Okay.
I
seriously hate that I have to do this story today.
Um, but I have information about what
is happening on Youtube, which is an extraordinarily important agenda setting platform at this
point in the world of news and politics.
It just is whether we want it to be or not.
It is.
And what I have to tell you today is terrible.
And if I didn't tell you I wouldn't be doing my job, um, I am actually worried that I'm
going to get in what we might call trouble in some way for me even doing this story today.
But what is taking place has to be made as widely known as possible so that we can at
least try to take control back of what's going on.
What is taking place is that, uh, Google has unofficially but sort of officially made youtube
corporate media at this point in time when it comes to news and politics.
Okay.
Youtube used to be about independent content of all kinds alternatives to corporate media
that applied a lot to news and politics.
But now as I have been suspect suspecting for months, and I've been telling you for
weeks, they have rewired their algorithm and are almost completely stopping recommendations
of independent news and politics channels like this one like Sam Cedar's, majority of
report, Kyle Kalinsky secular talk and are instead recommending people watch stead CNNs
youtube channel, Fox News as Youtube Channel, MSNBC, CS and other legacy corporate media
channels.
Now I don't want to Redo the whole story because there's so much new data that I have for you
today.
And again, I could get destroyed by youtube for doing this.
Uh, but I have to tell you because what's going on in what we've uncovered is, is absolutely
stunning.
Just to refresh a little bit, our channel has been getting fewer and fewer views from
youtube recommended video algorithm.
When you watch videos on youtube, youtube suggests other things, watch alongside or
below the video.
The idea is to keep you watching as long as possible.
Okay?
Uh, we used to get a lot of recommended video views from Youtube Algorithm.
I told you previously, I estimated that we had lost about 2 million views per month from
this algorithm recommending our videos more and more infrequently.
That was a massive underestimate.
There's a disturbing new metric I looked at on youtube.
Some of the people watching our videos like anybody else's, some of the people that are
subscribers and some aren't.
Okay?
Of course, you don't have to be a subscriber to a youtube channel to watch the videos on
that channel.
We have lost millions of non-subscriber views per month over the last several months and
non-subscriber views are determined by Youtube Algorithm.
Okay.
This graphic we're putting up on the screen is disgusting.
The numbers of views from subscribers has slowly trickled up, which makes sense.
As we gain subscribers over time, we get a few more views from subscribers over time.
That's the Blue Line on the bottom.
It's a slow uptick.
The red line is non-subscriber views.
This is determined wholly, totally by the Youtube Algorithm.
A 8 million non-subscriber views in December, just a straight line decline down to under
5 million in June.
A shortfall, not have 2 million views a month as I thought, but of 3 million views per month.
Most channels don't even get 3 million views ever.
Even most active youtube channels don't get 3 million views per year, nevermind per month,
and our shortfall from the decline of only non-subscriber views is more than 3 million
views per month to a lot of money for us.
I'm not gonna lie now, lots of people wrote in and said, David, okay, you're losing views
from the algorithm, but who is gaining them?
If you really are right about this, the youtube audience continues to grow.
If you are losing views from the recommended video algorithm, someone must be gaining those
views and that is exactly right and I spent the weekend researching this and I am now
ready to tell you exactly who is gaining and it's all corporate channels.
You are likely going to be disgusted by this, but maybe not surprised.
A guy named Mark Ledwidge put together a tool from publicly available recommendation data
where you can look at the percentages of recommendations within news and politics to different channels.
Let's put this first image up on the screen.
What you will notice, and I'll describe it to people who aren't watching is that on May
1st something very specific happened, the David Pakman show, Kyle Kalinsky, Sam seed.
Now I'm even including Steven Crowder here because I want to show you that this does
not appear to be politically biased.
All of the recommended views as a percentage of those days, news and politics recommendations
dropped off a cliff while at the exact same time the recommended views for CNN, youtube
channel and MSNBC and Fox News's increased.
If you look before May 1st channels like mine and others, we're getting somewhere in the
range of one to 3% of the recommended views and news and politics from this broader list
of some of the largest news and politics channels.
On May 1st those numbers crashed and they went from between one and 3% to between 0.03%
and half a percent.
Now you might think, well, those are all small numbers, one to 3% down a 0.03 to a 0.5% that's
not a big difference.
Understand that this is a pool of, it's either hundreds of millions or billions of total
views.
If I am getting 0.1% of the recommendations and before I was getting 1.5% that is a decline
of greater than 90% okay.
On the same day, early May of this year, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox went from getting, in the case
of Fox News as youtube channel five to 8% of the recommended views all the way to 12
to 18% that's a 50% increase of recommended views for Fox's youtube channel.
CNN, MSNBC, same thing.
Now they may come after me for going public with this and if that happens, I'm going to
let you know.
But this is serious because it could literally decimate channels like mine and others that
you might like.
Whether you like channels on the left or right, I don't care.
It doesn't matter.
This appears to be affecting channels of all political persuasions.
Let me show you another image.
Just comparing the David Pakman show and CNN, so it's easier to read the data.
It's not as scrunched as you can see.
The same day, may one 2019 and it remains the case since then, CNN spikes and we drop.
Let's look at another example.
Compare the David Pakman show youtube channel to MSNBC.
Again, this is not left, right.
Maybe some of that exists, but this is pro corporate and anti independent.
Okay, so I hope it's clear now the direction this is going.
I had many phone calls over the weekend with all sorts of hosts.
We don't think we can do a damn thing about this.
As far as youtube algorithm, we're, we're all exploring options.
We're all worried.
But ultimately if youtube is going to do this, I don't know what we can do that's completely
within their right to do this.
I just think it is a perversion of their original, uh, sort of, um, existence, which was independent
content.
Now, just the same old legacy corporate content that people get through cable subscriptions.
This is the decision that is anti independent pro corporate views go from independent channels
to Fox News, which is right-wing editorially.
They go from independent channels to MSNBC, which is center left editorially, but they're
both huge corporate news.
That is the point.
Now in the meantime, there's a ton of crazy stuff on youtube that's going totally unpoliced
and it's stunning example.
There are youtube ads running for video games, which clearly violate the copyright of, for
example, Nintendo A. Look at this.
This is an ad for a game called Super Mario maker too.
This is clearly not an intended game.
This is clearly a total violation of Nintendo's copyright on Mario, and yet it's on youtube
making money and paying for ads.
Another example, last week I told you that Gavin McInnes the right wing, proud boys founder,
his content was briefly banned from youtube.
Then allowed back on the vast majority of the content is not what would be called brand
safe.
He is advertising on Youtube even though the content itself is not considered brand safe.
What is happening here?
So this is very quickly employed, imploding weekly.
This is getting worse.
So the only solution is to separate revenue from advertising.
Okay?
If we separate the revenue that shows like hours get from the whims of YouTube's algorithmic
decisions, we make ourselves immune to this toxic and disgusting failed system that has
been identified as toxic and failing for a very long time.
Uh, and it sort of comes and goes in waves and what I'm talking about is you've just
got to support the shows you'd like directly.
We make it really easy, okay?
If you go to join pacman.com you can sign up in under a minute.
It's not a lot of money if you buy one of those lattes a month.
And I hate these latte comparisons, but they are sometimes illuminating.
If you buy one latte per month, you can give us three or four bucks a month.
Um, and it'll actually make a really big difference.
We estimate only 1% of our entire audience supports us financially.
If we can get it to 2% or 3%, or imagine we could get it to 5%, uh, the youtube issue
is no longer a problem.
We just focus on doing stories that we want to do that are the valuable stories that the
audience wants us to do.
Okay?
So we can take ownership of what's going on.
We can't control youtube algorithm, but if we understand membership culture, if we say,
let's just support the programs we like, we might spend 100 bucks a month on a cable subscription,
mostly for channels we don't even actually watch or want to support.
I'll send David Pacman six bucks or I'll go on patriot and send them a dollar a month.
We do have a coupon code on our website.
It's this is 2020.
It'll give you a 40% discount.
I want you involved at any level because even a dollar a month is really valuable when you
have 700,000 subscribers on youtube and several hundred thousand podcasts, listeners, et Cetera,
et cetera.
Even just people throwing in a dollar or two a month makes a big difference.
June was our second best month ever for new members.
I would like to make July the best ever, and if we do that, I will tell you that that's
something that we've done.
I seriously hate that this is happening.
I want to be talking to other hosts, not about are we going to lose 90% or 80% of our youtube
revenue.
I want to be talking to them about what's the best content we can make.
How are you covering the upcoming election?
Are we going to the conventions?
Are we doing live broadcasts of debates?
I hate that this has become the topic.
Uh, and if they come after me for talking publicly about it and sharing this data with
you, I'm going to let you know, believe me.
But in the immediate, whether it's this show or other shows, if you have a few extra bucks
a month, this is a really good time to say, I am not going to allow this to destroy programs.
Find Valuable.
Join pacman.com get a membership.
Um, and I'll update you later this week as to what's going on and how things are going.
Really, really sad.
State of affairs,