The Watcher Scandal: Lessons From a PR Disaster
And what NOT to do from a marketing perspective
Hello everyone, welcome to The Bhatt Report, where I will go over contemporary events from the perspectives of business. I will write a mix of lessons learned from companies, informative articles, the odd op-eds, and much more. After all, only those who can learn lessons from the world can succeed in it.
Amongst YouTube channels, dedicated followings are not extremely common, and rarer are those who could survive a channel switch, but that is what the YouTube channel Watcher had. Yet, somehow, they managed to turn their audience against them. Throughout this article, I will showcase the absolute trainwreck that was Watcher’s recent publicity disaster, and what anyone in marketing can learn from it.
A Bit of Backstory
The channel now known as Watcher started out from Buzzfeed, the famous early 2010s content company. Amongst their sub-channels, few (if any) compared with Buzzfeed Unsolved, a true crime and ghost stories show created by Ryan Bergara, and eventually co-hosted by Shane Madej. After a somewhat slow start, the show became an internet phenomenon.
The duo soon counted themselves amongst the internet’s most beloved creators. Popular YouTubers, such as SunnyV2 would later wax on how Buzzfeed Unsolved was “perhaps the greatest YouTube series ever.” They revitalized the dying ghost stories content with some much-needed credibility (Shane was a skeptic while Ryan believed in ghosts), and kickstarted a true crime wave that would directly lead to the internet’s fascination with the Idaho Student Murders and Gabby Petito.
One of the main reasons for Buzzfeed Unsolved’s success was Ryan and Shane’s unique dynamic. Ryan was analytical, quiet, and the one who found the mysteries for the two of them. Shane was skeptical, and also certainly wacky. The dynamic between the two was what made the show so addictive. Even when tackling the most grim cases of murder and cruelty, the duo provided a lighthearted charm, making fun of killers for the cowardice, rather than mystify or romanticize them. The show also took an anti-rich, progressive tone as time went on, with Shane particularly noting his support of non-violent criminals in a humorous manner if they stole from the rich.
Eventually, their tenure at Buzzfeed came to an end, and Ryan and Shane joined together with Steven Lim, a host of a popular Buzzfeed food show, Worth It, to create a new company of their own, Watcher Entertainment. After a little while getting the channel up and running, they continued their old series under new names and brands, with Buzzfeed Unsolved becoming Ghost Files and Mystery Files, and Worth It became Travel Season. A few new features also rose, most notably Puppet History, which saw Shane make a mark as a rather successful history channel. These shows, and a podcast, made Watcher one of the most successful YouTube channels established during the 2020s so far with about three million subscribers, and it seemed rather impossible that Watcher Entertainment would fail until…
The Incident
April 19, 2024 seemed like any other day for most fans of Watcher, until they got a notification for a new video, “Goodbye YouTube.” This, coming off the retirement of YouTube legends MatPat and Tom Scott immediately made fans worry. The results were even worse than expected, however. In the video, Steven, Shane, and Ryan announced that they were tired with YouTube’s harsh system of ad revenue, and felt they had no control over their careers. They also sought to expand their shows, incorporating higher budgets and adding more programs to their lineup. They also sought to maintain their own company, and all their 25 employees.
Thus, they announced that they formed a new streaming service, Watcher TV, which would exclusively air their content, plus several additional new shows they were creating. All of this at the price of $5.99 per month, this being a new expense that could not be merged with preexisting payments to Watcher.
The backlash was instantaneous. Fans, members of their Patreon, online commentators, and nearly everyone across every corner of the internet voiced their backlash. Their Patreon and YouTube subscribers declined near-instantaneously, and they soon had to apologize for their actions. Watcher TV was then changed into providing early access to their new episodes, making it tied to their Patreon, provided refunds for existing purchases, and fully apologizing to their fans, once again returning to YouTube, and insisting that rumors of them deleting their old videos from YouTube were false. Despite that, their YouTube views failed to return to their original amount, their subscribers and Patreon supporters didn’t fully recover. Other YouTubers with similar followings (such as the infamous Logan Paul), have recovered from far worse-seeming controversies, and other YouTubers have successfully maintained careers after starting their streaming platforms at the side, so what did Watcher do wrong?
Let’s go over this from a marketing perspective and learn WHAT NOT TO DO when making a major announcement.
What We Can Learn From This:
Know Your Audience: In the words of popular rapper Kendrick Lamar, “the audience (is) not dumb.” Too many products from established brands have failed because they failed to understand that sacrificing an existing audience for a new one is a risky gamble that hardly pays off, ever. Watcher’s audience was primarily made up of young individuals with economically progressive views who would not be supportive of any perceived cash grabs. Had Ryan, Shane, and Steve been hosting a business podcast, and talked about using these funds to expand their lineup of content, the reception would have been different. Perhaps angry, but less so.
Don’t Make Your Audience Feel Broke: In one of the most egregious moments of the original video, Steven Lim, acting as the CEO of Watcher Entertainment, talked about how they intended to make the subscription affordable to all at a low price of $5.99. The issue is this price was much higher than expected, meant to compete with other multi-channel streaming services such as Nebula, or mainstream options such as Netflix. When it came to value, these services offered more content than Watcher had promised to (let alone deliver). Additionally, Steven’s comment on $5.99 being affordable bugged many viewers, who felt that between the struggling job market and higher prices post-COVID, they were being ignored for being too poor to watch a channel hosted by individuals known for making fun of the out-of-touch rich (see point 1).
Don’t Alienate Your Core Audience for Short-Term Greed: Any online content creator can tell you their lifeblood is Patreon, a service that allows devoted fans to provide one-time/monthly/annual payments to their favorite creators to help them continue to create more of what they enjoy. When Watcher announced that their content was moving to their own streaming platform, they did not offer to let Patreon payments count towards Watcher TV, and did not even offer up a discount. In a quest for short-term profits, Watcher’s team completely lost a large portion of their core audience.
The Audience Does Not Care About Your Financial Woes and Plans: One of the main reasons Watcher provided for the move was wanting to have control over their finances, being able to fully pay their employees, and being able to expand their show lineup. Viewers instantly began noting inconsistencies and other cost-cutting measures the group could have taken, including not having an office next to the famous Hollywood sign. The audience does not like being spoken down to and told they should be paying for the costs of the content they are watching. If costs must be raised, a clear increase in quality for the audience must (typically) also occur.
Remember Why the Audience Watches You in the First Place: This is a basic rule that so many marketing entities seem to just simply forget. If you are not attempting to gain a new audience, and are sure of its success, don’t abandon what made your audience come to you initially, in this case it was the cheap sets and simple dynamics. Buzzfeed Unsolved always had a low budget, and it was the dynamic between Ryan and Shane that got viewers coming back. By focusing on their budget increases, Watcher was ignoring their key reason for popularity.
Optics Actually Matter: Like it or not, every collective has popular members and less popular ones, every fandom has inside jokes and moments they’d rather ignore. Imagine The Beatles at the peak of their popularity leading a major announcement such as this with Ringo Starr at the forefront. Steven, despite being the CEO and arguably the most important member of Watcher from a business perspective, is the only non-Unsolved member, and thus the least-known from a general audience perspective. As a result, he took a large portion of the blame, and the message was not taken well by fans. Additionally, focusing on each of the members’ individual careers, rather than their involvement in Watcher as a whole, certainly hurt the cohesiveness of the announcement.
Finally, Not Needing An Apology is Better Than the Best Apology: Jeff Bezos famously said “the best customer support is none,” and that goes the same way when it comes to handling PR crises. Watcher did everything right in their apology. They took accountability, offered refunds, and quickly went back to providing content. Nonetheless, their views have yet to recover from this disaster.
Part of the issue with the Watcher TV announcement was that the underlying idea itself was not exactly sound. However, a terribly managed PR release sunk the Wacher brand even further. A good example of how to make such an announcement successfully could be seen with Watcher’s long-time associates the Try Guys, and how they successfully managed a (mostly) similar move, so let me know if you are interested in such a post. But for now, for any young students studying PR, or any experienced PR individuals looking for a refresher, remember the seven aforementioned steps!
Nice Article, Good lessons on what not to do!