Looking for a Montana black bear

[Brian in Montana]

That was a fun series of videos to watch. Too bad it didn't pan out, but you certainly saw more bears than I did. I intended to hunt a lot more this spring, but between work, kid's baseball games, and us selling our house and moving, I got out only on morning and a couple of evenings. It was nice to be able to live vicariously a little.

Thanks, Randy. I enjoyed it.

 

[Big Fin]

Lots of good feedback here. Appreciate it.

All of this is a work in progress. We will likely do a lot of experimenting to find what works. Odds are that some hunts will be better suited for the semi-live gig than others. Some might be better suited for the longer version that is a traditional length full episode. My hope is to find a way to make all hunts into both a semi-live and a full episode, knowing one format will contain a lot more information and behind the scenes footage.

I was surprised to see the YouTube analytics of this semi-live bear hunt. Further proof that the supposed experts on these topics who prognosticated that we would fall on our face, or only attract teenagers, are quite clueless about the digital space.

A good TV season in the prime periods of Q3/4 will gain 1.25-3.0 million views, depending upon how many airings they get, how much network promotion they get, the prime time airings they get, and an assortment of other variables, all of which you pay extra to the network to obtain. In 2017, we are on a course to deliver 5-6 million views. In the digital space we get paid a share of the advertising revenue from YouTube, as compared to paying the network very large amounts to air our content on TV.

The demographic of our content on YT is the perfect demo that sponsors want; not a bunch of teenagers. The TV demo is slightly older, to the point where they bell curve peaks out closer to when hunters start spending more time on the couch talking about hunting than they do out in the field actually hunting. Our number one viewing device on weekends is often smart TVs, surpassing desktops, with desktops being our top device the rest of the week.

TV is rated by Nielson service. What they consider a "view" is far more liberal than what is require for YT consider to consider it a view. Our YT audience is watching through the majority of our episodes, way beyond what is the norm on YT, something that is only a guess with Nielson ratings. TV restricts a lot of things we've been able to do for sponsors on YT. In order to make sponsors, mostly sponsor ad agencies happy, TV forces you to almost insult your audience with informercials, something we've refused. YT allows many other manners of company integration that does not impose on the viewing experience.

All that background is provide to show why we are so interested in what style, tone, and format our audience wants on YouTube. We will be doing more experiments. Hopefully the feedback here and on our YT channel will guide us in the correct direction.

Thanks for watching and thanks for any comments provide.

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

im 47 and my cable subscription doesn't have hunt channels, so i watch hunting on YT, i watch in the evenings on my desktop,i watch the way i would a tv i sit down to watch a whole video regardless of length for the last year i have watched as much or more hunting on YT than anything on tv most night a tv never turns on at my place, then its netfilx on my tv through my xbox game system in place of a cable tv show. i also enjoy YT though the xbox to watch hunts on my tv just because it bigger, the HUSH guys have done some 40 min hunts , i hope you can do a few of your own in the future as i personally enjoy getting to watch longer hunts when available

 

[Elite7]

Randy, I enjoyed the semi live content and feel that it would generate more views compared to a hunt with a known outcome. I found myself checking in on my lunch breaks and watching the short films at my office. it was fun to check in to see how your hunt was going during the days while I sit indoors! Another reason I think that semi live would generate more is because if i know the outcome or can see day ___ was the kill day, I might have skipped three or four days of videos to save some viewing time. I just find it more personal and that brings a new level of excitement/ suspense.

 

[joelwalters]

I know you have tons of analytics, but I just wanted to concur on your last post. I haven't had cable for years and only selectively watch streaming hunting content--pretty much just your YouTube and meateater through vhx (and now Netflix). I now pay way more attention to equipment with these formats and how it performs than I used to. Traditional hunting shows (whitetail esp.) bang you over the head with sponsorship mentions and it always turned me off. Not sure why, but sponsors in these short segments and other presentations are more palatable.