BRS YouTube going down hill?

Bfragale

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I think they are just expanding. If you catch Ryan or Randy - I find I’m way more “into” the videos. Some of the newer people are more of the sales type of viedo. I find these good for items I’m personally interested in. But other then that I don’t really watch those.

the newer 1-2 hour videos - at first it was a bummer because I usually have time for a 20-25 min viedo- but rarely for 1hr+. But I actually now look forward to these, and plan on the time to watch. I feel these are still great videos and always has good info peppered through the viedo. Plus I’ve been enjoying watching Ryan’s new tank come together.

I think after “52 weeks of reefing” and all the “investigates” videos- they have put out so much great content that they may be running out of ideas. Some of the newer ones seem to be “reaching” for content. But when you have been giving so much information for so long eventually there is not as much to talk about. I think they have been a major contributor to the hobby and I still do and will support them when and where I can.

and honestly I still expect there will be some great content even if in between the “sales” stuff.
 
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It must take a lot of production time to do the testing videos we all love. I've got a little production background and I know it takes about 100 man hours for every hour of video you produce.

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

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

I'm just guessing, of course.

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

Probably a benefit to the community.

But, I'm just guessing, of course.

ummm, they’re definitely extremely low production quality.

I’m not saying it’s not someone’s job. I am saying it’s very low effort.

I’m mostly with @Bfragale i enjoy Ryan’s perspective and presentation. Or maybe just his lack of “professionalism” or “esotericism”.

he presents himself as some guy, who likes marine life and has been in a hobby long enough to have some anecdotes. He doesn’t present himself as some reef retail god of YouTube or whatever. I like that.
 
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RobB'z Reef

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I really support what they are doing. I think their content is varied and informative. Yes they are there to make money but if you didn't already realize that then you're (not anyone specifically) an idiot. I liked having product spotlights, I watch the ones that I want to know more about and ignore the ones I don't have an interest in. When they have general content or discussions that's great too! If it's not grabbing me I stop watching.

Complaining about anything that you have nothing invested in makes zero sense to me. It's great they share information and while they aren't perfect in all the information they share I feel they aren't outright deceiving anyone and are passionate about the hobby at a personal level. Just like us they are learning to and you can see messages change over time and I appreciate that. That earns them more of my business than it would otherwise if I had to choose between 5 vendors selling the same stuff off the shelf. Keep up the great work @Bulk Reef Supply !
 

hart24601

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I have been disappointed and stopped watching. Their mission statement was once to not accept common reefing beliefs but to test and prove what really works. They have been moving further and further away from that. It’s too bad but get some hobby cred and some new investors and must be tempting to do infomercials as I’m sure the experiments cost a lot and take a long time.
 

ScottB

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One thing that may not be known is that a private equity group recently bought out BRS. Unfortunately for hobbyist this means that you have folks that know a great deal more about how a company should be ran to maximize revenue and care very little about informing the hobbyist.
Oh no. I guess I should've seen that coming.
 

fachatga

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I do find it a little less interesting. But when I buy something new and have a video of people using it putting it together and talking about it it makes it so much better and easier for me. They’re creating a great instructional library. That said I wish they would also do more shows talking about reefing in the mix too.
 

StPatrick89

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They are clearly moving in a more infomercial direction and promoting themselves. Sad that they have all those resources and arent focusing on ways for beginners to have more success.

I'm waiting for Thomas to start pushing their own brand of under gravel filters.
As a beginner, I found that their video on the best RODI unit was about their own product. Or maybe it is the best. Considering that they try everything and now they build and put together what they feel is the best to build their brand and offer consumers a good product. Idk just my thoughts as a newbie
 

StPatrick89

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

Mywifeisgunnakillme

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

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

Whiskey

I don't know, i kind of like the longer ramble more. Seems less scripted and genuine. I don't watch it like TV. Just let it play in background while i work at home or reef.
 

James_O

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Honestly, yes. Ever since they got new staff, they have been bad. Less informational, more like a "talk show".

The most recent one I watched (One of the Hanna checker ones), was pretty bad. Very well planned out as far as the script went.

I think that one had Ryan speaking? Not sure.
 

zalick

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ummm, they’re definitely extremely low production quality.

I’m not saying it’s not someone’s job. I am saying it’s very low effort.

I’m mostly with @Bfragale i enjoy Ryan’s perspective and presentation. Or maybe just his lack of “professionalism” or “esotericism”.

he presents himself as some guy, who likes marine life and has been in a hobby long enough to have some anecdotes. He doesn’t present himself as some reef retail god of YouTube or whatever. I like that.
100% agree regarding Ryan. Really like his videos, his perspective and just him as a person. Would love to have a beer with him and talk reef tanks.
 

Unheardreefer

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Here are my thoughts. If you look at videos now compared to same time two years ago, there’s almost the same amount of “useful” or interesting videos and discussions per month as now. The only difference is there are also sprinkled in there maybe 4-6 short “sales” videos a week too. I don’t watch most of the sales videos, unless it’s a product I’m interested or one similar to one I’m interested in.

When they had their Neptune tips series, it was extremely helpful so a lot of people in the community, but wasn’t it really a series about a product they sell? Same goes for all their lighting, salt, etc experiments. You can pick and choose when to watch what.

I don’t know if I really want to watch another 52 weeks of reefing. Maybe they’re just running out of ideas for experiments? They’re on socials so maybe as a community we could try to get them to test things we’re interested in because most obscure tests I can think of they’ve touched on.

the amount of useful information in their catalog is enough to last forever. While this is an ever-evolving hobby, it’s not tech and science advancements that can change from week to week to report on. It’s the same thing we flame on people who ask questions on this forum that have been asked 100s of times before. There’s a search bar for that.
A last thing that I’d like to bring up is the possibility of covid hurting video production. We can’t completely blame covid on all problems obviously, but they weren’t probably able to fly in or bring on guests like they have in previous years, over the last year maybe a lot of the staff possibly working from home or being laid off, even the production team. There was a solid period of time when their videos were just zoom calls. Look at the recent office tour and how nasty some tanks look like because of work from home supposedly. Some of the experiments seemed like long term videos with more hands on. Less hands in the office hurts. I know the pandemic hit my wallet and I haven’t been able to splurge as much with them, maybe they have margins to make up.
 

ReefHomieJon

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A
Hopefully it was a business expense.

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

Those Masked Angelfish he just got cost almost that much EACH.
amongthereef.com has them listed for $16,000
 

TnFishwater98

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Money changes “some” people or cooperation will control the message which is controlled by Money...
 

Pntbll687

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I know the pandemic hit my wallet and I haven’t been able to splurge as much with them, maybe they have margins to make up.
As a distribution sales rep in the pet supplies / aquatics categories I can say with 100% certainty that this is NOT any reason for drop in production quality. If BRS needs to make up margin from lost sales last year, they will most likely be out of business soon. Last year (2020) was a BOOM for the aquatics industry, the market had pretty much been stagnant for a couple years and trending down slightly.


With BRS being a niche market within the aquatics industry, production and shipment issues can hurt them even more than other companies. But remember when they gave away $100k worth of product within a week toward the end of last year? They were probably coming up on the end of their fiscal year and needed some tax write offs to offset the capital sitting in the bank. Companies don't just give away $100k worth of inventory because they want to and take a loss on those items, there's always a reason behind it.
 

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