Youtuber Watcher leaves fans fuming by leaving platform to move content to paid subscription streaming service

Youtubers who have almost three million subscribers on the social media platform have angered their fans by announcing that he is leaving the site - in favour of hosting his content on a paid subscription service.

Former BuzzFeed hosts Steven Lim, Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, known collectively as Watcher Entertainment, have gained a huge following for their unscripted and comedic videos on YouTube - but they’ve decided it’s time to move away from the site.

On Friday (April 19), the trio shocked their fans by announcing in a new Youtube video that, from now on, full seasons of their new shows will be available only on a new paid for streaming service, WatcherTV.com. They reassured fans, however, that they’ll still upload the first episodes of new seasons of shows like “Ghost Files,” “Mystery Files,” “Road Files” and “Puppet History”, and the archive of their previous videos will remain on YouTube.

The decision to move their content to a paid for website, which will cost $5.99 (around £4.86) a month or $59.99 (around £48.70) a year, has caused a huge amount of frustration, anger and upset with their followers. There are still multiple comments being added to the video every minute.

One person said: “If this is our goodbye to you” AKA "you are no longer of value to us if you don't directly pay us". Another said: “To the few people who are saying "$6 is the price of one coffee, you can give that up for this content." - This is exactly the point. There are millions of people who cannot even afford a coffee which is what makes the "anyone can afford it" attitude SO out of touch.”

One other said: “It's like supporting a guy through med school, and then, when he's finally a doctor, he dumps you for a trophy wife.” One more said: “Let me get this right. You would rather take money from your viewers in a cost of living crisis instead of sponsorships from big companies just because it’s too inconvenient for you to insert a 4-minute ad in a video? Okay nah. Even if you come back to youtube I’m out. Good luck tho.”

Lim, Bergara and Madej do not appear to have publicly commented on the backlash. In their “Goodbye YouTube” video, which has more than 1.7 million views at the time of writing on the afternoon of Monday April 22, the trio provided a recap of their careers from their earliest days at BuzzFeed and how they came to form their current 25-employee company. “As sad as it is to say goodbye to YouTube… um, it’s the right thing to do,” Bergara says at the start of the video.

The launch of the Watcher subscription service is so the company is less reliant on advertising revenue. “In terms of where this company is going and where I believe we can be most successful, YouTube is no longer the place for that,” says Lim, Watcher Entertainment’s CEO.

Bergara says, “We really couldn’t be more excited for you guys to join us in this next chapter — hopefully. We’d love for you guys to come along for us. But at the same time, this is our final goodbye to YouTube. And if it’s our goodbye to you — I hope it’s not, but if it is — I do want to say ‘thank you’ for supporting us all along the way.”

More than 50% of Watcher Entertainment’s business has come from advertising, Lim explains. “We’re making something for two audiences — we’re making it for fans, all of you out there, and we’re also making it to please the advertisers. It’s difficult to make the stuff that we want to make and also then appeal to the advertisers as well.”

In the video, Bergara says Watcher strives to produce high-quality material “that you would find on say, a Netflix.” But that means that each season of a show like “Ghost Files” costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Bergara, when factoring in travel expenses, location fees, hiring freelance production staff, studio fees and post-production costs. He says with the subscription service, Watcher will be able to invest in expanded content — for example, “Ghost Files” will be traveling to the UK in upcoming episodes.

Watcher plans to launch new series’ for their paying subscribers in the future, including food-and-travel show “Travel Season”, a six-episode series which will premire on Friday May 31.