A NUMBERS GAME

Happy Friday! Early days, but the shift to Thursdays for new Digi videos seems to have helped. We've actually put on more subscribers than we've lost, for the first time in aaaaages, and the views have been really solid for the last three videos. Admittedly, it's only by three subscribers, and I might be tempting fate, but as I write this we've - right this second - got more subscribers on the channel than ever. 

The more structured focus for the eps helps, I'm sure. As do the more clickbait-y thumbnails. And billing Digi Deluxe as a "new series" might've had an impact too.

Either way... it does feel like we are, ever so slowly, turning a bit of a corner with the channel - in lots of ways - after months of stagnation. We'll see. But right now, it seems it was worth us really thinking about what it was we're doing. 

What's nice is also seeing growth in older videos across the board. I think it's important for me to focus less on what the videos get in the first 24 hours - though that is important for the algorithm, apparently - and see how they do over time. 

Going back to October, there are only two full-length videos, barring the most recent few, which are still under 7,000 views, and I've got a weird, psychological, perception where 7,000 is sort of the minimum number I'm happy with! So, that's nice. Still small potatoes in the grand scheme, I know, but I only ever wanted enough of an audience to be able to afford to do things like Digi Live and Found Footage every now and then. 

I know, I know. Don't concentrate on the numbers, do what you want to do, blah blah. Yeah, but I've realised I enjoy the game aspect of it (you can take the boy out of the games, but you can't take the gamer out of the boy etc.). It's like playing Theme Park or something; sticking to my guns in terms of the content I want to make, but how - if I'm doing that - do we get it to grow? I love the challenge of that.

Inevitably, given the personnel involved on screen, we're getting a lot of comments saying we're the new Barshens. I think I mentioned before that I ran scared of Barshens for a long time, mainly due to Gannon's involvement. Barshens was obviously great, but it casts a long shadow. 

Thing is, I had to come to the realisation that the episodes are more satisfying - both for the audience and me creatively - when they have some structure. Given I'm not interested in giving the channel a core theme (ie; retro gaming), that means we end up sharing a similar sort of randomness and feel to Barshens. 

But we're not alone in that. I mean, we all owe a bit of a debt to Good Mythical Morning, and I'm sure there are other channels with a similar mix of taste tests, games, and whatnot. Not that I know what they are. That said, given that I'm doing my thing in the edit, and coming up with ideas for games and stuff - as well as being on screen - for me it still feels sufficiently different, even in the eps where Paul and Eli are on screen. The Barshens similarities are circumstantial and superficial. 

Next week, as some of you will have seen already, there's no Eli, and Sanja and Sooz are back again, along with Chris JC. Annoyingly, the cameras cut off at one point, and we lost a big chunk of the footage. However, the sound was still recording, so I've come up with a rather novel way of plugging the gap....

Have a good weekend, y'all.

Paul