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Post by dudehitscar on May 4, 2021 13:39:16 GMT -5
They make enough money to have 19 full time people working for them (without Kickstarters), plus pay their contributing writers, so I'm not sure that the Gizmoplex would have more subscribers than RiffTrax has users.
Got a source on the finances of rifftrax? You are as well researched as anyone so I am curious where you are getting that info.. Kickstarters fund their flagship events every year.
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Post by BoB3K on May 4, 2021 23:48:37 GMT -5
Kickstarters fund their flagship events every year. I don't know why you keep going on about RiffTrax when it looks like you know nothing about them. I'm not actually a huge fan anymore but I keep up with them. Their live event this year was postponed because of covid, but instead they put out an in theater riff of JackO or something. That was at the end of October. The point being that since the end of October, RiffTrax has released 36 items (according to their Catalog list at www.rifftrax.com/catalog ). THIRTY SIX!But you just keep on thinking they make ALL their money from that $480K they got from KS that KS takes a 5% chunk of and another chunk goes to backer rewards, and then the chunk for actually doing the KS riffs. I don't think you need a 'source on the finances of RiffTrax' to see that you don't know what you are talking about.
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Post by kracker on May 5, 2021 1:01:25 GMT -5
hey why am I being quoted as saying all these things
Ok so what I get from this is Rifftrax's streaming site is awesome they do everything right but somehow Joel's is going to be bad and do it wrong even though he has Rifftrax's awesome example to go off of and build on and his team is going purposely to make it like a clunky 90's CD-ROM. He's also not going to listen to user feedback and change things people don't like or want easier. Because Joel is always dumb. So dumb.
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Post by dudehitscar on May 5, 2021 1:14:45 GMT -5
Kickstarters fund their flagship events every year. I don't know why you keep going on about RiffTrax when it looks like you know nothing about them. I contributed big to their kickstarters for years now. I have been to over 10 of their fanthom events (I skip the reriffs of old mst3k episodes) I was a driptrax founding member.. I pay the highest tier for their patreon. I subscribed to patreons of bill's podcast. I listen to all of mikes podcast (yes even the 'bigot christian' ones) Where in your delusional mind does that add up to me not knowing ANYTHING about them. Sounds like I am a bigger fan than you are.
I'm not actually a huge fan anymore but I keep up with them. Their live event this year was postponed because of covid, but instead they put out an in theater riff of JackO or something. That was at the end of October. I AM AWARE LIVE EVENTS WERE CANCELED DURING THE PANDEMIC. YES I LIVE ON THIS PLANETThe point being that since the end of October, RiffTrax has released 36 items (according to their Catalog list at www.rifftrax.com/catalog ). SO WHATTHIRTY SIX! AND??? DO YOU WANT MST3K TO JUST GO TO RECORDING AUDIO TRACKS OF RIFFS? I sure as hell don't so stop holding it up as some goal that joel needs to aspire to.. it's not. MST3K is more than that which is why it has a bigger audience.
But you just keep on thinking they make ALL their money from that $480 they got from KS that KS takes a 5% chunk of and another chunk goes to backer rewards, and then the chunk for actually doing the KS riffs. SOURCE ON WHERE I SAID THEY MAKE "ALL OF THEIR MONEY FROM THE 480K ON THE KICKSTARTER"? I said they make the bulk of their money from the live shows which they fund the startup costs (and more) through kickstarter. Between the ticket sales from the fanthom events, the ticket sales from the live events themselves, the merch, the drinks, the snacks, as well as the exposure those events bring to their other offerings it is easily the core of the profitability of rifftrax in my view.. I mean if they were making more than that from just doing VOD and mp3s they wouldn't have come onto to the rifftrax piratebay forum and telling everyone they are hurting because.. now listen closely.. they aren't doing any live shows at the moment... go look for yourself.I don't think you need a 'source on the finances of RiffTrax' to see that you don't know what you are talking about. lol.. of course not...
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Post by ds_36 on May 5, 2021 8:37:53 GMT -5
I think a lot of this with the Gizmoplex update is people reading it as what it will very likely wind up being (just a website with customized graphics and little more) versus the grandiose plans that are being suggested.
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Post by monkeypretzel on May 5, 2021 11:16:57 GMT -5
Got a source on the finances of rifftrax? You are as well researched as anyone so I am curious where you are getting that info.. Kickstarters fund their flagship events every year.
I said they make enough from the sales of their product, subscriptions, and other income besides Kickstarters to have 19 full time employees. But I was wrong.
They actually have 18 employees.
That data comes from the yearly Small Business Saturday email that they send to people on their mailing list every November, listing their employees. Also from watching the credits of the live shows. The last live show, Giant Spider Invasion, listed 16 people working directly for RiffTrax:
David G. Martin, RiffTrax CEO and Executive Producer David D. Martin, Technical Director Bill Corbett Kevin Murphy Mike Nelson Conor Lastowka, Senior Writer/Producer Sean Thomason, Senior Writer/Producer Sarah Vanderbush Abad, Producer Erik Peterson, Senior Web Engineer Nik Anderson, Web Engineer Casey June, Video Editor Tony Masiello, Assistant Video Editor Jason Martin, Graphic Designer Diana Buckley, Finance Director Jeff Whitton, Marketing Peter Hunter, Marketing
Add in Bridget Nelson and Mary Jo Pehl, and that is 18 full-time employees.
As for the finances, every year RiffTrax does a Kickstarter they make it clear that the proceeds go toward staging the live shows, not toward basic operational and production costs. Quotes from the 2020 Kickstarter:
Thanks to you, the Kickstarter community, we've had SEVEN consecutive years of successful campaigns to help us fund our nationwide RiffTrax Live shows. We're extremely grateful, because these events wouldn't exist without your help! Movie licensing costs a decent chunk of change, and the production costs for Live Shows themselves are prohibitively high. So, to have this wacky idea make any economic sense, we really do need your help. We have our deal with Fathom Events locked in, the dates are reserved for these shows, and we have some incredibly fun, cheesy movies ready to be riffed for two horrifyingly fun nights of hilarious entertainment – the rest is up to you!
What if we get extra money, past our goal? We’ve been extremely fortunate in surpassing our goals in each of our previous Kickstarter campaigns. And just like with those projects, any extra funds we raise in this campaign will go towards securing the rights for showing the movies in theaters, the top-notch production of the shows, and to create all those awesome rewards!
Making these shows happen actually costs much more than our base goal. That’s just the reality of it. If we’re able to raise extra money, those additional funds go right back into putting on the best production we can.
So I really don't know what else to tell you. BoB3K put it pretty succinctly above: RiffTrax constantly releases riffs for sale that are in no way dependent upon Kickstarter funds.
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Post by Diet Kolos on May 5, 2021 11:30:20 GMT -5
That ties into an earlier semi-related point someone was making earlier in regards to if Joel and Co need to do more fundraising for a potential Season 14 if subscription figures aren't enough with base Gizmoplex (I'm getting tired of typing that, can we just call it GPlex or something?). And the pushback on why that wouldn't be a big deal was "Well Rifftrax does a fundraiser every year. So what?"
Its not a big deal because their KS is for a single extra event, not to fund a large portion of their base product or to sustain their operation on the whole. Which is what another fundraiser for Season 14 would be. If it hypothetically needed to happen.
It would be like if Rifftrax had a KS to help fund 20 of their planned 50 riffs because the current subscriber base can't pay for everything they want to put out.
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Post by monkeypretzel on May 5, 2021 11:48:43 GMT -5
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Post by slainmonkey on May 5, 2021 12:01:44 GMT -5
Like I said, I really don’t see a another Kickstarter having this level of success a 3rd time round, I know I wouldn’t do it a 3rd time, and I’m sure there are MANY others who feel the same way. The Gizmoplex needs to be self sustainable, or the show will die.....or at best go crawling across its belly over broken glass to be picked up by another network. Either way, if Joel want’s the show to thrive as an independent production, then he needs this to be commercially viable!
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Post by Diet Kolos on May 5, 2021 12:12:09 GMT -5
That's partially why I'm hoping if this campaign is super successful and they raise 6 million+, Joel puts the extra cash into a rainy day fund to help pay for any future shortages.
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Post by wedestroymyths on May 5, 2021 12:18:05 GMT -5
Maybe this is the wrong thread for this, but the discussion of sustainability got me thinking of a potential downside for the 'Plex (keeping in mind, I'm actually pretty optimistic about its sustainability).
Here's the thought--the 'Plex will provide the show with a lot of data on what people are watching and paying for. Back in the old TV days, they wouldn't get a real sense of what episodes people were positively responding to until letters (and later message board posts) started rolling in. But now, they'll be able to look at sales figures and streaming data for specific episodes. So, let's pretend season 12 had been in the 'Plex. Now, let's imagine a scenario where Mac & Me went somewhat viral and took off, resulting in 15,000 rentals at $3 a pop, and 6,000 sales at $10, all from non-subscribers. That's a pretty nice chunk of change, and might lead the producers to chase that style of movie, to try to seek out films with greater potential to "go viral" or what not.
While Mac & Me was a bright spot in season 12, I'd hate if every film they used was similar, chasing online buzz.
Of course, if they were successful in finding those types of films, that would certainly help with the projects overall sustainability.
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Post by Diet Kolos on May 5, 2021 12:23:26 GMT -5
... and might lead the producers to chase that style of movie, to try to seek out films with greater potential to "go viral" or what not. While Mac & Me was a bright spot in season 12, I'd hate if every film they used was similar, chasing online buzz. Of course, if they were successful in finding those types of films, that would certainly help with the projects overall sustainability. Now Joel's "the next Manos" stuff makes more sense. Say they had Manos NOW, no one had ever seen it. It becomes an instant classic, gets boffo subscribers and rentals...yeah. I understand that aspect now. That could lead to swinging for the fences with what may just be terrible, terrible films. It'll really depend on how well they riff them, I guess.
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Post by dudehitscar on May 5, 2021 13:50:34 GMT -5
Maybe this is the wrong thread for this, but the discussion of sustainability got me thinking of a potential downside for the 'Plex (keeping in mind, I'm actually pretty optimistic about its sustainability). Here's the thought--the 'Plex will provide the show with a lot of data on what people are watching and paying for. Back in the old TV days, they wouldn't get a real sense of what episodes people were positively responding to until letters (and later message board posts) started rolling in. But now, they'll be able to look at sales figures and streaming data for specific episodes. So, let's pretend season 12 had been in the 'Plex. Now, let's imagine a scenario where Mac & Me went somewhat viral and took off, resulting in 15,000 rentals at $3 a pop, and 6,000 sales at $10, all from non-subscribers. That's a pretty nice chunk of change, and might lead the producers to chase that style of movie, to try to seek out films with greater potential to "go viral" or what not. While Mac & Me was a bright spot in season 12, I'd hate if every film they used was similar, chasing online buzz. Of course, if they were successful in finding those types of films, that would certainly help with the projects overall sustainability. yeah you can see how Rifftrax having real data has pushed them in certain directions (I don't mind but a lot of folks over the years have complained about rifftrax not doing as much of a lot of different types of films that were done on old MST3K.) in the end the show needs to survive so if that means they see the data for dull western shlock like Beast of Hollow Mountain doesn't get any views and Atlantic Rim is killing it then we are likely gonna get less westerns. On the plus side by having enough guaranteed crowd pleasers maybe they can do more 'passion projects' that have a smaller audience but the team is excited about.
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Post by dudehitscar on May 5, 2021 13:56:23 GMT -5
Like I said, I really don’t see a another Kickstarter having this level of success a 3rd time round, I know I wouldn’t do it a 3rd time, and I’m sure there are MANY others who feel the same way. The Gizmoplex needs to be self sustainable, or the show will die.....or at best go crawling across its belly over broken glass to be picked up by another network. Either way, if Joel want’s the show to thrive as an independent production, then he needs this to be commercially viable! again there is a lot of room between never having a kickstarter/pledge drive thing ever again and asking for 5.5 million dollars every season. I hope they can find the balance that rifftrax has. running small ask kickstarters just to pay for movie rights of big name titles that draw a lot of buzz is a tool that mst3k should use if needed.
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Post by dudehitscar on May 5, 2021 14:07:46 GMT -5
I will refrain from asking why a huge RiffTrax financial supporter would be on a pirate forum...oops. lol. oh boy. yes you see.. the only way I would know about that forum is if I am lying about paying money to rifftrax and just downloaded everything illegally. Good spin. but wait there is this: www.reddit.com/r/Rifftrax/comments/mnnec1/rifftrax_just_found_out_about_a_popular_forum/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 For the record, unlike rifftrax, I don't hate on everyone in those forums or the folks here sharing KTMA stuff or the guy who made cinema editions of the episodes. There are legit reasons to use that forum. Last thing I downloaded from anywhere that wasn't from Rifftrax officially was a synced rifftrax over the movie twilight back when I was in the middle east living out of hotels. But I paid for the mp3. While that twilight riff was amazing I just don't bother with the 'just the jokes' riffs anymore.
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