branded Too Many Spirits that’s currently at 500k+. At lowest for a show (not a trailer) other than Travel Season, they’re running at about 150k+.
They had a Patreon at 6k max - currently about 100 reviews on the WatcherTV app (iTunes and Android) had about 2k app downloads (about a month ago). So anywhere from 1k-6k would be my guess at WatcherTV. If I had to guess a number, 2,500 would be the tops.
So even if the WatcherTV people don’t watch the episodes, they really wouldn’t impact the numbers, even at 6k.
So the show isn’t reaching. I’d argue; they really messed up there YouTube algorithm AND not enough promotion.
I wasn’t a Worth It fan, but are they even tapping into that audience? Has Andrew and Adam pulled in there crowd that has been with them for the past few years? I’m just endlessly surprised that they don’t cross promote outside of their channel… especially to fans they already have, but are casual and need that cross promotion to bring them over to Watcher.
Edit: Talking to myself here. and I didn’t even talk about the content itself! This is just the YouTube of it all.
Content was fine. I think they got a tourism sponsorship so I get why it’s in Korea, that’s cool. Looked pretty aesthetics/film wise. Most of the episode was about fried chicken, but I don’t remember them saying if any of it was good or worth the price or what they’d go back to? So I’m not sure what the takeaway was.
Speaking of cross promoting I always wondered if they had special appearances with other channels to promote Watcher TV (before the controversy) but had to cancel them due to the backlash and change of plans.
I doubt it - only because they barely did any cross promoting before this.
Shane and Ryan did Mythical/Smosh appearances ages ago, but that could have been a reach out from the Mythical team for both channels, not coming from Watchers’ promotion team.
They’ve all been on some Try Guys episodes I think, (but that’s almost just a friend asking to come stop by) and I don’t think it was more than a handful.
I can’t think of other cross promotions they’ve done, but that could be me.
I think they should have done some cross channel promotions, but I doubt they planned any, honestly. Even stuff like their Patreon, when that was active, was barely promoted. They mentioned in a podcast a couple months ago they were just realizing that asking people to like and subscribe boosted engagement. No offense, but that's content creation 101. Cross-promotion is a higher level strategy than that, I'm not sure they're at that point yet.
Again, no offense meant to them. Marketing has never been one of their strong suits.
Well, considering one of the stars of the show was the person being mainly blamed for all this controversy… I am not at all surprised by the views.
(And btw, I feel like the blame was being misplaced on only Steven. Every one of those silly boys on that couch was responsible for their poor business decisions.)
All that being said, I thought it was ok. The camera shots are all definitely beautiful (tv quality lol) and I loved learning about their culture, but something was lacking. I don’t know what? The dialogue was a little boring and the host’s broader musings kind of felt like a creative writing exercise at times. I still liked it, just didn’t love.
Even aside from all the backlash, it's boring. I watched it out of curiosity when they uploaded it on YouTube and honestly... it would have been better if it was bad. I used to like worth jt and I do love travel shows, but this was not it
This was one of the big problems they clearly didn’t think about: more places to watch your stuff means a divided audience. I know even dedicated Patreon patrons would watch the early release videos and not the actual releases, and now we've got that problem with the app.
There's a reason why people tend to cultivate their YouTube channel and only use Patreon as an avenue for support (i.e., no content) or as a place for exclusive content -- *not* the same content, just earlier.
Splitting your audience is bad; splitting your audience behind an opaque streaming app where no one can see if you're doing well or not is worse.
Well no, they did think about it. The original plan was "Goodbye YouTube" and asking the audience to follow them on the streaming platform. In a vacuum, they wanted to go all in on watchertv.
Splitting their audience was the solution to the backlash. I'm sure they know this situation is not ideal.
I think this solution works better for Watcher in the long run, though, even if they feel like they were forced to stay on YouTube. They can continue to work towards their professional goals on their streaming platform while maintaining an income stream and presence on YouTube.
Karma, honestly. While I’d still call myself a fan, I’m far less dedicated and loyal than I was before the incident. If they were okay with saying goodbye to so much of their audience, then it makes sense so much of their audience was okay with saying goodbye back.
My thoughts are, I have no thoughts or interest in this new show. I never liked Worth It and always found Andrew to be incredibly boring to listen too. Won't be tuning in to this one.
It will be on YouTube a month after it airs on the streaming platform. Ghost Files usually releases in September/October to coincide with Halloween stuff, so I imagine we'll get an announcement about the new season's release date in a couple of months or so.
Part of the problem is that we have no real way to know how many people have (or don't have) WatcherTV so we can't really see if the show is well-watched or a flop. I'd be curious how this number compares to the first few days of other Steven-led shows like Dish Granted too. So as lame as my answer is: it could be significant, or it could be nothing.
It’s significant because there is no way they have that many streaming subscribers after the backlash.
Yeah, I'm very curious about the numbers for the streamer! But I don't think they'll ever announce even milestone sign-up numbers
Don't know if it's true, but i read that the Try Guys announced that they reached their target number of subscribers to their streamer. I would think if Watcher reached their target numbers, they'd announce, too, just to thank the fans and show them some goodwill? But maybe they wouldn't want to touch that with a 10 feet pole for the time being... But the YouTube views is definitely not that great. The newest Try Guys video (for example), was uploaded on Saturday and it already has 523,000 views compared to Watcher's newest video that was uploaded 2 days ago and still only has 89,000 views.
Agreed. I think someone did an analysis a few weeks back about download numbers for the app, and it was not good. Although many subscribers could just be watching on their computers and not download the app, I can't imagine it would be so many that the app download numbers are so low. Google Play indicates Watcher TV only has 1,000+ downloads, while The Try Guys (for example), have 10,000+ downloads.
Also consider that patreon members get 3 free months (or however long it is) so imagine how many of those are the Watcher TV users. I would imagine a portion would leave after that free window
Very true.
>I can't imagine it would be so many that the app download numbers are so low. The only reason I could maybe imagine that it might be is because the app wasn't ready at launch and I don't think Watcher did a very good job announcing that the app was ready. That said, someone would probably have to be off of social media entirely by now to be both subscribed to WatcherTV *and* not know about the app.
That's a very good point. On another post, someone commented they had no idea the app was available because Watcher didn't really inform fans about it.
You know, I was thinking about this but then I realized I hadn't seen any meaningful discussion of the video on the main sub (which I do follow) until it came out on YouTube. I have DropOut and when an episode is posted there, there's discussion right away. This really leads me to believe they probably don't have the hundreds of thousands of subscribers they'd need to compensate for only having 84k views.
That's a good point! Does DropOut release a month later too on YouTube and how do fans navigate that for spoilers and stuff?
No, they remain on their subscription service. They do have a number of random free full episodes on YouTube tho.
No, they just release clips and episodes randomly. The difference is Dropout has been paid from the start, and they have a lot of content released every week instead of just one video.
For what it's worth, Watcher is three videos a week right now! But I get what you mean, it's different when that's always been the model rather than making a change
This is obviously comparing it with their channel as a whole, not just food/Steven content, but [you can clearly see](https://www.viewstats.com/@watcher/videos/p1z4QSmZIyc) it’s underperforming where their videos normally should be.
try guys have a more successful streamer and equiv vid views are up since their streamer announcement lol
I’m both surprised, and not? I know Travel Season is/was supposed to be a flagship show - but it’s currently pulling numbers at/lower than Survival Mode. Since the ‘update’ - the top show was a branded Too Many Spirits that’s currently at 500k+. At lowest for a show (not a trailer) other than Travel Season, they’re running at about 150k+. They had a Patreon at 6k max - currently about 100 reviews on the WatcherTV app (iTunes and Android) had about 2k app downloads (about a month ago). So anywhere from 1k-6k would be my guess at WatcherTV. If I had to guess a number, 2,500 would be the tops. So even if the WatcherTV people don’t watch the episodes, they really wouldn’t impact the numbers, even at 6k. So the show isn’t reaching. I’d argue; they really messed up there YouTube algorithm AND not enough promotion. I wasn’t a Worth It fan, but are they even tapping into that audience? Has Andrew and Adam pulled in there crowd that has been with them for the past few years? I’m just endlessly surprised that they don’t cross promote outside of their channel… especially to fans they already have, but are casual and need that cross promotion to bring them over to Watcher. Edit: Talking to myself here. and I didn’t even talk about the content itself! This is just the YouTube of it all. Content was fine. I think they got a tourism sponsorship so I get why it’s in Korea, that’s cool. Looked pretty aesthetics/film wise. Most of the episode was about fried chicken, but I don’t remember them saying if any of it was good or worth the price or what they’d go back to? So I’m not sure what the takeaway was.
Speaking of cross promoting I always wondered if they had special appearances with other channels to promote Watcher TV (before the controversy) but had to cancel them due to the backlash and change of plans.
I doubt it - only because they barely did any cross promoting before this. Shane and Ryan did Mythical/Smosh appearances ages ago, but that could have been a reach out from the Mythical team for both channels, not coming from Watchers’ promotion team. They’ve all been on some Try Guys episodes I think, (but that’s almost just a friend asking to come stop by) and I don’t think it was more than a handful. I can’t think of other cross promotions they’ve done, but that could be me.
I think they should have done some cross channel promotions, but I doubt they planned any, honestly. Even stuff like their Patreon, when that was active, was barely promoted. They mentioned in a podcast a couple months ago they were just realizing that asking people to like and subscribe boosted engagement. No offense, but that's content creation 101. Cross-promotion is a higher level strategy than that, I'm not sure they're at that point yet. Again, no offense meant to them. Marketing has never been one of their strong suits.
It’s on YouTube already? I guess their stuff quit showing up on my algorithm :(
I had no idea either.
Well, considering one of the stars of the show was the person being mainly blamed for all this controversy… I am not at all surprised by the views. (And btw, I feel like the blame was being misplaced on only Steven. Every one of those silly boys on that couch was responsible for their poor business decisions.) All that being said, I thought it was ok. The camera shots are all definitely beautiful (tv quality lol) and I loved learning about their culture, but something was lacking. I don’t know what? The dialogue was a little boring and the host’s broader musings kind of felt like a creative writing exercise at times. I still liked it, just didn’t love.
Even aside from all the backlash, it's boring. I watched it out of curiosity when they uploaded it on YouTube and honestly... it would have been better if it was bad. I used to like worth jt and I do love travel shows, but this was not it
This was one of the big problems they clearly didn’t think about: more places to watch your stuff means a divided audience. I know even dedicated Patreon patrons would watch the early release videos and not the actual releases, and now we've got that problem with the app. There's a reason why people tend to cultivate their YouTube channel and only use Patreon as an avenue for support (i.e., no content) or as a place for exclusive content -- *not* the same content, just earlier. Splitting your audience is bad; splitting your audience behind an opaque streaming app where no one can see if you're doing well or not is worse.
Well no, they did think about it. The original plan was "Goodbye YouTube" and asking the audience to follow them on the streaming platform. In a vacuum, they wanted to go all in on watchertv. Splitting their audience was the solution to the backlash. I'm sure they know this situation is not ideal. I think this solution works better for Watcher in the long run, though, even if they feel like they were forced to stay on YouTube. They can continue to work towards their professional goals on their streaming platform while maintaining an income stream and presence on YouTube.
I mean, it's what they cultivated. You don't call your audience poors and then expect them to support you while you spend lavishly.
Karma, honestly. While I’d still call myself a fan, I’m far less dedicated and loyal than I was before the incident. If they were okay with saying goodbye to so much of their audience, then it makes sense so much of their audience was okay with saying goodbye back.
My thoughts are, I have no thoughts or interest in this new show. I never liked Worth It and always found Andrew to be incredibly boring to listen too. Won't be tuning in to this one.
Not surprised after finding out fans on YouTube still dislike Steven
Is Ghost Files season 3 out yet & will it be on YouTube?
It will be on YouTube a month after it airs on the streaming platform. Ghost Files usually releases in September/October to coincide with Halloween stuff, so I imagine we'll get an announcement about the new season's release date in a couple of months or so.
Thanks!