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Is youtube ruining the canals?


doratheexplorer

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16 hours ago, enigmatic said:

We are all responding to a thread entitled "is YouTube ruining the canals". Perhaps that was you picking an ironic YouTube-style clickbait title rather than making a serious point, but ask a silly question, get a silly answer...

The title was indeed meant to be tongue-in-cheek, thanks for noticing.  I was responding to this comment you made:  "And I fundamentally don't agree that people hooked on the idea of a canal lifestyle "ruin" the canals".  I have no problem with people hooked on the idea of a canal lifestyle.  My issue was with youtube itself.  Not youtubers or those who watch them.

16 hours ago, enigmatic said:

 

I'll maintain YouTube monetisation really isn't a big deal for something like canals though. Even the A-listers are getting less than 1p per view for a little over 10k views per video, from advertisers picked by Google's algorithm which are usually nothing to do with canals (I get software and music ads), so they're making £100 from a video that takes a few hours to put together. At that stage, if they're painting rosy pictures it's because they like the idea of random strangers admiring their life, not for cold hard cash, and if all they want is attention they might even get more clicks from a video called "Canal Life is Crap", "The Smelly Truth About Living On Boats" or "Canal Maintenance Hell"

The A-listers are pulling in far more than 10k views per video.  In some cases, it's running into the millions of views (yes for a canal boating vlog).

 

Now compare with the commercial pressures on a waterways magazine that has to feed a few staff from a small number of advertisers who depend on interest in canals for their business (and are likely to take articles criticising the boats they build or canals their services are based on very personally!)

 

The commercially-driven YouTubers are selling stuff people pay them to advertise or people click on links below their video to buy, not stitching together footage of their boat and talking about how sunny it is. Probably the only narrowboat videos making serious money are the ones the Foxes and Robbie Cumming got TV companies to pay them for.

By your calculation, Crusing The Cut made £22,000 for his most viewed video.  That's serious money.  Many canal vloggers are putting a video out every week and getting 30-40k views, which equates to c.£350pw or £18,000 per year.  Which is enough to scrape by on if your overheads are low.  But they all have other income sources (Patreon etc) so the total income is likely to be a fair bit more.  There are now dozens of youtube boaters in this category, and good luck to them I say.

 

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1 hour ago, doratheexplorer said:

 

By your calculation, Crusing The Cut made £22,000 for his most viewed video.  That's serious money.  Many canal vloggers are putting a video out every week and getting 30-40k views, which equates to c.£350pw or £18,000 per year.  Which is enough to scrape by on if your overheads are low.  But they all have other income sources (Patreon etc) so the total income is likely to be a fair bit more.  There are now dozens of youtube boaters in this category, and good luck to them I say.

 

 

I've wondered about the earnings a few times. There are a couple of marketing-type articles I saw that indicate the average earning per ad view is 0.18p, so if there are three ads in a video, each view of the full video will earn 0.54p.

I dont know if there are three ads, or one ad, or five, tbh. I pay for youtube premium so that I don't get interrupted by the ads. 

Cruising The Cut mentioned earnings in one of his videos and was quite dismissive about it, calling it 'pocket money' if I recall correctly, and saying that it wasnt enough to live on- and he's one of the biggest. 

I sort of accepted that, and assumed that the Foxes were probably making less than you get from a state benefits income. But it could be much, much more than that.

If there were three ads in a video (and if the earnings estimate I saw was correct) each full view of the video will earn about 50p. The Foxes regularly get 100,000 views and more, and 100,000 views of a video will earn £50,000, right? 

 

Even if there is only one ad in a video, 100,000 views would earn £18,000.

And they were doing these every week or two. 

I'm not slagging them off in any way- after all, a lot of research and effort goes into putting these together and making them enjoyable to watch (for those who do watch them). It's almost a full time job for one person to film and produce a well-edited and well presented half hour video each week.

I don't find them to be pleasant viewing personally- there's something a bit forced about the guy's style that makes him uncomfortable to watch- but clearly many thousands do, and good luck to them. 

I've been wondering why so many canal youtubers persist in putting out these poorly-edited and uninteresting videos with dull personalities and poor presenting styles that only get a couple of thousand views.

But if 1,000 view earns you £50, or even just £18, I'm starting to see why they do it, even for the small  numbers they get. 

A bang-average channel seems to get about 10k views per video, so they'll be making about £200. Its buttons when you think it takes many hours to put the videos together, but for the ones who do it to a sort of professional standard like the foxes and cruising the cut, you can see that their effort is pretty well rewarded. 

 

EDIT: my appalling (and rushed) mathematical error has already been pointed out a couple of times- I'll leave it unedited rather than delete my stupidity.

My error does mean that my point was basically incorrect, and they are not very well paid at all, with even the foxes getting less than £200 for a video that got 100,000 views. 

I'll have to cancel my Amazon order for a vlogging camera.

 

Edited by Tony1
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6 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

I've wondered about the earnings a few times. There are a couple of marketing-type articles I saw that indicate the average earning per ad view is 0.18p, so if there are three ads in a video, each view of the full video will earn 0.54p.

I dont know if there are three ads, or one ad, or five, tbh. I pay for youtube premium so that I don't get interrupted by the ads. 

Cruising The Cut mentioned earnings in one of his videos and was quite dismissive about it, calling it 'pocket money' if I recall correctly, and saying that it wasnt enough to live on- and he's one of the biggest. 

I sort of accepted that, and assumed that the Foxes were probably making less than you get from a state benefits income. But it could be much, much more than that.

If there were three ads in a video (and if the earnings estimate I saw was correct) each full view of the video will earn about 50p. The Foxes regularly get 100,000 views and more, and 100,000 views of a video will earn £50,000, right? 

 

 

 

Think you are getting your pounds and pence mixed up. If an ad view is 0.18 pence with 3 ads in the video, then that is 0.54 pence, first sentence correct.

 

If there are 100,000 views of a vid then that is 54,000 pence which is £540 if they have 3 ads per video. Not all of them insert mid video adverts and only have the ones at the start, so income is £180 for a 100,000 view video.

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

If there were three ads in a video (and if the earnings estimate I saw was correct) each full view of the video will earn about 50p.

 

Surely it is more likely that each full view of the video earns 0.54p as you mentioned earlier in your post, not 50p. Slightly over half a New Penny.

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2 minutes ago, PeterF said:

Think you are getting your pounds and pence mixed up. If an ad view is 0.18 pence with 3 ads in the video, then that is 0.54 pence, first sentence correct.

 

If there are 100,000 views of a vid then that is 54,000 pence which is £540 if they have 3 ads per video. Not all of them insert mid video adverts and only have the ones at the start, so income is £180 for a 100,000 view video.

 

 

 

 

 

Oops, thats what happens when I get excited and dont stop to do a basic calculation properly.

I was just on my way out to buy a vlogging camera and set up my own channel 😀

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

 

Oops, thats what happens when I get excited and dont stop to do a basic calculation properly.

I was just on my way out to buy a vlogging camera and set up my own channel 😀

 

 

 

A couple of my videos have 10k views each and the cheque from YouTube seems to have been lost in the post! 

 

 

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Just now, MtB said:

 

 

A couple of my videos have 10k views each and the cheque from YouTube seems to have been lost in the post! 

 

 

You have to hit a certain number of subscribers to be able to monetise the channel, otherwise any ads they force onto your vid is income for them alone.

You'll need to re-edit the vids to add your grinning fizzogg imploring viewers "not to forget to like and subscribe as this helps the channel grow" (nothing at all to do with earning wedge, tis purely philanthropy and a love of fellow man) ;) 

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2 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:

You have to hit a certain number of subscribers to be able to monetise the channel, otherwise any ads they force onto your vid is income for them alone.

You'll need to re-edit the vids to add your grinning fizzogg imploring viewers "not to forget to like and subscribe as this helps the channel grow" (nothing at all to do with earning wedge, tis purely philanthropy and a love of fellow man) ;) 

 

 

Oh I see, thanks! 

 

I think I have about 250 subscribers. Surely that's enough for the cash to start rolling in!! 

 

:giggles:

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43 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

I've wondered about the earnings a few times. There are a couple of marketing-type articles I saw that indicate the average earning per ad view is 0.18p, so if there are three ads in a video, each view of the full video will earn 0.54p.

I dont know if there are three ads, or one ad, or five, tbh. I pay for youtube premium so that I don't get interrupted by the ads. 

Cruising The Cut mentioned earnings in one of his videos and was quite dismissive about it, calling it 'pocket money' if I recall correctly, and saying that it wasnt enough to live on- and he's one of the biggest. 

I sort of accepted that, and assumed that the Foxes were probably making less than you get from a state benefits income. But it could be much, much more than that.

If there were three ads in a video (and if the earnings estimate I saw was correct) each full view of the video will earn about 50p. The Foxes regularly get 100,000 views and more, and 100,000 views of a video will earn £50,000, right? 

 

Even if there is only one ad in a video, 100,000 views would earn £18,000.

And they were doing these every week or two. 

I'm not slagging them off in any way- after all, a lot of research and effort goes into putting these together and making them enjoyable to watch (for those who do watch them). It's almost a full time job for one person to film and produce a well-edited and well presented half hour video each week.

I don't find them to be pleasant viewing personally- there's something a bit forced about the guy's style that makes him uncomfortable to watch- but clearly many thousands do, and good luck to them. 

I've been wondering why so many canal youtubers persist in putting out these poorly-edited and uninteresting videos with dull personalities and poor presenting styles that only get a couple of thousand views.

But if 1,000 view earns you £50, or even just £18, I'm starting to see why they do it, even for the small  numbers they get. 

A bang-average channel seems to get about 10k views per video, so they'll be making about £200. Its buttons when you think it takes many hours to put the videos together, but for the ones who do it to a sort of professional standard like the foxes and cruising the cut, you can see that their effort is pretty well rewarded. 

 

 

That's 0.54 pence, not £0.54. (Edit: loads of people got there before me, which is the trouble with not hitting send before going through the lock!)

 

So if they get 100k views and all of them watch it all the way through with unblocked ads they make £540. Thats not teŕrible income if youre doing that every week, but not many canal vloggers are getting close I'm seeing guys like Minimal List who are popular enough to be namechecked by boaters and gongoozlers doing more like 10k for many of their videos, and 1000 views barely buys a beer. 

The Foxes and Cruising the Cut are doing alright, some of the others haven't even paid for their webcam and selfie stick yet!

 

 

 

 

Edited by enigmatic
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8 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

Oh I see, thanks! 

 

I think I have about 250 subscribers. Surely that's enough for the cash to start rolling in!! 

 

:giggles:

 

"To start earning money directly through YouTube, you must have a least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year. Once you reach that, you can apply to YouTube's Partner Program and monetize your channel through ads, subscriptions, and channel memberships."

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48 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

A couple of my videos have 10k views each and the cheque from YouTube seems to have been lost in the post! 

 

 

As mentioned there’s more to making money then people think.

 You have to have X amount of Subscribers, Monetise has to be approved, you need to put out regular content, the viewers have to watch in to the Ad for a certain length of time.

  I think some may make money but not as much as discussed on here.

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42 minutes ago, MtB said:

I think I have about 250 subscribers. Surely that's enough for the cash to start rolling in!! 

Just took a look at one of your videos. You introduced yourself:

"Hi folks, Mike the Boilerman here..."

and YouTube's autogenerated caption said:

"Hi folks, my toilet man here..."

😱

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6 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Just took a look at one of your videos. You introduced yourself:

"Hi folks, Mike the Boilerman here..."

and YouTube's autogenerated caption said:

"Hi folks, my toilet man here..."

😱

 

 

Lol, I should do one about composting bogs then!! 

 

 

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30 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

That's 0.54 pence, not £0.54. (Edit: loads of people got there before me, which is the trouble with not hitting send before going through the lock!)

 

So if they get 100k views and all of them watch it all the way through with unblocked ads they make £540. Thats not teŕrible income if youre doing that every week, but not many canal vloggers are getting close I'm seeing guys like Minimal List who are popular enough to be namechecked by boaters and gongoozlers doing more like 10k for many of their videos, and 1000 views barely buys a beer. 

The Foxes and Cruising the Cut are doing alright, some of the others haven't even paid for their webcam and selfie stick yet!

 

 

I do enjoy the Minimal List videos on the whole, especially because they impart a sense of the reality of living aboard, warts and all, and they dont go in for all that clickbait garbage that I absolutely hate- you know the sort of thing: 'Oh no! Our boat is sinking!' when they have a leaky screw on the roof. Or 'Is this the end of boat life?' (with distraught looking faces), when they are discussing whether to pay the license in one go, or by instalments.

It must pay off because they keep doing it, but its deeply insulting to the viewers' intelligence. 

 

My recent favourites are Boat Time and Cruising Alba- as younger couples they inject the humour that you get in real life, and they don't take themselves too seriously. Cruising Alba videos in particular seem to be very well shot and edited, so they must put a lot of time into them- but they still get less than 20k views on average, so all those hours of effort makes them about £100 each week. 

 

I may have to start my own channel. It seems the only way I am going to convince the big wigs at CRT that I am in fact a VIB (very important boater), and so I should have a dedicated team of lockies assigned to assist my passage through each lock flight. 

My last email was to ask that my licence should be amended to display the phrase "VIB- very important boater", but I was again refused. 

Its just a red tape thing, I'm sure.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

As mentioned there’s more to making money then people think.

 You have to have X amount of Subscribers, Monetise has to be approved, you need to put out regular content, the viewers have to watch in to the Ad for a certain length of time.

  I think some may make money but not as much as discussed on here.

And you can get demonetised without notice.

https://www.duckworksmagazine.com/11/columns/guest/winter/index.htm

 

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2 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

I do enjoy the Minimal List videos on the whole, especially because they impart a sense of the reality of living aboard, warts and all, and they dont go in for all that clickbait garbage that I absolutely hate- you know the sort of thing: 'Oh no! Our boat is sinking!' when they have a leaky screw on the roof. Or 'Is this the end of boat life?' (with distraught looking faces), when they are discussing whether to pay the license in one go, or by instalments.

 

You missed episode "319 - The Most Dangerous Lock We Have Ever Been In" at Bingley then?

 

He took the boat a foot further forward than necessary while faffing with cameras and it got a little bit wet.  Full on panic mode, blamed CRT, titled as above.

 

I won't link to it (no point encouraging them!) but part of the blurb is:

 

This vlog is a little different to our normal vlogs. The day starts off as normal but as we are going up the Bingley Fiver Rise Locks we find ourselves in the most dangerous situation that we have ever been in on our boat. 

 

We were not sure how to tell the story in the vlog as we don't have any footage of the incident as when the incident happened we stopped filming. On the other hand we didn't want to gloss over the situation and carry on with the vlog as normal. 

 

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1 minute ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

You missed episode "319 - The Most Dangerous Lock We Have Ever Been In" at Bingley then?

 

He took the boat a foot further forward than necessary while faffing with cameras and it got a little bit wet.  Full on panic mode, blamed CRT, titled as above.

 

I won't link to it (no point encouraging them!) but part of the blurb is:

 

This vlog is a little different to our normal vlogs. The day starts off as normal but as we are going up the Bingley Fiver Rise Locks we find ourselves in the most dangerous situation that we have ever been in on our boat. 

 

We were not sure how to tell the story in the vlog as we don't have any footage of the incident as when the incident happened we stopped filming. On the other hand we didn't want to gloss over the situation and carry on with the vlog as normal. 

 

 

What I would say is that I don't think they meant that as clickbait.

In their view, it was honest- they thought that their boat was endangered partly due to the local staff. 

Whether you agree with their dramatic assessment is another matter, of course. I wouldn't even dare to get into that discussion! 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

 

they thought that their boat was endangered partly due to the local staff. 

 

 

 

But mostly due to constant filming for awesome content and not paying attention to what they should be doing.

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1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

 

Oh I see, thanks! 

 

I think I have about 250 subscribers. Surely that's enough for the cash to start rolling in!! 

 

:giggles:

I have 7 subscribers, although why anyone would want to subscribe to my channel escapes me.

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8 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

What I would say is that I don't think they meant that as clickbait.

In their view, it was honest- they thought that their boat was endangered partly due to the local staff. 

Whether you agree with their dramatic assessment is another matter, of course. I wouldn't even dare to get into that discussion! 

 

Nonsense.

 

You are on a boat making episode 319 of your successful vlog when you think something dramatic and frightening is happening.  You also think it is directly the fault of the navigation authority.

 

Do you:

1) Try and stop the boat from (in your opinion) sinking,

2) Ignore the incident and immediately go and switch off the cameras that are filming the most important video you will ever shoot before doing anything about the boat, the water or the lock?

 

They have the footage, they just didn't publish it. 

 

In my opinion the footage either shows it was a complete non-issue, making the whole episode pure clickbait, or shows him being abusive to the lockie so they didn't want it out there damaging their brand.

 

If that film showed what they actually described (as talking heads to camera on their not sunk boat) it would have been far and away the most watched video they ever did, and probably exhibit 1 in the following court case seeking damages.

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7 minutes ago, Mike Hurley said:

But mostly due to constant filming for awesome content and not paying attention to what they should be doing.

 

 

I agree. Its distracting enough when someone comes and talks to you whilst locking, let alone trying to film what you're doing, too.

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Mike Hurley said:

But mostly due to constant filming for awesome content and not paying attention to what they should be doing.

 

The question for me is- how much danger were they really in? 

They said that within a few minutes of entering the lock, the spurting water from the top gates had dumped about 3 or more inches was water into their cratch. 

I think their view was that there was a real risk of that 3 inches of water turning into 12 inches within the next few minutes, especially as they were rising very slowly.

Personally, I have no idea what the real risks were. Could their cratch really have flooded? 

They do seem like level headed people, but who knows. Maybe they are inclined to bursts of panic at times?  

Another thing I don't know how long those locks are, and how much room there is to back a 58ft boat away from the top gates. 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

They said that within a few minutes of entering the lock, the spurting water from the top gates had dumped about 3 or more inches was water into their cratch. 

 

 

This does seem a bit odd. Was something stopping them reversing back out of the lock thus saving the boat from certain sinking, rather than shutting the gates behind them and starting to fill the lock?

 

 

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1 minute ago, Tony1 said:

Another thing I don't know how long those locks are, and how much room there is to back a 58ft boat away from the top gates.

 

You can close the tail gates behind a 62' boat, so by the time the lock starts filling if your stern button is touching the tailgate your 58' (?) boat will be about 8 feet away from the cill.  If you are paying attention and keeping back like the boat they were sharing with was doing ...

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23 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

What I would say is that I don't think they meant that as clickbait.

In their view, it was honest- they thought that their boat was endangered partly due to the local staff. 

Whether you agree with their dramatic assessment is another matter, of course. I wouldn't even dare to get into that discussion! 

 

 

 

This was well discussed at the time the episode went out.

 

Although I subscribe to their you tube channel and generally like their vid's I do think this was a classic case of over 'egging the pudding' and over dramatisation for the purpose of generating views from the thumbnail.

 

It was a bit out of character.

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