BRS YouTube going down hill?

[Sisterlimonpot]

One thing that may not be known is that a private equity group recently bought out BRS. Unfortunately for hobbyist this means that you have folks that know a great deal more about how a company should be ran to maximize revenue and care very little about informing the hobbyist.

 

[jurgenph]

FWIW, i like the little product spotlight videos. one of them actually helped me make up my mind if i was going to purchase something or not. after seeing the video, i decided it wasn't what i was expecting, and helped me not make a purchase i would have regretted.

J.

 

[KStatefan]

One thing that may not be known is that a private equity group recently bought out BRS. Unfortunately for hobbyist this means that you have folks that know a great deal more about how a company should be ran to maximize revenue and care very little about informing the hobbyist.

I did not realize that they had been bought out.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

I like the new videos. At the end of the day we need to buy products and we need to know how they work so why not the people that sell the products. As long as they keep up quality products there’s no problems. It’s not like they stopped doing their other videos too.

 

[Adamantium]

hahaha yeah man!

I don't think he meant to do it, but he dropped the number of how much he spent on coral twice in the last live stream. Spending $10k on coral is awesome, but I don't want to hear about it. I think he meant in a "oh man, I can't believe I just did that" kind of way.

Hopefully it was a business expense.

Also, I'm really surprised it was only $10k. Looks like a lot more. Maybe he got wholesale prices.

Those Masked Angelfish he just got cost almost that much EACH.

 

[Pntbll687]

Hopefully it was a business expense.

Also, I'm really surprised it was only $10k. Looks like a lot more. Maybe he got wholesale prices.

Those Masked Angelfish he just got cost almost that much EACH.

I know he got some from route 66 marine which is a wholesale operation.

I'm guessing he went that route to get actual colonies to put in the tank and fill it out quickly.

I saw those fish, and I am puzzled by that selection. Hopefully those angels don't have a taste for lps, hahaha

 

[BanjoBandito]

hahaha yeah man!

I don't think he meant to do it, but he dropped the number of how much he spent on coral twice in the last live stream. Spending $10k on coral is awesome, but I don't want to hear about it. I think he meant in a "oh man, I can't believe I just did that" kind of way.

I would have to avoid my wife for like....a month over that one! I totally get the OH MAN....WHAT HAVE I DONE. Happens many many times my friend.

 

[BanjoBandito]

One thing that may not be known is that a private equity group recently bought out BRS. Unfortunately for hobbyist this means that you have folks that know a great deal more about how a company should be ran to maximize revenue and care very little about informing the hobbyist.

Bertram Capital....

 

[zalick]

Bertram Capital....

That Explains a lot. Thanks for the info.

 

[BanjoBandito]

That Explains a lot. Thanks for the info.

I don't want to trash anyone for making a financial decision. Just providing info for everyone.

 

[Pntbll687]

I would have to avoid my wife for like....a month over that one! I totally get the OH MAN....WHAT HAVE I DONE. Happens many many times my friend.

A month?? You'd last that long?

I'd be divorced by the end of the day if I spent $10k on coral

 

[176327]

I find the videos useful, maybe not so much the product videos. More the investigates and generally hearing anything Ryan has to say.

I would definitely not have picked up the reefled lights if not for those product videos, and the ReefBeat app is definitely hot garbage.

 

[BanjoBandito]

A month?? You'd last that long?

I'd be divorced by the end of the day if I spent $10k on coral

I’m very charming, plus she’s witnessed some of my dumbest moments in life.

 

[BiggestE222]

Hey y’all, what do y’all think of BRS sudden switch to a more corporate and ad like channel. I’m kinda disappointed in this as I really enjoyed their longer more informative videos. I remember Ryan talking about how I they don’t want to sell you products that they don’t believe in. Now it feels as though they don’t actually care about that product they are advertising rather than make meaningful videos on specific aspects of reefing and how to accomplish them. It’s kinda sad to see this switch and wanted to hear y’all’s opinions. I learned reefing from their channel and it now seems that for now at least they have switched out of that model.

It’s free. They could charge for the knowledge

 

[Sea_Shanty_Corals]

BRS makes money by selling their product. Sure, there's probably some ad revenue in there, but the majority of their money comes from getting you to buy something. As they've gotten bigger, they need to make content that encourages everyone to buy something.

Sure, someone may not be able to afford a top end light / pump / tank / etc but BRS needs them to feel like they're still making a good decision when they buy a mid tier piece of equipment. That's where they start to promote all products.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of financial transactions going on behind the scenes for the products that they really push - either they make the most money on them, or perhaps the manufacturers are paying them for it.

Regardless - they push out respectable content, and enough of it that you can find what you're looking for almost 100% of the time. You just have to take some of their recommendations with a grain of salt.

 

[Roli's Reef Ranch]

The YouTube Live is KILLING ME!!!! I don't want to watch 1.5 hours of slow content, I would rather you put your thoughts into a 20 min video to cover the important topics. The worst part is that many of these are on really great topics like coral nutrition and other things I'd otherwise be super interested in. BRS isn't the only one doing this, but they are one of them.

Otherwise I've gotten a ton of great information from them! I love the studies they've done, and I think they've added allot of great information to the hobby. The Refugium studies that they did alone were fantastic! Plus the lighting spread videos with LED's are awesome too.

Whiskey

Exactly. They're getting big and lazy, farming out the advertising. I haven't seen any novel content for some time, just infomerials for new products and the YouTube live stuff with very little content. This is all to be expected given the recent growth in new reefers over the past year. I still get most of my stuff from them, but find myself less interested in their content for a variety of reasons.

 

[Roli's Reef Ranch]

It’s free. They could charge for the knowledge

Their knowledge leads to sales. Sales leads to profits which is fine. The consumer has all the power.

 

[innovusaquaculture]

It must take a lot of production time to do the testing videos we all love. I've got a little production background and I know it takes about 100 man hours for every hour of video you produce.

If you think about skilled labor being about $35 per hour on the low end and some production costs a 1 hour video would probably cost BRS somewhere in the ball park of $5000 to produce. That would probably be the least expensive video they would be able to do at the quality they are doing. Most likely that is their budget for any of these "product spotlight" videos and the budget for the investigates videos is somewhere north of three times that.

So thinking about that from a business perspective they are producing about 3 spotlight videos a week 1 live stream and one investigates video a week. That probably comes to a full $25,000 per week production budget or right around $100,000 per month or just over a million per year.

I'm just guessing, of course.

It probably takes 3 dollars in sales to to pay for every dollar in production. So they are dedicating 3 million dollars of their sales to informing us about reefing and products available for reefing.

Probably a benefit to the community.

But, I'm just guessing, of course.

 

[Jon's Reef]

They have moved from an unbiased source of information to sales driven. Example…. The 360 is a personal tank, but has been used to suggest solutions. The “new platinum standard” of lighting was Kessil+RB. No talk of CC, Stratton or XR30’s (continually the top light by testing) plus kessil…. Ok. So XHO has the best coverage to mimic the sky and kessil has the shimmer and complete spectrum. But all of a sudden Sky comes out and before it is for sale/ test released… a new platinum- platinum standard. Previously it would have been “We will test it, show everyone the results then make a recommendation based on the testing/ experience”. Probably the same reason we have not seen a Neptune Gro vs Kessil fuge light test.

Guessing a similar reason why there was never an Orphek bar test… would have hurt the RB negotiation/ push.

In the end they are a store… they want to sell. But it is clear that it has shifted from a curated shop of trusted gear to listing everything.

I still buy from them because the shipping and cs is great, but no longer view as unbiased content/ testing.

 

[Jon's Reef]

It must take a lot of production time to do the testing videos we all love. I've got a little production background and I know it takes about 100 man hours for every hour of video you produce.

If you think about skilled labor being about $35 per hour on the low end and some production costs a 1 hour video would probably cost BRS somewhere in the ball park of $5000 to produce. That would probably be the least expensive video they would be able to do at the quality they are doing. Most likely that is their budget for any of these "product spotlight" videos and the budget for the investigates videos is somewhere north of three times that.

So thinking about that from a business perspective they are producing about 3 spotlight videos a week 1 live stream and one investigates video a week. That probably comes to a full $25,000 per week production budget or right around $100,000 per month or just over a million per year.

I'm just guessing, of course.

It probably takes 3 dollars in sales to to pay for every dollar in production. So they are dedicating 3 million dollars of their sales to informing us about reefing and products available for reefing.

Probably a benefit to the community.

But, I'm just guessing, of course.

I’m guessing it is a lot less than that. The “talent” is already on payroll, 1-2 HC for AE/Premiere and AV equipment management. 2-3 HC for testing/ setup (likely shared position with other responsibilities such as being vendor technical POC) ~$10-20k of pro-sumer AV equipment to start and recent studio/ new AV on the order of $100k capital. Annual budget of testing gear/ product probably ~$100k.

Dedicated production has its place, but most of that is likely done by vendors (ex. Neptune likely farmed out the 3D Sky video) but live/ simple production can now be done by in house marketing.