THC+TV Announcement & Update

All right, guys, here we go, gearing up for a new month and a new milestone for THC. I'm sure many of you have seen the cryptic posts or vague references, and I just want to walk you through my thought process and everything from the beginning. I like to be clear and methodical and decisive anyway, but when you're talking to tens of thousands of people, that's kind of important if you don't want to cause mass confusion and chaos. Of course, the first question would be, why change anything at all? People don't really like changes when they get used to something, and I've tried to stay pretty consistent intentionally for that reason. And so that is where the story starts, kids, with the acknowledgement that my numbers have been a little bit down. Oh, say it ain't so, but it is. Mostly the free listeners by a huge margin, and some plus. I don't even really review the free feed numbers very often, but it's a noticeable trend that has been happening for 24 months, and I think the show itself hasn't changed much, but in the search for answers as to why, there are a few factors worth acknowledging. Part of it is just that there was a peak in the COVID years for all sorts of media being consumed more often. Fine. Apple also made a big change in tallying up their numbers, and that's podcast industry-wide. You can hear a lot of people bitching about that. I wasn't really bothered by it because it only really affects your bottom line if you're leveraging your numbers for ad money. And I've always felt that way, that a lot of the stat obsession is really just for that reason. I care about one thing. How many plus members do I have? How much money do I make a month? How does my family eat? How well are we doing? But that change at Apple was a thing, and some people saw 20, 30% drops. Okay, well, I also think my YouTube problem, which caused me to stop uploading the show there, made it really tough for new people to ever come across THC. I know people bounce off of all sorts of shows after a while, and I take no offense. We like to switch up our rotations, I know. But YouTube as a discoverability tool helps replenish those people who fall off. And after about two years, I'm now seeing the effects of not having YouTube as part of my overall thing. And I don't know if those three factors make up 20% of the reason, 50% of the reason, 80% of it, whatever. Again, not really a big deal because they're mainly outside of my control. But that gets the wheels turning on what I could do better. And as I've said, a few conversations with colleagues who do ads made me consider folding on that, where I've been very stubborn. I never wanted to do ads, but I considered it because it's a lot of revenue, and it doesn't seem to be hurting anyone else's show. So many of my colleagues stuff their shows with ads, and the biggest shows in podcasting are stuffed with ads, and nobody seems to stop listening. And plenty of conspiracy shows have ads too, so it's not as incompatible with the content as I might have thought 10 years ago when I didn't have all these insights of a big field of podcasting. But we are not going that route. I like saying that I'm truly independent, and so many of these sponsorships and endorsements are for products that end up being far inferior to their ads, and I don't want some unrelated company cashing in on the trust that I have cultivated here. And I don't like the idea that all media needs to be ad-supported. It gives advertisers too much power if they're the only model that works. So, somewhat out of spite, or dare I say integrity, I want to stay independent, and I think I can. But as I was mulling all this over, I thought, well, the increased revenue from ads would enable me to do something like move to video in a nice studio setting, because if I observe the market, video is a big thing. Again, I know it's because of ad revenue primarily, but there are other, harder-to-quantify benefits. Let's talk them through. Maybe I could get some of those guests that have turned me down before, just because the presentation of the show is better. Maybe THC clips and highlights become easier to share, and that helps with natural promotion. A lot of communication is non-verbal, so maybe it makes for a better experience for everyone when you can see those nods and facial reactions from the other person. Plus, we could have visual references, charts, graphs, slides, and all that if a guest has them. So I can acknowledge those potential benefits now, but I avoided video because A, I didn't want to lose our deep editing process, and B, I didn't know how I could deliver a best-in-class video experience on my own site behind the Plus Paywall. And again, with A, the editing thing, when I observe the current climate of podcasting, people don't care about ahs and ums and all that stuff. They just want a natural conversation. So maybe I overemphasized how important that was. And maybe these other potential benefits I just laid out outweigh the benefit of that edit. But then with the video thing, I have a show where I can't just rely on YouTube, really even for the free show, but definitely not to deliver Plus because I'm always getting flagged and striked. And I want the Plus experience to be the best. It's just weird if people are paying and then they end up getting a worse, more frustrating product. Or you sign up for the full two hours after getting used to video on YouTube and now it's just audio only. I know that would annoy some people. So I set out to see if I could solve that problem. And you can imagine there are a ton of factors. The player has to be as good as a YouTube player. It can't go blank when the lock screen on your phone comes up. It can't be constantly buffering. It can't freeze and restart. All these things. And it's pretty hard to find a person who independently controls a subscription platform that covers 10 hours of video a month with no ads and isn't a pain in the ass. And hey, I've been in the podcasting game for a long time. I pay attention to all the things going on out there. And the only one I know who pulls that off with no ads and actual video is Red Bar Radio. Say what you will about the content, but kudos to him for his infrastructure and set design. Anyway, we did find a solve for this, but it's expensive. And I have to even pay for streaming bandwidth in a way that I never had to do with audio. I kind of fought the two THC developers a bit on this until the math was laid out for me that there's just no way to flip a switch and deliver full HD video of full two-hour episodes to current Plus members for $8 a month. One of my developers explained how a power user who watches and rewatches these episodes may be on a loop during work. They could end up actually costing me more than $8 a month, and I could be underwater on that subscription, which is just crazy, but okay. And I can feel some people grumbling already, so let me just cut to the chase, get to the punchline, and say nothing is changing with THC Plus as it is. This will all be extra. As always, I offer five two-hour audio episodes a month for $8. But now we're going to have a second tier of THC Plus TV for $12 a month. And yes, the $12 tier will include everything that the $8 tier has, plus video. It's not like you just have to choose one or the other. This helps me make sure that I have a little bit of a buffer for those power users, and current Plus members won't just flood a new system where I pay for bandwidth. It's more of an opt-in thing. So let me go over how I think this is a win for everyone involved. Of course, sometimes execution and intention don't line up perfectly, but I want you to know what I'm expecting to happen and what I'm working towards. So for everyone, I think we will get a better sound quality. I'm now in a sound-treated room with an in-house audio engineer. No more planes flying overhead. If you remember, since I've moved to Florida, there's a lot of storms that can get really loud and come in over these episodes. That frustrates me. So on my side of the conversation, in studio, it should be way better. And with the in-house audio engineer, little tweaks and adjustments that make the guests sound better too. Those can get made while I focus on just the content, which helps everyone have a better experience. And I should also add that I'm doing remote guests still. Now, I have the option to do in-studio guests. I probably will do in-studio guests, but just to get it rolling, we're still doing it remotely. I don't want to limit myself just to people who want to be physically in Tampa. But we know that people come to the interview with all sorts of audio situations and different equipment, but now I have a guy in the booth who's going to make it as good as it can be right out of the gate. But that does relate to another broad benefit, which I think is that the guests I struggle to get are now going to see the guests presented in a high-quality way rather than having no visual at all to go on when I make my requests. There's a lot of shows now, and I have always tried to present my guests the best I can through the intro and the preparation. And listeners know that, but it's hard to communicate in an email. It's hard to show an example. But now we have the presentation that I think is also going to contribute to convincing more potential guests that THC is a good place to be interviewed. So those are huge universal benefits. Potentially better guests, definitely not worse, and better sound quality. So right out of the gate, we're doing pretty well. Now on top of that, free listeners now get the first hour experience in video. Great, that's obvious. Plus members don't have a general price increase for something they may not even want, so they can stick with audio at the same price and still get those other benefits of better audio quality and potentially less guests saying no to me, making for a better show overall. And those who want to just have a higher tier of support or prefer video or just want the whole enchilada experience can now have it and know that I've made it top of the line, or at least my guys have. It's hard to communicate exactly what will happen when I have to delegate and trust some other people, but they've done great work for me before, and I've played around with a test video, and it's super responsive. You can click all over the timeline, and it instantly starts playing. You can do picture-in-picture on your phone. You can use Apple and Android casting to get it up on your TV easily. The video has live captions built right in, and chapters, that I have to do myself, but it's very impressive. I essentially had to make a streaming site, like Netflix or Hulu, but make it just for my own show. And we can't really have an app because the app stores are so heavily policed that that's not going to work, so this is our roundabout way. And luckily I've had a lot of Plus member support for a long time, and I can afford to do this with the tools that are out there now. Another thing, I don't really want to overqualify how resistant I was to making another tier. I was pretty resistant. I like what we have going now. $8 I think is a fair price, but I raised that price maybe six years ago. I haven't gotten a raise in six years. I actually moved my family across the country to a cheaper, no-income-tax state because I would rather cut my own expenses than charge more. So please factor in what you've learned about me, how you think you might know me over these years, and don't beat me up too much about having to do this. Because like I said, whatever type of subscriber you are, free or plus, you still get the same thing, and it should be better with better quality guests. And you know, with that being said about the new studio kind of coming with in-house editing and in-house editors, I should at least thank our guy Justin, who has edited THC for many years. I don't even know how many years. My wife did it briefly for a time. I did it before that. And besides my wife and I, Justin's the only one who's ever really edited THC, and he's done a great job. I love to be loyal to people I work with, so it was really hard to say I was going to be doing something different. But if there are any podcasters out there looking for an editor and you like how THC has sounded over the last five or so years, I'm happy to pass along his info. So thanks, Justin, for many great years of service. But when it comes to our changes and upgrades, that's not all, folks. We got more. There's also another component to the $12 tier. It won't just be video, and this is a little more complicated, hard to explain without actually playing around with it, but it is what's called a Clip Genie instance. And Clip Genie is a system that provides a full transcript archive of all THC episodes back to the beginning and a word search where you can put in any word and it will present you with the text and audio of any time that word or phrase or name has ever been mentioned in a THC episode. So you could be doing your own research on someone like Alan Dulles, or perhaps you hear the Royal Tetons mentioned and you wonder if that's ever been mentioned in the past. We have a 15-year archive. I forget things. Well, now you can put those terms in and find out. I love that it presents you with the shows that contain the word and a play button that starts exactly on that sentence and the transcript right below it. So it is more of a research tool or a way to find things better than ever before. And those really are the two things people ask me about more than anything. How can I find the show I'm looking for or get transcripts to your episodes? As well as, why won't you please just go to video? Well, now we have both. And only because both have ongoing costs to stay updated and current and complete, they're on this higher tier of membership. I promise you that if Clip Genie was something I could just pay for once or video wasn't something I had to pay for bandwidth for, I would do it out of pocket just to make Plus better. I've done that with other things. But staying current with the ongoing releases costs a decent amount of money every month, especially for the Clip Genie thing. So it is what it is. And I don't know that Clip Genie will be ready on June 1st. I'm not 100% sure of that. It's really not something that was built to be behind a paywall. It's called Clip Genie because you're supposed to be able to make shareable clips from it. And people will be able to do that. But it's taken some development to adjust it to our needs. But think about the logic there. There's really no reason to have an archive of just the free first hour if something you're looking for was arbitrarily mentioned on the other side of the conversation that's paywalled. And if the whole two-hour show is giving you the audio also, well, then I got to protect it because that's the way things are structured around here. So this just makes sense. I don't know how often it'll get used, but it'll be very valuable. The few rare instances you might want it. And it's just a way to sweeten the deal. So now to launch this thing, let me say that both the video and the Clip Genie archive will be included with the regular Plus membership. And I'm considering the launch to be the first five episodes, the month of June, and then the actual $12 tier will kick off in July. Partly to say thank you for the 15 years of support. Partly to test what a bigger load really does look like on this new system. And partly because it's probably going to take me five shows to get it dialed in correctly. It's not something you can practice for really. And I was nervous in this new place with people watching me in the room. And I tried to read my intro off the teleprompter, but nobody told me that the areas that I put in bold or italics or underline would all go away. So people think I'm kind of good at reading these intros, and those are the little things I do to help me read it smoothly. And they were just not there on the teleprompter. And then it was scrolling way too fast. And you can see it in my face. I look panicked. I look like someone's coming at me with a knife or something. So I'm a little embarrassed. And I do not look comfortable or relaxed. I also fucked up majorly in the first sentence and said most oldest, and it's not even really a grammatically correct phrase, and it's not what was on the screen. I don't know what's wrong with me. And there's not as much editing now, and we just have to go with it, and I'll get better. But you gotta give me five shows, and I'll improve with each one, and then in July we'll really launch the $12 tier of THC Plus TV for real. Now, another logistical thing, we don't really have an RSS feed for video. One of my developers is trying to come up with an email solution where the video is still protected. I think it's going to work where you just click the box on the My Account page that says, yes, please send me an email when a new show comes out, and it will come with a link that has your login already programmed into it. So it will be just click and watch, but it won't be able to be posted anywhere. That's the protection that a subscription service needs. So that is the goal, because I don't want people to have to log in every time there's a new episode, and I want people to get some kind of notification. I know for a podcast, you get notified when you just see a new show pop up in your podcasting app with all the other shows, or maybe you follow me on Twitter or something and see it there. Video's a little different. I don't want everyone to have to log in to watch a show, because that's kind of annoying. So we're going to make that as easy as possible. We already save logins with cookies. We can probably put some documentation out there with how to just drag that down and make an app out of it that updates when a new show comes out. But I think the email solution is best. Let's just email people a nice easy link, click, watch, boom. But again, that's a goal, and we'll have to probably let me have the month of June to get it all dialed in right. I'm also not going to forget that 90% of the audience is audio only, and I'm not going to try to talk too much about visuals that you can't see. But it will happen sometimes. There's been a ton of episodes where I've said, man, I wish we had a way to show this to people, and now we do. The way we're going to start doing it is when a guest has visual references, they give me those in a folder, and I give them to the guys in the studio to put into the audio so we're not looking at things live and wasting time that way, which so many shows do, it annoys me. So rest easy regarding that. But I'm trying to be really open and honest here. So, you know, help me out. Let me know what you think about things when they come out. I'm going to be very open to feedback and criticism. I think I've thought this through in a way that everyone wins, as I explained. If something isn't working or whatever, I'll be reading the comments, even if I don't respond to all of them, but we have YouTube back, and as much as I hate the corporate middlemen, this is how people learn about a new show. And I have to put one foot in that game because I've only hurt myself by opting out, and I got a family I must make sure I provide for. So I will make a few little compromises. The big compromise is ads and sponsors, and I don't want to make it. So I will do everything else I can first. And when the first hour comes out on YouTube, maybe help me share it. If you know people who used to listen to THC and stopped, try to bring them back for me. I'm doing everything I can on my end. I'm nervous about the change. I know I've spent a lot of money. And this, I guess, just creates a good catalyst for me to ask for some extra word of mouth from you guys to increase the chances that this works well and I can break even on my setup costs sooner rather than later. I expect the vast majority of people to just say, I listen to the audio. That's all I need. I'm good. But this is just a new added option that will improve the presentation of THC overall and not cause anyone to lose anything. If you subscribe on Patreon, then that's nice and easy because I think I can just upload videos to Patreon without any added hassle. The Clip Genie thing is not going to work for Patreon, though. I know it's getting complex, but I'm going to lay out all the benefits and who gets what where and a nice, clear pricing table very soon here as well. But hey, you guys can consider me the John Hammond of conspiracy podcasting because I spared no expense to keep the system independent and best in class in presentation and delivery. And it's all just money that I've earned from plus memberships. Now, I'm hoping we can keep the ones we got and grow it even more. I'm super lucky. I'm actually excited about, quote unquote, going to work again. I love the studio and the guys who work there are talented. They're excited to have content to edit that they think is engaging, maybe a little different from other things that are recorded there, but it's still a refinement process. They give me a show. I give them the feedback. They make an adjustment on the next one and we go on. But I think I've proven over the years that I have good taste and I know what quality and convenience is because I'm a subscriber to other things, too, and I will work on it until it's where I want it to be. So stay tuned. I hope you enjoy watching me look very awkward under lights and multiple cameras and sweating like a pig. Far from the comfort of my own office. But I've always been a bit of a contrarian, so it's appropriate that while everyone is wanting more work from home, I'm going back to the office. It's also nice that my wife doesn't have to take two screaming, chaotic toddlers out into the world for two hours while I record at home. I'm going out. So she's happy, too. Another win. But if you have questions or concerns, leave me comments on this video, both on the Plus site and on YouTube, and I'll try to get in there and actually clear up anything I might have missed. It's not really that complicated, but it does at least deserve its own announcement. And you'll be seeing that first video show in the next 48 hours or so. And again, thanks for all the support for so long. I've not only been a podcaster for now 15 years, but I've been a fan of the conspiracy space even longer. I've seen really good people like Jeff Rents and Alan Watt, Coast to Coast AM, dare I even say Clyde Lewis, these guys who are of an older generation that can do great work, sometimes five nights a week. Crazy to me. But they've been so attached to radio and the way of doing things that they're used to that they didn't evolve all that well into podcasting. So now I'm thinking about myself. I turned 40 this year. I'm looking at the space I'm in and I'm seeing some changes and I can either go with the flow or end up like these other guys. No shade at them. It's just kind of a natural thing that happens. We get set in our ways. It's generational. Some of these guys I mentioned are actually dead, so they would have a hard time making those adjustments. And other ones are trying and other ones have just trusted the wrong people and it set them back. So I don't want to be too critical on some of the people I consider my heroes in this space. John B. Wells, let's throw him in there too. But my observations are telling me that I should evolve and I probably should have done it already. But here we are. So again, thank you for the support. I'm extremely fortunate and caving on ads is the last thing I want to do. So if I need to cave on everything else first, let's do that. But all right. I guess I've said what I need to say. Take care of you and yours out there. Thanks for listening to my update and being engaged with this process. And I'll see you on the other side with THC TV.