Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the
Speaker 1: tech are You. So we're continuing to document the history
Speaker 1: of Rooster Teeth, an online media company that has had
Speaker 1: an enormous influence on web culture over the twenty one
Speaker 1: years of its existence. And not to bury the lead,
Speaker 1: but now that company is shutting down as Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: Discovery continues to crack down on expenses and it appears
Speaker 1: that Rooster Teeth hasn't been profitable in quite some time,
Speaker 1: despite trying a lot of different things. Now, if all
Speaker 1: of this is news to you, I recommend you check
Speaker 1: out the first two parts of the series, which have
Speaker 1: just recently published. And we are going to pick up
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen and work our way up to today,
Speaker 1: and this will be the third and final episode. I
Speaker 1: am pleased to say I don't have a part four
Speaker 1: the following, so let's go back to our history. So
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, co founder Jeff Ramsey, who had taken
Speaker 1: on additional leadership roles within the creative side of the
Speaker 1: company announced that he was going to take a lengthy sabbatical. Now,
Speaker 1: Jeff has since spoken very frankly about how he was
Speaker 1: facing enormous pressure at work while also dealing with personal issues,
Speaker 1: including a desire to become sober, and this was a
Speaker 1: really big move from a guy who was a founding
Speaker 1: member of Drunk Gamers. Thankfully, Rooster Teeth showed support for
Speaker 1: him during this journey, and Jeff would actually return later
Speaker 1: that year. In fact, he still appeared in numerous videos
Speaker 1: despite quote unquote being on sabbatical. It became something of
Speaker 1: a running joke. His departure was one indicator that the
Speaker 1: work at Rooster Teeth was not slacking off and was
Speaker 1: in fact requiring more and more of the individuals working
Speaker 1: there at all levels. Also in twenty seventeen, Rooster Teeth
Speaker 1: announced the creation of a podcast network called the Roost.
Speaker 1: This department quote connects influential podcasts with brands that understand
Speaker 1: them end quote. So it's a company that handles things
Speaker 1: like sponsorship deals and ad sales for podcasts. Now, I
Speaker 1: can tell you, as a professional podcaster, having someone dedicated
Speaker 1: to doing this job is the difference between making podcasts
Speaker 1: a hobby and making a living from it. It is
Speaker 1: a lot of work to land those kinds of ad
Speaker 1: deals and sponsorship deals, and the Roost would serve as
Speaker 1: a company that would do that on behalf of podcasters,
Speaker 1: not just Rooster Teeth podcasters, but others as well. The
Speaker 1: Roost is notably one of the properties that Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: Discovery mentioned by name when talking about looking for potential buyers.
Speaker 1: While the individual shows that Rooster Teeth are kind of
Speaker 1: up in the air, the Roost is something Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: Discovery hopes it can sell to an interested party, But
Speaker 1: that does not necessarily mean the actual Rooster Teeth podcasts
Speaker 1: will go on, but rather the infrastructure of a dedicated
Speaker 1: sale team in marketing team. That's kind of what's being
Speaker 1: discussed now. I only say that because I saw a
Speaker 1: lot of discussion about how the podcasts are up for sale,
Speaker 1: and while that may also be true, that's a different
Speaker 1: thing than the Roost itself. And I know at least
Speaker 1: a couple of the podcasts the hosts are hopeful they'll
Speaker 1: be able to continue. On a recent Anma, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast that's hosted by co founders Gustavo Sorola and
Speaker 1: Jeff Ramsey. There was mention of a desire to keep
Speaker 1: that podcast going past the shutdown of Rooster Teeth itself,
Speaker 1: but they also stress this is not a guarantee. These
Speaker 1: things are still being worked out, and I'm sure the
Speaker 1: same is true for lots of the other podcasts and
Speaker 1: other shows that are currently produced by Rooster Teeth. But again,
Speaker 1: the roost is more about the teams that can market
Speaker 1: and sell podcasts rather than the teams that actually make
Speaker 1: the content. Also, in twenty seventeen, Rooster Teeth released Laser
Speaker 1: Team two, which obviously was a sequel to Laser Team,
Speaker 1: their first feature film. Now, like the first film, Laser
Speaker 1: Team two would find distribution through YouTube Bread, the paid
Speaker 1: for subscription service on YouTube. I have not seen Laser
Speaker 1: Team two, but I just checked YouTube and sure enough,
Speaker 1: the movie is on there. The YouTube doesn't include things
Speaker 1: like the number of people who have watched a video
Speaker 1: on this particular film. I did see that there were
Speaker 1: only a few hundred likes on the video, so I
Speaker 1: don't know if this mostly passed under the radar. I
Speaker 1: didn't even find very many reviews for the movie, so
Speaker 1: it seems to me like Laser Team two did not
Speaker 1: have the same kind of impact that the first film had.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, the company added another online media company
Speaker 1: to their ranks called Sugar Pine seven. Now that's a
Speaker 1: channel that was created by Steven Septik, Clayton James, and
Speaker 1: James DeAngelis, and Sugar Pine seven produced comedic videos, including
Speaker 1: an improvised comedy vlog series called Alternative Lifestyle. It actually
Speaker 1: spawned from a different media company also getting shut down.
Speaker 1: This other media company was called Source Fed. And just
Speaker 1: a quick tangent because as we'll see, there's some parallels
Speaker 1: with source fed and with Rooster Teeth, all right. So
Speaker 1: Phil DeFranco, who was already a popular YouTuber at the time,
Speaker 1: launched source fed back in twenty eleven, and its purpose
Speaker 1: was to produce short, informative videos on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: So he got money from YouTube to fund the founding
Speaker 1: of Source fed, and he hired on some folks who
Speaker 1: would go on to do a ton of online content
Speaker 1: like Trisha Hirschberger, Meg Turney, Joe burretta Lee Newton, among others.
Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, another media company called Revision three acquired
Speaker 1: Source Fed from Phil DeFranco. He took on a leadership
Speaker 1: role at REV three, but his duties took him further
Speaker 1: away from Source Fed itself. Revision three was owned by
Speaker 1: a larger media company because there's always a bigger fish,
Speaker 1: and that was Discovery Communications, which had acquired REV three
Speaker 1: back in twenty twelve, So by the time we get
Speaker 1: to twenty seventeen, Discovery was changing its digital media strategy.
Speaker 1: At one point, the company I worked for, How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: was actually owned by Discovery Communications. However, we were sold
Speaker 1: off in twenty fourteen. Discovery sold Revision three to another
Speaker 1: media company called Group nine Media, and not long after that,
Speaker 1: the Source Fed channel would get shut down, and that
Speaker 1: is what prompted several former Source Fed employees to launch
Speaker 1: sugar Pine seven. And not too much longer after that,
Speaker 1: the opportunity came to merge with Rooster Teeth, and it
Speaker 1: must have seemed like a really good idea at the
Speaker 1: time because here was this company that had forged a
Speaker 1: successful path for online content even before YouTube existed, so
Speaker 1: it probably seemed like a no brainer to partner with them. However,
Speaker 1: this relationship wouldn't last very long because Sugar Pine seven
Speaker 1: would actually leave the Rooster Teeth network in May of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, Sugar Pine seven would also stop most of
Speaker 1: their production, with the exception of a podcast called Beyond
Speaker 1: the Pine and fun tangential fact about the whole Source
Speaker 1: Fed thing. Meg Turney, who had appeared as one of
Speaker 1: the original on camera personalities for Source Fed, would leave
Speaker 1: Source Fed in order to go work for Rooster Teeth,
Speaker 1: though she would actually leave Rooster Teeth a couple of
Speaker 1: years later in order to pursue an independent career. In
Speaker 1: early twenty eighteen, Ezra Cooperstein, who had been the president
Speaker 1: and COO of Full Screen, became president of Rooster Teeth. Now,
Speaker 1: Cooperstein had been in the online media game for a while.
Speaker 1: He was a co founder and CEO of a company
Speaker 1: called Maker Studios that had launched back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine. The idea behind Maker Studios was not that
Speaker 1: different to that of Full Screen. Like it was a
Speaker 1: company that would find YouTube channels and talent and recruit
Speaker 1: them under the umbrella of Maker Studios, a multi channel network,
Speaker 1: and try and help those individual channels grow and to
Speaker 1: generate revenue in the process. So Disney acquired Maker Studios
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen. Because you know, sometimes a traditional media
Speaker 1: company will buy a digital media company to kind of
Speaker 1: leap frog all the tricky parts of building out a
Speaker 1: digital division from scratch. That story does not always work
Speaker 1: out so great for all the parties involved. Just as
Speaker 1: Discovery had shut down Source Fed and just as they
Speaker 1: had sold off Holstuff Works for a fraction of what
Speaker 1: they bought us for, Disney would eventually shut down what
Speaker 1: was Maker Studios. Anyway, Cooperstein had been there and had
Speaker 1: already joined Full Screen in twenty eleven before all of
Speaker 1: that had happened, So he had left Maker Studios well
Speaker 1: before the Disney acquisition, and he became the president and
Speaker 1: COO of Full Screen before he moved to head up
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth. As president of the company. He would remain
Speaker 1: in that position only a relatively short while, however, he
Speaker 1: stepped down on April twenty sixth, twenty nineteen. In a
Speaker 1: letter to the community. Cooperstein said he made the decision
Speaker 1: in order to spend more time with his family, as
Speaker 1: he had been largely focused on his career for nearly
Speaker 1: a decade. Matt Hullam, another one of the co founders
Speaker 1: of Rooster Teeth, would stay on as CEO and then
Speaker 1: Cooperstein's reports would just shift over to Hullam In the meantime.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to twenty eighteen. The company
Speaker 1: would continue launching tons of new series, some of which
Speaker 1: were more successful than others. It also released a horror
Speaker 1: film called Bloodfest, and it featured several Rooster Teeth personalities
Speaker 1: within the film, some playing major characters, some little cameos.
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth premiered the film at south By Southwest in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen and then landed distribution through the company Cynadime.
Speaker 1: Synadime would secure a one night screening event in movie
Speaker 1: theaters through Fathom Events before then making the film available
Speaker 1: on various digital services. Rooster Teeth would also get to
Speaker 1: provide the film for first members the following year, so
Speaker 1: one year after it came out, people who were subscribed
Speaker 1: to rooster Teeth as first members could actually watch the
Speaker 1: film on the rooster Teeth site. The movie received mixed reviews.
Speaker 1: A lot of critics said that a lot of the
Speaker 1: film's humor had been done by other horror comedies to
Speaker 1: better effect. For what it's worth, I thought the film
Speaker 1: was okay when I saw it. Mostly I was just
Speaker 1: impressed that Rooster Teeth was continuing to produce feature length films.
Speaker 1: Around this time, Rooster Teeth unveiled a new animated series
Speaker 1: called Genlock, which is a science fiction narrative that boasted
Speaker 1: some really big named voice talent that included actors like
Speaker 1: Michael B. Jordan, Mazie Williams, Dakota Fanning, and David Tennant,
Speaker 1: among others. The series officially launched in early twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: with eight episodes, and a second season of eight episodes
Speaker 1: would come out in twenty twenty one, premiering on what
Speaker 1: was then called HBO Max. Like the video game division
Speaker 1: of Rooster Teeth, a lot of critics who have been
Speaker 1: predicting the downfall of the company for years would point
Speaker 1: at Genlock as one of the potential reasons for Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth's decline. So critics lamented that the company had been
Speaker 1: spending a lot of money on really big ticket blue
Speaker 1: sky swing hard projects like Genlock and Bloodfest to the
Speaker 1: other feature films, as well as a video game production
Speaker 1: division that, if we're being fair, had a very rough
Speaker 1: track record. So whether those critiques have merit or not,
Speaker 1: I can't say I'm not privy to Rooster Teeth's budget
Speaker 1: or anything. Like that, I can't see what the company
Speaker 1: did and did not choose to spend money on, but
Speaker 1: we would definitely hear later on that the company had
Speaker 1: really struggled to become profitable in the wake of the
Speaker 1: full Screen acquisition. Like, the thing that's been said is
Speaker 1: that Rooster Teeth hasn't been profitable in a decade. And again,
Speaker 1: if we trace that decade back from twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: it takes us to twenty fourteen. That's the year full
Speaker 1: Screen acquired Rooster Teeth. Now let's go back to what's
Speaker 1: going on at a corporate level far above Rooster Teeth itself. So,
Speaker 1: as I covered in the previous episode, AT and T
Speaker 1: and the Churnin Group had formed the joint venture Otter
Speaker 1: Media and Outer Media took a majority share in full Screen.
Speaker 1: Early in twenty eighteen, Autermedia bought out the rest of
Speaker 1: the investors of full Screen and outer Media took full
Speaker 1: ownership of the company. Otter also took full ownership of
Speaker 1: a sister media company called Elation at that same time.
Speaker 1: Elation was the media company that was the owner of
Speaker 1: Crunchy Role. At this point, Crunchy Role was organized under Elation.
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth had been organized under full Screen, so George Strompolis,
Speaker 1: the founder and head of full Screen, stepped down from
Speaker 1: the company. At this point, once AT and T bought
Speaker 1: out the rest or really outter Media bought out the
Speaker 1: rest of full Screen, and in the wake of him
Speaker 1: stepping down and Automedia taking full possession of full Screen,
Speaker 1: there were a ton of layoffs. Some reports suggested that
Speaker 1: essentially all Full Screen employees were either let go or
Speaker 1: organized to work for a different department. In addition, the
Speaker 1: streaming service that full Screen oversaw shut down. Then you
Speaker 1: might remember that I said in a previous episode that
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, AT and T entered into talks to
Speaker 1: acquire Time Warner. So that whole process did not go smoothly.
Speaker 1: It was not a guaranteed deal. At one point, the
Speaker 1: US Department of Justice actually opposed this acquisition, so there
Speaker 1: was a concern that the acquisition would be harmful to
Speaker 1: consumers and to competition in the marketplace. Now, the interesting
Speaker 1: thing here was that the deal was seen as a
Speaker 1: vertical acquisition rather than a horizontal one. So what does
Speaker 1: that mean. Well, with a horizontal deal, you're talking about
Speaker 1: two companies that are essentially in the same business, and
Speaker 1: thus the two companies have a lot of overlap. Vertical
Speaker 1: deals have less overlap, but they would mean that the
Speaker 1: new organization, the combined organization, would cover a heck of
Speaker 1: a lot more businesses, and so in a way, the
Speaker 1: opposition to the deal was kind of a test to
Speaker 1: see if US regulators could make a case against vertical mergers,
Speaker 1: and it turned out that no, at least in this case,
Speaker 1: they couldn't. And the merger finalized in June twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: So AT and T then rebrands Time Warner as Warner Media,
Speaker 1: and then things would really start to shake up. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break. When I come back,
Speaker 1: i'll explain what I mean. Okay, So we're back, and
Speaker 1: before the break, I mentioned that AT and T had
Speaker 1: purchased Time Warner and had rebranded it as Warner Media.
Speaker 1: They then proceeded to try and tidy things up a
Speaker 1: little bit, because despite the fact that this was a
Speaker 1: vertic merger, there were departments that had some overlap that
Speaker 1: was redundant. So, for example, you had full Screen, which
Speaker 1: was an organization that had rooster teeth nested beneath it.
Speaker 1: You had Elation, which had both Crunchy roll and A
Speaker 1: and over the top streaming service called VRV underneath it.
Speaker 1: Then you had WarnerMedia, which had purchased the media company
Speaker 1: Machinema back in twenty sixteen, which is interesting because Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth and Mashinema were brought together after being associated with
Speaker 1: one another, mostly because Rooster T's early work was made
Speaker 1: through the process of Mashinema, which is a lowercase M,
Speaker 1: and Machinima the company was an uppercase M. They were
Speaker 1: not one and the same. Rooster Teeth did do some
Speaker 1: sort of collaborations and work with Masinema, but it was
Speaker 1: pretty limited. They never really were corporate partners before, so
Speaker 1: that meant that the company would hold a reorganization effort
Speaker 1: over at AT and T slash WarnerMedia. So this is
Speaker 1: at the high level, right. So then Rooster Teeth gets
Speaker 1: shuffled away from full Screen to Nest under Elation. So
Speaker 1: now Elation oversees VRV, Crunchy Role, and Rooster Teeth and
Speaker 1: Mashinima was supposed to join those other companies in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: but that wouldn't actually happen. In fact, let's do a
Speaker 1: quick where are they now for these various entities. So
Speaker 1: we know about Rooster Teeth. You know, it's in the
Speaker 1: process of shutting down. It's likely going to close its
Speaker 1: doors sometime around May of twenty twenty four. Crunchy Roll
Speaker 1: would actually change corporate hands again. In twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Sony would purchase crunchy Roll from WarnerMedia. There's this whole
Speaker 1: crunchy Roll fundamation thing too, That's a very complicated story.
Speaker 1: Also that streaming service VRV that also went with the
Speaker 1: deal with crunchy Rolls. So both crunchy Role and VRV
Speaker 1: would end up going over to Sony. As for Mashinema,
Speaker 1: it would not find itself under elation with the other brands,
Speaker 1: as had been the intent. Instead, it got organized under
Speaker 1: full screen. Nearly every video under Mashinema rapidly disappeared from
Speaker 1: its YouTube channel following this, either it was deleted or
Speaker 1: they got switched to private. So while WarnerMedia sent messages
Speaker 1: saying the company was working for a smooth transition, it
Speaker 1: looked to the casual observer that Machinima was effectively being
Speaker 1: erased from the web. Now. Part of that was likely
Speaker 1: due to the fact that Machinima worked as a publication platform,
Speaker 1: so it had original programming as well, and some of
Speaker 1: those videos remained up although they weren't necessarily playable. But
Speaker 1: a lot of the videos that were published on mashinima
Speaker 1: actually came from third party content creators, So if I
Speaker 1: had to make a guess, deleting or or setting those
Speaker 1: videos to private those third party videos was a way
Speaker 1: to remove the obligation to pay out revenue to former partners.
Speaker 1: But again this is wild speculation on my part. The
Speaker 1: way Masinima went out has subsequently prompted a lot of
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth fans to try and archive as much Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth content as they possibly can. Given the fact that
Speaker 1: this precedent exists, Mashinema effectively came to an end. One
Speaker 1: series from Mashinema Inside Gaming actually did shift over to
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth. But now Rooster Teeth is getting shut down,
Speaker 1: so I guess, really Mishinima is coming to an end.
Speaker 1: Then AT and T folded Otter Group in with its
Speaker 1: new media company, WarnerMedia. So Otter Group was now organized
Speaker 1: under the Watermedia side of the business. So if we
Speaker 1: go with Rooster Teeth, that means Rooster Teeth at this
Speaker 1: point was under Elation. Elation was under Otter Media. Otter
Speaker 1: Media was part of WarnerMedia, which in turn was part
Speaker 1: of AT and T, and the green grass grew all around,
Speaker 1: and around, the green grass grew all around. This would
Speaker 1: actually open up some opportunities for Rooster Teeth to work
Speaker 1: with and incorporate some Warner owned properties into their own stuff,
Speaker 1: like DC characters, but it also meant a lot more
Speaker 1: corporate oversight and involvement or interference that didn't always align
Speaker 1: with Rooster Teeth's startup culture. Also, Warner Media made some
Speaker 1: dramatic cuts to Full Screen staff, with some reports saying
Speaker 1: like essentially everyone who had ever worked for Full Screen
Speaker 1: just got laid off. So I'm sure that really increased
Speaker 1: tensions at companies like Rooster Teeth. To see this happening
Speaker 1: to Mashinema and to Full Screen, I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people were wondering, when is it going to come
Speaker 1: for us? So in twenty nineteen, a new leader joined
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth. His name is Jordan Levin and he has
Speaker 1: a very long list of impressive work credits to his name.
Speaker 1: He's worked for media companies that include the Walt Disney Company,
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers. Of course, this was years before AT and
Speaker 1: T acquired Warner the NFL. He was the chief content
Speaker 1: Officer for the NFL. He worked for Xbox Entertainment. He
Speaker 1: was also the CEO of Awesomeness TV. So he'd spent
Speaker 1: really his whole career in media and entertainment and it
Speaker 1: bridged both traditional media like television and film as well
Speaker 1: as digital media. So he came on to Rooster Teeth
Speaker 1: and became the new general manager. Other members who had
Speaker 1: been part of the executive team, people like Matt Hullum
Speaker 1: who had been serving as CEO, transitioned to creative roles,
Speaker 1: so they were still leadership roles, but they were no
Speaker 1: longer managerial. They were creative. So from what I've heard,
Speaker 1: Jordan Levin is one of the big reasons that Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth stayed in operation for as long as it did.
Speaker 1: That he managed to keep things going despite the tendency
Speaker 1: of the various parent companies further up the chain to
Speaker 1: cut losses. But he did face a massive challenge because
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth wasn't profitable and some of the flagship properties
Speaker 1: were starting to flag in viewership. The numbers were going down,
Speaker 1: so Toward the end of twenty nineteen, a couple of
Speaker 1: founding members of the channel Funhouse, that being Bruce Green
Speaker 1: and Lawrence Sontag, announced that they were leaving the channel.
Speaker 1: They both would later explain their reasons for leaving, with
Speaker 1: on Tag in particular being very critical of the corporate
Speaker 1: involvement that made creating content a difficult and frustrating experience
Speaker 1: over at Funhouse. So he has repeatedly said that he
Speaker 1: has a lot of respect for the creative folks over
Speaker 1: at Rooster Teeth, but that on the corporate side, it
Speaker 1: made working there a really difficult experience. So in September
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen, Rooster Teeth held a round of layoffs
Speaker 1: that directly affected thirteen percent of the company. Now, before
Speaker 1: the layoffs, the head count at the company was an
Speaker 1: incredible four hundred and nineteen people. And I say incredible
Speaker 1: because remember back in twenty eleven, there were just twenty
Speaker 1: employees at Rooster Teeth, So you know, it's less than
Speaker 1: a decade later and it's gone from twenty to four
Speaker 1: hundred and nineteen. So the layoffs had a really big
Speaker 1: impact on the folks who remained behind as well. Morale
Speaker 1: was really suffering. However, the company still released tons of
Speaker 1: shows and podcasts and other projects. Rooster Teeth launched face Jam,
Speaker 1: which is a comedic show that ostensibly reviews fast food,
Speaker 1: but really it showcases comedy more than anything else, which
Speaker 1: is great. They launched a really fun podcast called Good
Speaker 1: Morning from Hell. This was a limited run podcast. It
Speaker 1: ran for a good long time, but it did conclude,
Speaker 1: but it featured a great concept, which is that the
Speaker 1: Devil's younger brother and his co host, Chris dea Maris
Speaker 1: personality from Rooster Teeth, have a morning show and they
Speaker 1: interview an assortment of historical figures and celebrities and mythological
Speaker 1: creatures who have ended up in Hell for one reason
Speaker 1: or another. And then there were a ton of other
Speaker 1: shows that launched as well, including a Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: live play style show called Tales from the Stinky Dragon. Again,
Speaker 1: to list all the shows that Rooster Teeth has put
Speaker 1: out would be exhaustive. It would take a really long
Speaker 1: time just to even name them all. But then we
Speaker 1: get to twenty twenty, and then absolutely nothing happened, except,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a global pandemic that forced folks
Speaker 1: to work from home Rooster Teeth shifted to largely depending
Speaker 1: on remote work for production, and that obviously had a
Speaker 1: massive impact on the types of content the company was
Speaker 1: able to create. Obviously, the company had to cancel live
Speaker 1: events planned for that year that included RTX as well
Speaker 1: as Let's Play live events. That was a big bummer,
Speaker 1: and that year a bunch of terrible scandals would also
Speaker 1: hit the company, which was an even bigger bummer. Now
Speaker 1: I mentioned already that during the Black Lives Matter movement,
Speaker 1: Mika Burton, former employee over at Rooster Teeth, would actually
Speaker 1: speak up about why she left the company after she
Speaker 1: faced cases of neglect and abuse and said that people
Speaker 1: weren't listening to her or taking her seriously after she
Speaker 1: brought her concerns up to folks, and that she wasn't
Speaker 1: going to just you know, endure that, so she left
Speaker 1: the company. Well over at Achievement Hunter, another terrible, terrible
Speaker 1: thing happened. Another terrible scandal unfolded. Actually it had been
Speaker 1: going on for a while, but it was only just
Speaker 1: uncovered over the later half of twenty twenty, and that
Speaker 1: was when Achievement Hunter cast member Ryan Haywood would have
Speaker 1: to leave the company as a result of violating the
Speaker 1: code of conduct, which is putting things lightly. It was
Speaker 1: later revealed he had used his celebrity to form inappropriate
Speaker 1: relationships with female fans for several years, sort of a
Speaker 1: predatory kind of approach. You know, the fact that there's
Speaker 1: a different power dynamic, right if you are a celebrity
Speaker 1: and fans are they've built up this parasocial relationship in
Speaker 1: their minds with you. To take advantage of that is
Speaker 1: really imhorrant. So the Achievement Hunter crew had to face
Speaker 1: the tough decision at that point, after Ryan had been
Speaker 1: fired from the company, do they take all the content
Speaker 1: that he had been in, which was a considerable number
Speaker 1: of videos because he had been part of the company
Speaker 1: for a long time. Would do they take that and
Speaker 1: just delete it or set it to private or do
Speaker 1: they leave it standing. They mostly chose the second option.
Speaker 1: A few videos actually would disappear, but most of them
Speaker 1: would remain up. But it was a tough decision. People
Speaker 1: were very deeply affected by what Ryan had done. But
Speaker 1: then over at Funhouse, which again that's the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: based media part of Rooster Teeth, there was a similar situation.
Speaker 1: One of the co founders of Fun House, Adam Kovic
Speaker 1: was fired due to other violations that are rather disturbing
Speaker 1: in graphic and so I'm going to leave them out
Speaker 1: of this discussion. You can easily find information about it
Speaker 1: if you search, but suffice it to say that these
Speaker 1: back to back incidents of two high profile on screen
Speaker 1: personalities being fired for inappropriate conduct started to raise a
Speaker 1: lot of questions, and it fueled tons of videos that
Speaker 1: proclaim that the end was pretty freakin nigh for Rooster Teeth,
Speaker 1: But as it turned out, the company would actually continue
Speaker 1: for four more years. A pair of important folks who
Speaker 1: did leave the company in twenty twenty on their own
Speaker 1: terms were Bernie and Ashley Burns Ashley Jenkins. So Bernie Burns,
Speaker 1: I'll remind you, was co founder of the company. He
Speaker 1: was the head writer for Red versus Blue for many years.
Speaker 1: It was essentially Bernie that was seen as like the
Speaker 1: guy at Rooster Teeth, and he had led at Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth in lots of different leadership roles, both executive and
Speaker 1: creative roles, but he had stepped back a bit over
Speaker 1: the course of a year. In twenty nineteen, he stepped
Speaker 1: back as co host of the rooster Teeth podcast that
Speaker 1: was kind of an early indicator that he was preparing
Speaker 1: to exit the company as a whole. He announced his
Speaker 1: resignation on June eleventh, twenty twenty, and he and his wife, Ashley,
Speaker 1: who had been in online media for most of her
Speaker 1: professional career as well. She held many roles at rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth former member of the frag Dolls video game Professional
Speaker 1: video game League or players, they would both leave and
Speaker 1: then they would relocate. Ultimately they would go move to Scotland.
Speaker 1: They recently launched their own podcast called Morning Somewhere. I
Speaker 1: recommend listening to that. It's pretty delightful and it also
Speaker 1: recently has included some bits that talked more about the
Speaker 1: legacy of rooster Teeth and sort of the fallout of
Speaker 1: the decision to shut the company down. Several other folks
Speaker 1: with prominent roles in Rooster Teeth also would leave in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty for various reasons that included people who were
Speaker 1: on screen talent, included writers for popular series. For those
Speaker 1: who remained, they kept operations going as best they could
Speaker 1: under very trying circumstances, and Rooster Teeth kept in business
Speaker 1: for the following few years, but things would shake up
Speaker 1: again in twenty twenty two when AT and T would
Speaker 1: sell off Warner Media and we would get Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: Discovery in its place. So yeah, you might get the
Speaker 1: feeling that media companies are really unstable places and that
Speaker 1: on a corporate level, there's a lot of hot potato
Speaker 1: going on. From my own personal experience, I can tell
Speaker 1: you that's definitely been what I've seen When I worked
Speaker 1: for House Stuff Works. I think there were five different
Speaker 1: corporate owners of how Stuff works while I worked there,
Speaker 1: before we spun off into Stuff Media and then joined iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: So again that's anecdotal. It's not meant to be evidence
Speaker 1: that the media landscape is inherently unstable, but it's been
Speaker 1: my experience, and when I research shows like this, and
Speaker 1: every couple of years you're talking about a different corporate structure,
Speaker 1: it really kind of stresses that it's not far off
Speaker 1: the mark. And I'm sure this also came as another
Speaker 1: hit to morale for at least some of the folks
Speaker 1: at Rooster Teeth to see this change from AT and
Speaker 1: T owning WarnerMedia, to WarnerMedia becoming part of Discovery and
Speaker 1: getting Warner Brothers Discovery in its place. We'll talk more
Speaker 1: about why after we take another quick break. Okay, so
Speaker 1: before the break, I talked about how Discovery had come
Speaker 1: over and offered to purchase WarnerMedia from AT and T
Speaker 1: and as a result we would get Warner Brothers Discovery,
Speaker 1: and how this all kind of came to a head
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. Well, the reason why some of
Speaker 1: the folks at Rooster Teeth were probably a bit anxious
Speaker 1: about this deal is that some of them had worked
Speaker 1: under digital media companies that had once been part of Discovery,
Speaker 1: and they remember how that went. Because a spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: you might have thought David Zaslov of Warner Brothers Discovery
Speaker 1: was on a warpath to cancel shows once that merger happened,
Speaker 1: But that stuff was happening over at Discovery Communications quite
Speaker 1: a bit already, and it really wasn't very long after
Speaker 1: these companies had completed this big acquisition deal that Zaslov
Speaker 1: started to slash high visibility projects. Infamously, this included a
Speaker 1: film about Batgirl. Reportedly, that movie was nearly finished, and
Speaker 1: instead of finishing it up and then releasing the film,
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Discovery would write off the production for tax reasons.
Speaker 1: Now that meant that they legally could not ever release
Speaker 1: the movie, that that movie's never going to be seen
Speaker 1: by anyone, even though most of the work had already
Speaker 1: been done. So a corporate leader who can make those
Speaker 1: kinds of harsh decisions is scary to work for, because
Speaker 1: you never know when your department is going to be
Speaker 1: the next one on the chopping block. You could very
Speaker 1: much make the argument that these kinds of decisions, while
Speaker 1: really difficult, are also necessary because in this particular case,
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Discovery had a truly enormous amount of debt
Speaker 1: that they needed to be able to cut. It still
Speaker 1: doesn't make it easier to swallow when you see these
Speaker 1: projects that people put a lot of work and effort
Speaker 1: into get swept away. However, doomsayers aplenty once again started
Speaker 1: to predict that Rooster Teeth was not long for this world,
Speaker 1: and again that had been going on since twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: with the full Screen acquisition. So it turns out that
Speaker 1: telling the future is harder than it looks. For more
Speaker 1: evidence of that, just looked to my various predictions episodes
Speaker 1: for a year and find out how many of them
Speaker 1: I was like almost completely wrong about so as it stands,
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth would end up sticking around until March of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. And to be clear, it's still operating
Speaker 1: right now, though it's on borrowed time right now as
Speaker 1: of the recording of this podcast. That is so, things
Speaker 1: changed a lot in the last couple of years at
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth. There was an increased push on the various
Speaker 1: types of entertainment, like the various channels, the various videos
Speaker 1: and podcasts. There was a bigger and bigger push to
Speaker 1: urge viewers to become first members or YouTube channel members,
Speaker 1: in other words, to become paid subscribers more than just
Speaker 1: you know, viewers or listeners of the content. Now, if
Speaker 1: I had to guess, I would say this was kind
Speaker 1: of a top down directive that they were being told
Speaker 1: by their bosses, Hey, you need to get these numbers up,
Speaker 1: and the intent was to turn things around from a
Speaker 1: revenue perspective. So, according to numerous pieces written in the
Speaker 1: wake of Warner Brothers Discovery announcing Rooster Teeth's shut down,
Speaker 1: it's been reported that, like I said, rooster Teeth has
Speaker 1: not been profitable for a decade. And again, if we
Speaker 1: look back that's all the way back to the Full
Speaker 1: Screen acquisition. I don't know for sure that the Full
Speaker 1: Screen deal is what you would call the beginning of
Speaker 1: the end, but it doesn't look good at least from
Speaker 1: a casual glance. Now that being said, I also don't
Speaker 1: know if Rooster Teeth would have maintained its success without
Speaker 1: the acquisition from Full Screen. It's impossible to say. We
Speaker 1: don't know. We only know what has happened. We don't
Speaker 1: know what could have happened if Rooster Teeth had remained independent.
Speaker 1: Would it still be around, would it be successful? Or
Speaker 1: are the problems that plagued Rooster Teeth ones that are
Speaker 1: unrelated to corporate ownership. You could argue that part of
Speaker 1: the issue was that the media company was built around
Speaker 1: the sense of humor and the perspective of a group
Speaker 1: of co founders and their particular audience had aged out
Speaker 1: of the material and newer audiences didn't resonate with the
Speaker 1: material on the same level. Then it doesn't matter who
Speaker 1: your corporate owner is. If you're no longer appealing to
Speaker 1: an audience well and you're a media company, that's a
Speaker 1: big problem. So maybe Full Screens acquisition was the beginning
Speaker 1: of the end, or maybe that was immaterial. Maybe Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth was always going to have a limited lifespan. Now,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier in this episode, there were other
Speaker 1: controversies as well. Departing employees had some pretty harsh words
Speaker 1: for the company. You can go to glass door and
Speaker 1: look up Rooster Teeth and there's some pretty brutal things there.
Speaker 1: This also included some serious accusations of discrimination and harassment.
Speaker 1: So the feeling I've always had is that a lot
Speaker 1: of the problems originated above the organization itself. It kind
Speaker 1: of came from levels above Rooster Teeth, But some of
Speaker 1: them were clearly issues within Rooster Teeth, and it's hard
Speaker 1: to tell what was endemic to the culture of the
Speaker 1: company and what emerged as a result of corporate control.
Speaker 1: One particularly upsetting series of claims came from a former
Speaker 1: employee named Caden Jensen, and she posted a blog in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. She said she was the subject of
Speaker 1: homophobic slurs, including ones that were said on camera with
Speaker 1: just slight changes to the slur to make it camera friendly,
Speaker 1: I guess. She said she worked for really long hours
Speaker 1: as a kind of contract worker before she was officially
Speaker 1: hired on as Rooster Teeth staff, but she was never
Speaker 1: paid for that earlier work she did. She also said
Speaker 1: that she and many other employees had to work incredibly
Speaker 1: long hours in a crunch time atmosphere that very rarely
Speaker 1: led up. This was a big complaint among many folks
Speaker 1: at the company, who a lot of the ones who
Speaker 1: had left the company in particular, said that they just
Speaker 1: they were tired of the incredibly long hours. And I
Speaker 1: think this probably was a culture issue at Rooster Teeth
Speaker 1: because remember rooster Teeth started with five co founders getting
Speaker 1: together and doing everything themselves. So these five people were
Speaker 1: working incredibly long hours. In fact, when rooster Teeth first started,
Speaker 1: they were working a different job as well, Like they
Speaker 1: had a job job and then they had Rooster Teeth.
Speaker 1: So the folks who started the company had this culture
Speaker 1: of we got to get it done, and you do
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to get it done. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how long it takes, how many hours you have to
Speaker 1: be up, you got to get it done. And I
Speaker 1: think that just kind of became part of the corporate culture.
Speaker 1: But it's not a very healthy culture to create and
Speaker 1: to nourish, right, It's much better to find ways to
Speaker 1: operate without making people work themselves to death. But I
Speaker 1: think that was part of the problem, is that because
Speaker 1: the founders had had the experience of working these incredibly
Speaker 1: long hours and doing so much, that they didn't have
Speaker 1: much perspective or perhaps sympathy for people who were asking
Speaker 1: to not have that kind of burden put onto themselves.
Speaker 1: Cayden also said that the company's efforts to promote diversity
Speaker 1: and equality were far more for show in front of
Speaker 1: the camera and being a different story behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: The responses from the company proved that at least some
Speaker 1: of the claims Cayden had made were true. Employees like
Speaker 1: Gavin Free came forward and accepted responsibility for using those
Speaker 1: slurs and apologized for that behavior while promising to learn
Speaker 1: and work to be better. The company itself issued a
Speaker 1: statement admitting that quote we have faced inevitable mistakes and
Speaker 1: interpersonal challenges end quote. As well as that quote, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty was a year of broad societal change that brought
Speaker 1: past conduct to our attendant end quote, which I imagine is
Speaker 1: reference to the Black Lives Matter movement in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: as well as how employees former employees like Mika Burton
Speaker 1: had brought concerns forward. She was not the only one,
Speaker 1: but she was probably the most famous one. The company
Speaker 1: had to face the fact that, as I've said before,
Speaker 1: Rister Teeth started as a company launched by a group
Speaker 1: of guys, primarily white guys who are straight, and it
Speaker 1: launched way back in two thousand and three, and much
Speaker 1: of the humor of that group of guys consisted of
Speaker 1: them ribbing each other like there's a lot of humor
Speaker 1: of them cutting each other down and insulting one another,
Speaker 1: and it was all jokes, but that informed the culture
Speaker 1: of the company, and the real problems would arise as
Speaker 1: the company would grow and begin hiring on people who
Speaker 1: weren't just white, straight guys, folks who didn't necessarily enjoy
Speaker 1: the privileges that straight white guys enjoy and who are
Speaker 1: far more vulnerable. It's not necessarily the same experience for
Speaker 1: those kinds of folks to endure the quote unquote fun
Speaker 1: abuse that had permeated the original members of Rooster Teeth.
Speaker 1: So in a way, the company was coming to terms
Speaker 1: with itself and having to grow up a bit. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't a painless process, but it was I think
Speaker 1: a necessary one. Now, before I go any further, I
Speaker 1: also need to say that Cayden herself had some pretty
Speaker 1: serious skeletons in the closet as far as acceptance and
Speaker 1: diversity and all that kind of stuff. Fans of Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth did a dive into her background and they found
Speaker 1: sort of old videos that had comedic bits where Cayden
Speaker 1: had included awful stuff like racial slurs. So Rooster Teeth
Speaker 1: defenders used this in part to discredit Caiden, But I
Speaker 1: think it says a lot that the official company response
Speaker 1: appeared to hold itself accountable for at least some of
Speaker 1: what was appearing in Cayden's blog post, so it's not
Speaker 1: like it was all made up. Twenty twenty three marked
Speaker 1: the twentieth anniversary of Rooster Teeth, and in celebration of
Speaker 1: that milestone, the company released several video projects that revisited
Speaker 1: things that they had produced over the past twenty years.
Speaker 1: For example, Chris Deamris and Kerrie Shawcross returned to New
Speaker 1: Zealand to retrace their steps from a simple walk. That
Speaker 1: was the video that showed the two making the one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty mile trek between the shooting location for
Speaker 1: Hobbiton and the shooting location for Mordor in Peter Jackson's
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings series. Other departments, like Achievement Hunter
Speaker 1: would release videos revisiting popular concepts that they had done
Speaker 1: in the past but they had since moved on from.
Speaker 1: But a lot of other changes in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: would end up upsetting old time fans of the company,
Speaker 1: so Gustavo Sorola announced he was leaving the popular Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth podcast along with podcast regulars Gavin Free and Barbara Dunkleman.
Speaker 1: Gustavo would hand over control to a younger group of podcasters.
Speaker 1: He didn't leave the company. He was still doing other
Speaker 1: projects with Rooster Teeth, but the rooster Teeth podcast was
Speaker 1: a very long running and popular show, so a lot
Speaker 1: of folks who had kind of really adopted that show
Speaker 1: as well one of their favorites, were upset. Achievement Hunter
Speaker 1: also announced that that group was disbanding. Some of the
Speaker 1: members went on to form a new comedy sketch group
Speaker 1: within Rooster Teeth called dog Bark, but Achievement Hunter would
Speaker 1: no longer be a thing, and the view counts on
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth's YouTube channels seemed to be in further decline.
Speaker 1: Reports were that things just weren't much better for subscriber
Speaker 1: numbers either. In fact, many's former subscribers had kind of
Speaker 1: ended their support in the wake of the various scandals
Speaker 1: that had broken out over the previous years. At RTX
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, the company gave attendees a big surprise.
Speaker 1: They showed a preview for Red Versus Blue Season nineteen,
Speaker 1: and they revealed that it was the final full length
Speaker 1: season for the show, that this was going to wrap
Speaker 1: up the main Red Versus Blue story, and it was
Speaker 1: also a surprise that Bernie Burns returned, not just to
Speaker 1: voice his character Church in the Red Versus Blue series
Speaker 1: or epsilon. Actually to go into all of that would
Speaker 1: take away too much time, but also he would be
Speaker 1: the writer for season nineteen, something that he had not
Speaker 1: done for many years, and Matt Hullam was directing the season.
Speaker 1: Two of the company's co founders would be responsible for
Speaker 1: bringing a conclusion to their flagship series. And while the
Speaker 1: announcement was made that the company would shut down before
Speaker 1: Red Versus Blue Season nineteen has actually premiered, reports from
Speaker 1: the company suggest that as of right now, Red Versus
Speaker 1: Blue Season nineteen will come out regardless of the shutdown
Speaker 1: of the company. That report that Rooster Teeth is actually
Speaker 1: coming to an end, that came as employees gathered for
Speaker 1: an all hands meeting on March sixth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Around that same time, Entertainment Press covered the story. So
Speaker 1: clearly Warner Brothers Discovery gave the reports to the various
Speaker 1: media out there and just told them when the story
Speaker 1: would be live, and they ran with it. So like
Speaker 1: the world found out about Roaster Teeth shutting down around
Speaker 1: the same time that the employees did. There's been a
Speaker 1: little bit of conflicting information about when they're actually shutting down.
Speaker 1: The figure I hear most often is sixty days from
Speaker 1: the announcement on March six, twenty twenty four, so two
Speaker 1: months after that announcement. There are other reports that suggest
Speaker 1: that some stuff might stretch on a little longer than
Speaker 1: that in order for everything to be wrapped up, you know,
Speaker 1: things like rolling out the season nineteen of Red Versus Blue.
Speaker 1: Perhaps maybe that goes a little longer. We don't know yet.
Speaker 1: Employees are receiving a severance package, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: that's based off seniority at the company, So the longer
Speaker 1: you've been with the company, the longer or more helpful
Speaker 1: that severance packages. Somewhere between one hundred and fifty to
Speaker 1: two hundred folks are actually being let go, plus contractors
Speaker 1: and freelancers. It's a really rough end to an online
Speaker 1: media company that had such a huge impact on web
Speaker 1: culture and entertainment distribution models. In the end, Rooster Teeth
Speaker 1: really set an example of how to build a success
Speaker 1: business online, at least for you know, a given amount
Speaker 1: of time, and they found success not just financially, but
Speaker 1: through building a passionate and invested community of viewers. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many times I heard stories about
Speaker 1: people who did everything they could to get hired by
Speaker 1: the company that made the stuff they happened to love,
Speaker 1: and for those few who did manage to do that,
Speaker 1: it seemed like a dream come true. Now, over time,
Speaker 1: the realities of production became evident. Right Crunch time is brutal,
Speaker 1: even if you love your work. I would argue crunch
Speaker 1: time is brutal, especially if you love your work, because
Speaker 1: you'll push yourself even harder than you have to in
Speaker 1: order to meet various deadlines. It also discovered, you know,
Speaker 1: that changes in direction, corporate direction can be really demoralizing,
Speaker 1: and that corporate cultural issues are really hard to reckon
Speaker 1: with and to fix when things are broken. But if
Speaker 1: you watched that video live stream that Rooster Teeth held
Speaker 1: the day after everyone found out the company was shutting down,
Speaker 1: it's up on YouTube. You can actually watch the whole thing.
Speaker 1: If you watch that, you will see a group of
Speaker 1: people who clearly loved the company they worked for, and
Speaker 1: more importantly, they loved the people they worked with. And
Speaker 1: that's not nothing. So now it's time for us to
Speaker 1: close the book on Rooster Teeth. It remains to be
Speaker 1: seen if any of the properties created by Rooster Teeth
Speaker 1: are going to experience life after the closure of the company.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, there are a lot of other questions that
Speaker 1: just remain unanswered, you know, like do you ever wonder
Speaker 1: why we're here? I hope you enjoyed these episodes about
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth. My apologies if you had no interest in
Speaker 1: that material whatsoever. Clearly, this is something that I had
Speaker 1: a deep interest in because I fell in love with
Speaker 1: the work of the company in the early days. And
Speaker 1: while I haven't really followed it as much in more
Speaker 1: recent years. I feel really sad for folks who work
Speaker 1: in online media and who find them sells out of
Speaker 1: a gig. And a lot of the folks I have
Speaker 1: met and I really like them, and they impressed me
Speaker 1: with their creativity and their work ethic and their dedication
Speaker 1: to one another. So I just wanted to give it
Speaker 1: it's due. I know there are tons of different think
Speaker 1: pieces and video essays and such about the company, but
Speaker 1: this one was from my perspective. We will now move
Speaker 1: on from Rooster Teeth and talk about totally different things
Speaker 1: in the next upcoming episodes, so I look forward to
Speaker 1: doing that, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.