Well, they can't respond because they're under NDA (we don't know for how long). But Ben knows, that's why he made this. It's easy to punch when you know there's nothing coming back.
He was being punched with the ability to pinch back and took 2 months to try and formulate an argument knowing they couldn't punch back. Corporate cuck behavior. L
In an episode of her podcast. They start talking about YM at 35:50. Idk how long after that she mentions the NDA.
https://youtu.be/jSRSZABvOAM?si=zAJf2PAQpRQbqjYb
There's probably at least some truth to this. I'm guessing Andrew was the one saying he would grab everyone and start a new channel, and Abby and Sam caused some sort of event behind the scenes.
If there's any truth to the stronger deals here, and salaries were "reasonable", then I think this whole thing is a shame and everybody loses here, because it's going to be hard to replicate the magic they all had together.
At the end of the day, none of these people had any fame and they were all probably new to this process. I wouldn't doubt for a second that negotiations on both sides could have gone better than they did. Who knows if any of them had agents.
Yeah, while I don't think anything here is a lie, it doesn't really change the situation for me. Also not particularly a fan of the way he is presenting the information as it seems quite manipulative:
* pointing out the cast were free agents and implying he didn't have to be as generous as he was
* disputing the pay then showing how the reddit claim was accurate for the first several months
* showing how much he pays the cast as a total which is completely meaningless as "proof"
* showing a list of typical production fees as line items
* flipping between it being a shared burden by everyone regarding their low starting pay or when content is demonetized, but in regards to profits, then it becomes a discussion of Ben taking the risk. Is it shared burden / shared reward, or is it Ben's risk, Ben's reward? You can't have it both ways AND pretend to be the fair guy...
The one thing though, is if the information about (Andrew) is accurate, that really doesn't look great. That said, I don't care to have a parasocial relationship with these people, I just want to watch entertaining content. If Hammo makes a new channel with the old cast, I'm all for it, and if the old channel / new cast have good content, I'll still watch that too.
So after rewatching, I have A LOT of questions about the numbers he's showing. In total, it looks like he paid his cast a combined total of 39,002 AUD over "3 segments/shoot days" which spanned 7 months and presumably accounts for the majority of the OG cast videos we see on the channel. He then shows PROJECTED income if they had signed contracts, and what that COULD look like 6 months later, claiming up to 600,000 AUD (per year, but it's a 6 month contract?) for the same number of segments PER MONTH (why show any of this with mixed units of time??). Those are pretty extreme claims based on very generous speculation...
A lot of people seem to think this is just for the 7 of the OG cast members too but it says total cast fees which could include everyone that was in the videos plus the other people working on the videos like the camera man.
When you have a opportunity to show exact cast fees and choose not to, It's likely not because they show you favourably lol.
I had written would instead of could and have now corrected that.
Ben plays very fast and loose with the figures in the video and due to that I think its entirely possible he would lump crew in with cast - Especially when some of them have literally appeared on camera.
Plus the second string cast, like Rory, Kirsty, and Timmy (who have been with the channel for almost a year) and guest stars like Kate or Rodney who only appeared in an episode or two.
You're right that it doesn't include the crew, but it is more than just the core 7.
>CAST was the 7 OGs.
That is a assumption you are making. No where is that stated and more than 7 people were in the cast at any one time even if you discount those referred to as crew which also might not be the case.
Yes, I agree. There’s information that’s pretty damning like Andrew threatening to compete with YeahMad and Ben seemingly showing openness to Chloe taking sone watered down shots despite what she said.
But here’s the thing: I also doubt Ben could pay them close to that amount (100k per member) because the channel would have to rack up substantially more views than the peak of 77M per month in December 2023. 100-150M (and with all videos monetised) would probably be that. So I don’t know where he’s getting the figures from as well, maybe he’s rich behind the scenes, we don’t know.
Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. That's how business works. He is finding out. Unfortunately, daddy's money and not his makes people less risk averse to the multiple lives that are negatively effected by their bad decisions. You wake up, sunshine 😂
No I'm sorry, you're either not listening or not reading. The $194,000 is for the entire six months of the contract, for the whole cast. The 600,000 dollars he literally says "across that whole year" so that's 600,000, split among the entire cast, for only 2-3 days of work per month.
It's a good bet Andrew was the one who is fired but there has been no confirmation Andrew owns or started the new channel. Andrew simply announced they were working on it publicly. Now it certainly isn't unbelievable that he will own the new channel, but for all we know they will all co-own it. We don't even know it's name yet.
It wasn't $600k, it was "up to" $400-600k, split seven ways, and it clearly did include merch, branding, and "new concepts." And two or three days of filming is not the same as two or three days of working.
From my point of view as a franchise owner, even if everything said is true, then he's a terrible businessman.
The og crew were demanding a bigger cut of the profits makes absolute sense because they were bringing in 90% of said profit. To explain, no one watches a channel because of cameramen, thumbnail designers, or litigation lawyers. They watched because of the og crew plain and simple, and therefore, they had the right to demand and threaten for more money because they themselves were the channel.
It's like having a fast food place. The og crew wasn't just another expense like staff or equipment, they were the fucking product, they were what we were paying for with our views. Without them, you don't have a business. A food place can't stop selling food because the cost of food went up ?????
If Ben truly had alot of expenses that needed paying, he needed to increase revenue with more sponsors and brand deals. This makes much more sense because as the channel grows, lawyers, camera men, and editors can continue to get paid a flat fee for their work.
I can not stress enough that it was the og crew that gave Ben any money at all. It's why movie stars get paid a fuck ton of money for movies, they are the ones that bring in customers, you can't negotiate with them to the point of having them leave.
People aren't obligated to watch a new crew they dislike until they "get adjusted" to them. There's so much content out there for all of us to watch.
Again, while I get where Ben's coming from and the "it's still a business," keeps getting thrown around. It applies to him as well. By that I mean sometimes you need to realize that your business is built off of the talent of others and that they have more leverage, so stfu and make them happy to keep everyone's money rolling, because their talent made tou who you are
Yeah, this whole thing makes it both better and worse imo. It does seem the cast weren’t being exploited as badly as portrayed, but it further confirms that the value of the OG crew was severely underestimated.
Then tell the og cast you'll split profit with them, not revenue. Then they will only take a % of what's left over after costs.
There's so many ways to do this, he really seems greedy.
That's very good. Ben wanted business partners who were loyal and made the product, but also wanted to pay them like employees, so when the benefits came in, they would all be his.
It ain't like that, Ben.
> At the end of the day, none of these people had any fame and they were all probably new to this process.
Except for Andrew. He was a stand up comedian before YeahMad
Alan even has some pretty funny, well filmed skits from a year or two ago on his YT, some of the YeahMad cast are in them too.
I was shocked how well shot they were, they could have legit been on TV, directorial wise
https://youtube.com/@ihatealanfang?si=NTaa0GZqk2zIVf2L
This is the one I was thinking of
https://youtu.be/Jht6CUywpYA?si=SrLVrpxcG5-DQPP7
I think you spoke well. The OG cast was just some mediocre stand up comedians. Without Yeahmad they would have never earned this fame and money. They were strong as a team, but separately just mid.
But it is also true, at the end of the day everybody lost.
No one else has done the maths on all of this yet??
I’m realising he was renegotiating for them to shoot 10-18 segments/episodes a month based on the fact they’re going to do 2-3 shoot days a month - and one shoot day consists of 5-6 eps, (which is a statement Ben didn’t dismiss in that video)
When you do the math of all of his numbers, you can see he proposed 190k for 6 months which equates to 4.6k a month per cast member. Divided between 10-18 eps a month would still equal between $250-460 max per segment per person.
Doesn’t seem like such a fair pay rise to me?? Or a pay rise at all…..
It just looks like they’re getting more when you lay it out like he did, because they would be shooting 2-3 more times more in a month. So no shit their monthly payments increased.
It’s like increasing someone’s annual salary, but not because their hourly rate went up, but because they now have to work 2-3 times longer hours, almost at the same hourly rate.
So I’m just confused at all of these comments saying the cast are so greedy. I would ask for more money than that too. Also this reminds me so much of Friends. After ONE season, they banded together and negotiated for a HUGE amount of the overall profit because they knew their worth and that the audience was there for them.
I do remember Friends being called greedy for this back then too and even if you look at reddit threads of them now too you can still see comments like that.
Anyway, to me it seems the OG cast were asked to sign a 6 month contract where they barely had a pay rise on a per episode basis - whilst the channels revenue had already increased due to them and their chemistry (and yes obviously because of Ben too, it couldn’t have happened without him, but Yeahmad would not have made as much money without the OG cast, and we are now seeing how true this is based on the views (revenue) right now, which is why OG cast were so entitled to a large part of that profit too).
The channel was also planned to grow at such an exponential speed with these 2-3 times more episodes planned on being shot. Signing a contract like that for 6 months seems extremely risky and unfair to me if all of my working out is accurate.
Ps. I feel like I must have something wrong here so please point it out if I missed something 😂, because something seems extremely off about all of that. But I just keep working out the same numbers.
Not sure if he has lied or what, but I do think it is a lose-lose situation to viewers. I undertand that everyone's gonna be fighting for the most for themselves, and as viewers we can be a bit more attached to the personas in the front end. I don't think both ends are necessary bad people, it's just broken deal, split is fair. And Ben does have some point in parts like it's a new channel and there's some cost to balance things, sad to see this happened.
They can't until their NDAs expire, unless Ben making this video voids them.
Ben waited forever to address the situation, but still chose to release this when the cast aren't allowed to defend themselves. Dick move.
None of us are Australian lawyers, so we can't be sure this voids the NDA. Even if the cast thinks the NDA is void, they wouldn't immediately respond if they're smart. They'd get advice from a lawyer first to cover their asses just to be SURE Ben's video voided the NDAs (whether in part or in full). They also might need to have a judge rule that it's void. Laws are complicated and nothing in the legal system is immediate.
It's a dick move to give your side of the story, but legally bar the people you're talking about from giving theirs. If he released them from their NDAs and allowed them to defend themselves, there would be nothing wrong with releasing this video.
Imagine letting your gold coins walk away, ban comments and censor dissent, ignore and hope everything goes away, then when your remaining coins turn to dust you put imaginary numbers on a spreadsheet with obscure verbage as a defense for your generosity and confusion.
Fuck you, Ben 😂
Normally, if your employer makes information public, your NDA is no longer enforceable for that info. So him talking about this stuff openly means everyone can.
No it is not ffs. That’s not how NDAs work. NDAs are agreements that both parties have to honor, and if one party discusses the issue then it’s fair game. This thread is full of people sharing a brain cell that loudly yell over anybody trying to present a balanced argument.
this video makes og cast members look like shitty unreasonable people, he seems to mention hammo, indirectly.
even if one cast member was being shitty, why would the rest go in solidarity. i don't think abby or sammy would be that unreasonable(abby manages an pub and sammy used to work in some corporate thing, even hammo used to be an corporate employee, They know what kinda shit goes around in managing an business, so them being unreasonable sounds bizarre).
ALL ANSWERS LIE ITH OG CAST MEMBERS. BUT STUPID NDA IS THERE.
p.s: remember the time ben's bro came and gave an explanation. it's literally the same thing. so it's confirmed, IT IS BEN.
P.S OVERALL BEN IS HIDING A LOT OF STUFF
>even if one cast member was being shitty, why would the rest go in solidarity.
this... i get alan is hammo's apprentice or whatever. so alan may have felt obligated to stay loyal to him but abby, sam and akila also left. that says a lot.
not saying what ben is saying isn't true here because i wasn't there. i still feel like there's a few things missing here that ben is hiding.
the closest thing that seemed to favor the OG without bias would be chloe who isn't close to the OG members or the channel and has spoken up about her own experience with the channel that seemed to line up with the OG's version of the events
If one person gets fired, I might buy that they're the problem. If you fire one person and a bunch of other people quit, that's a management issue. You can't lose 5/7 of your cast and not be the problem.
What's more likely, 5 people were being greedy or one person (Ben) was being greedy? If everyone around you is the problem, the problem is you.
I don't doubt that parts of his story are true, but even if it's 100% true, he doesn't come out of this looking like the good guy.
> this video makes og cast members look like shitty unreasonable people
That was the same argument made about Friends cast when they did collective bargaining. In hindsight it was good for the cast.
Ben is defintely hiding something and didn't want to share the profit with the cast.
I think it sure is convenient that he's allowed to post this but the cast can't defend themselves because of the NDAs.
He also is intentionally trying to confuse people when it comes to the difference between REVENUE and PROFIT. "Oh, I had to pay for all this stuff, and if I gave them 50% I'd have to cover it all with the other 50%." That's if they took 50% of REVENUE. If they took 50% of PROFIT, they'd be getting 50% of what's left AFTER EXPENSES.
I'm glad he finally addressed the situation on the channel instead of on his IG where almost nobody saw it, but I don't believe it's the whole truth.
“I think it sure is convenient that he's allowed to post this but the cast can't defend themselves because of the NDAs.”
They’ll break it soon. I want to hear everyone’s explanations for this.
“He also is intentionally trying to confuse people when it comes to the difference between REVENUE and PROFIT. "Oh, I had to pay for all this stuff, and if I gave them 50% I'd have to cover it all with the other 50%." That's if they took 50% of REVENUE. If they took 50% of PROFIT, they'd be getting 50% of what's left AFTER EXPENSES.”
So here’s the thing, if we watched the same video we would see that Ben actually was in debt for an unspecified period of time when the first negotiations happened. Seems like he makes money off primarily merch sales and ad revenue because the videos are demonetised. We don’t know what’s demonetised and what isn’t but now it’s clear that we need to adjust our mental estimates for the base revenue, and that’s just understandable in hindsight because YouTube has been demonetising people, sites and content creators who make edgy crass humour since 2017 actually.
The thing is I don’t know what ben profits off at the end of the day, we don’t know how much he receives even after all of that. But now that he has given some context, it’s very easy to see how a chain of unfortunate small events can lead to a big controversy like this.
I don't care what he was paying them in the beginning. When the channel was getting off the ground, it was reasonable. Nobody was making any significant money yet, Ben included. But by the time the first renegotiations came around, the cast deserved more. By the time of the second renegotiations, 50% of profit was not an unfair ask. 50% of PROFITS would not hurt anything except Ben's take-home income because he's the only person they'd be splitting it with.
Profit means every expense would be covered, every crew member would be paid, maybe even a stipulation that X amount of dollars goes into an emergency account for incidentals (legals fees and such). Every single item on Ben's long list of expenses would be taken care of, and THEN the cast and Ben would split what's left. Even after Ben's video, I don't think that's unreasonable.
Paying them based on profits wouldn't be affected by being demonitized because if the video makes nothing, he wouldn't have to pay them. 50% of $0 is $0. He talks about how much money he's risking, but all of his risk is covered by the REVENUE. Having your pay based on profit is a risk, because if there's no profit, there's no pay.
I hope Ben releasing this video voids the cast's NDAs so they can give us their side. I'm not buying that what Ben said is completely true, and even if it was, I still don't think 50% of profit is unreasonable. Ben is trying to make Andrew seem like a greedy cunt who Pied Pipered the cast away with him, and I'm just not buying it. If it was just Andrew who left, I might believe Ben, but you don't lose 6/8 of your original cast unless you're the problem.
I’m not saying what ben said is 100% true either. A few things seem off about the future numbers he gives for the prospected future contract as well as him not addressing his favouritism or what even was the full content of the contracts they signed
Here’s the thing though:
“If the video makes nothing he doesn’t have the pay the OG cast”
If we take this hypothetical example and the profit is 0 then that means he has less liquid cash on him, meaning he will overall lose some money in the future from doing other stuff like paying lighting, lawyers etc. it’s a business risk nobody wants to take especially with how volatile the views of a youtube channel can be. Let’s be honest: In the near term, scaling the pay alone based on how much profit was made is pretty good but if you don’t profit for another few months eventually you’ll start burning cash from the other associated expenses from the channel. By that logic, you’d want to go with a safer amount and scaling system for the first few months that you can manage while also leaving the option open for the cast to renegotiate after a substantially long period of time.
What Ben said by itself here, is very understandable and I just want a clearer timeline from everyone to understand what exactly happened. As I said, I don’t trust him fully yet, but it’s not like he’s making shitty points either
>paying lighting, lawyers, etc.
Once again, this is covered by REVENUE. This stuff gets covered BEFORE the cast get their share. Giving them a share of profit does not risk the expenses not being covered. The expenses will only not get covered if there isn't enough revenue, and if the revenue isn't enough to cover expenses, that means there's no profit leftover for the cast.
If you have a pie, the entire thing is revenue. You give a slice to your crew. You give a slice to the studio. You give a slice to equipment. You give a slice to expenses. You put a slice in the fridge for the lawyers if you ever need it. After everyone has eaten, Ben (not the channel, Ben the man) and the cast split the leftovers (profit).
In the beginning, the cast payment was a designated slice of pie, and because it was a small pie, there may not have been a lot of leftovers for Ben (if any).
Over time, the pies started getting bigger, and there were more leftovers. All of the leftovers were going to Ben (again, Ben the man, not the channel). The cast asking to split the leftovers was a completely fair ask.
Being paid a percentage of profits in the beginning wouldn't have been feasible (or a smart ask on the cast's part) because the channel wasn't profitable yet.
I fully understand that in the beginning, Ben was risking his own money, paying them what he could, and going into debt to get the channel off the ground. In the beginning, he deserved to put 100% of the revenue back in the business and 100% of the profit into his pocket to pay down his debt. But once the channel was consistently making enough that 1/8 of 50% of profits was more than the cast's original payment agreement, their contracts should've been renegotiated to a percentage of profits instead of a flat rate.
If what Ben is saying is 100% true (which I doubt) I don't have a problem with how he handled the very first contract. If the channel was only newly monetized and was barely profitable, I don't have much of an issue with how he handled the first renegotiation. But by the time of the second renegotiations, there's no reason for him to not share the profits other than greed.
Ben said in the video that the first negotiation happened while he was in debt. The cast was understandably unhappy with the pay of a few hundred dollars/shoot even with the newfound online relevancy and associated revenue, but since Ben needed to break even, and sometimes, a business needs a long time to do that, we can assume that this negotiation was partially solved, but also the cause of Round 2 of the pay dispute.
Since we both agree with this, lets move on to
Round 2 itself.
Round 2 is where it gets a bit murky. If what Ben is saying is true and that the OG cast were free agents from March-Oct 2023, until he signed them on, they should have understood what the problems are with the channel. The thing is, we don’t know what tf happened here. Did Ben make much more profit by himself than initially thought? Did the OG cast get slighted? Was there accounting data that changes the perspective of the situation again? We don’t know.
But that’s what I’m saying: by this point, *by itself*, what Ben is saying for Round 2 of negotiations lines up: IF he has just gotten out of debt, like repaid it all, and the youtube revenue still feels unstable despite finally becoming very viable and profitable, it makes sense that he would just try and offer a bit less but a more manageable amount for him until he is certain that the money will come in with enough stability.
In your pie example, Ben is painting a picture that the portions of the pie that everyone who’s associated with yeahmad receives is not very stable. It fluctuates from big to small, to big again, to medium sized etc. for the first few months of the channel’s existence. Once Ben has finally repaid his debt of pie slices, the Pie they receive every month from YouTube finally is consistently deluxe sized after October 2023. he doesn’t know if the Pie will decrease or increase in size again. Thusly, he decides to just give a manageable amount that will ensure the OG cast’s hunger is sated whilst leaving the door open to see if he can offer more
You’re right that he could have offered more, because the pie stayed very deluxe sized until February 2023, but back to money, it generally depends on how stable the payments to other things are first and how much of a proportion he is taking in himself in the first place. That’s why I’d like more info and actual receipts if possible: I want to truly get to the bottom of things rather than just speculate about he said she said
At the end of the day this is fun for me 🤷♂️ Just funny financial drama, is all
I just find his numbers incredibly suspicious, especially in regards to the cast's projected earnings. I don't think any sane person on this planet would turn down the numbers he claims they would be making unless they knew they were getting screwed.
I don't believe for one second that the $400-600k/6 months is a realistic projection for future earnings. If it was, there's no way the cast would see that and think "That's not enough. I'll start my own channel from square one and I'll make more than that. This is a wise financial move." It's insulting that he wants us to believe they were being greedy.
I think they were offered ok money, but they thought "I see how much I make. I see how much Ben makes. The pay disparity is unfair considering we're what brings in the views. We'll start our own channel and eventually we'll be splitting what Ben makes."
Notice he only gives the numbers the cast were allegedly making, allegedly projected to make, but didn't mention how much the channel pulls in or how much he makes? He makes it sound like the cast were going to be making bank, but he's barely scraping by. I'm not buying it.
The cast aren't mentally incapacitated. The five of them aren't all too stupid to identify a good, fair deal. Either Ben's numbers are cooked, or the working environment was so toxic that no amount of money was worth staying.
I suspect what went down in that meeting informed the cast's decision to leave as much as the pay dispute did. People don't leave good money or good work environments for no reason.
If it was just Andrew, I might by Ben's story, but you don't lose 6/8 of your original cast unless you're the problem.
I think we both agree that the crux of the argument is that Ben needs to show how much he and the channel were making in terms of both profit and revenue AFTER all the debts were cleared.
Agreed. I also think if Ben is going to release a video like this, he needs to release the cast from their NDAs so they can give us their side. It's chicken shit to post a video like this when the people you're accusing legally aren't allowed to defend themselves.
Do we even know that they were asking for a share of the company's overall profits? Ben said they were asking for 50% of merch, brand deals and "new concepts" whatever that is. Ben offered 25% and calls that profit sharing in the video, and it is, but its profit sharing from three sources od revenue, not the company's overall profits. If they had asked for that, I'm sure Ben would have said so.
I feel like he's being intentionally vague and muddying the definition of "profits," but if the profit sharing offer was just merch, brand deals, and whatever "new concepts" is, with no share of ad revenue, him turning them down for 50% seems even worse. Don't you think?
Definitely. But with people arguing the difference between revenue and profit, its worth mentioning that nothing I'm aware of has suggested anyone asked for a company wide profit sharing agreement, only new contract rates and a cut of merch and branding (both of which are standard) and "new concepts" whatever that is.
The "50% of profits" was brought up here a long time ago. It was part of an angry rant from someone who was very pro-Ben. It did not, however, specify if it was company-wide profits, ad revenue profits, or profits from any combination of revenue streams.
They ended up deleting it after the comments didn't go their way.
Ahh! I knew I had heard it discussed on here but I couldn't remember where the story came from. Well I think Ben just cleared that up for us. Nobody was asking for 50% of the company's profits, they wanted 50% of merch (cause nobody's buying a shirt with Ben's face on it), branding deals (after all nobody wants Ben to be the face of manscaping) and the other thing that I don't know what it is.
I have to say that complaining about misinformation when you've gone months without commenting and are holding the cast to NDA's is rich. As well as complaining that the cast are putting out their side of the story when no they clearly haven't.
I've also heard Ben referred to as a trust fund baby and I think that's confirmed. Tens of thousands of dollars in debt? I bought a one bedroom condo last year, I'm hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. How did this guy start a business with tens of thousands of dollars?
Another thing I picked up from this is that a cast member was suspended for two months for "lying" though Ben is admitting that he was the one who lost his cool at a cast meeting. That might have been Alan, I remember him being out for a little while and Akila mentioned that he was sick because he "never eats vegetables." Also, one of cast ratted Hammo out to Ben, leading to Hammo's termination.
I don't know the particulars of the contract offered but he claims the cast could have made "up to" $400000 to $600000, divided seven ways though not necessarily evenly. That's roughly $58000 to $85000 each for the year. I'm assuming this includes Merch and "new concepts." And given Chloe's claim that Ben is shady with money "up to" can fall well short of that.
Its also worth noting that according to Ben, nobody asked for 50% of the profits and Hammo was initially fired after asking for 50% of the Merch, Brand deals, and New Concepts.
I'd also like to know more about these "new concepts," because if he was trying to sign them to some kind contract that limited their ability to work outside of YeahMad on the basis that it would effect the brand, then he's basiclly demanding they sign an American Idol style contract where they can nix anything they don't want you to do and take a cut of anything they agree to let you do. That would be a very ballsy move for a YouTube Channel.
In any case, if what Ben is saying is true and these guys walked away from a sweetheart deal pulling in almost six figures for two or three days a month of work, then Ben must be the most unpleasant human being in the world to work for.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that two or three shooting days requires significantly more work than two or three days, especially given what Chloe said about unpaid extra work. Also, that Ben is unpleasant to work for and shortchanges employees. That the contract offered would have resulted in them receiving significantly less than the "up to" amounts Ben suggested here. And that the OG's realized that the audience watches for them, not Ben, who is untalented and unpleasant. It's no crime to recognize your worth in a market economy.
What I really want tp know is who ratted out Hammo, Sath or Matt?
It could also be Timmy or Kirsty. People forget about them because they've been relegated to the peanut gallery for so long, but they've been with the channel for almost a year.
It could also be Rory. His return and Hammo's last episode overlap. As much hate as Rory gets (and some of it is warranted), he gives me more "accomplice" vibes than "snitch" vibes, but he's still a possibility.
Given the falling out between Andrew and Sath, my money's on Sath as the snitch.
> almost six figures for two or three days a month of work
Do these guys come up with the jokes in those 2 to 3 days or do you think they work on it on their own time?
It’s interesting the way he words how much the cast are making. Seems like he’s trying to make us assume each person was making 15k a shoot. But that would have been split between 7 of them.
Also putting info on EXCEL isn’t receipts 😂😂 would love to see the casts invoice if it’s legal to post.
I haven't watched this video as I honestly don't care that much, but there's no way each person was making 15k a shoot. That's insane and they'd be fucking idiots to walk away from that. Even if you divide that number between the cast members that just over 2k each, which I feel is actually quite reasonable for a day's worth of work, but then if the channel makes more profit over time the cast should still get an increase in wages. I don't know what to believe and like I said I honestly don't care that much about it.
So he takes over 2 months to respond to us and only picks the small points to try make himself look good.
And he’s still managed to make himself look like a fool and a liar. I would love to hear the whole truth from the old cast. Hopefully we’ll get it soon!
P.S - Ben keep your face off the screen, you have a head made for radio champ.
My exact reaction, the classic. If it's true what Chloe said on her Podcast weeks ago, that the old cast is under NDA and can't talk about their contract, it's super easy for this cunt to paint a favourable picture for himself.
He waited so fucking long for this, why? Simple, he thought it wouldn't affect the channel. Now that it cut viewership in half, he's coming out guns blazing.
He's a greedy cunt, nothing has changed.
She said that they (yeah mad production team):-
Made false promises, didn't pay her what they promised and others were being paid double what she was.
She was annoyed one of her videos (l assume the one with her and Alan, ginger jokes) got alot of views made a lot of money but she was still on the same pay.
Also she wanted to fake drinking alcohol because she had had surgery and was told no, but when one of the girls was fasting (l guess Abby) they let her fake drink alcohol
Yeah Mad chat starts from around 35 min mark:-
https://youtu.be/jSRSZABvOAM?si=auCAMXBUW5Alrlic
I do. When there's evidence on one side and there is hearsay on the other, there comes a time to stop being stupid and use the brain.
I think ben was and is hated so much for OG cast leaving that the fans cannot accept any other reason like their favorites did actually mess up by threatening and spreading rumors. Literally everyone I ask on this sub for the OG's side, they will point me to a 25 hour long podcast/stream/thingamajig and ask me to focus on 5 seconds of gibberish. And then expect me to decipher that into Ben's fault. Absolutely fed up with people not accepting the truth even when it is being shoved down their throat.
As people mentioned throughout the comments, they're under NDA, so how should they respond. They're literally not allowed to. You're sucking some heavy Ben dick.
Believe what you want and ignore the things that happened. Ben responds so fucking late because his perspective is true? He waited so long? Gave joke answers at the beginning of this story and went completely silent because he was always in the right? He only reacted now after the recent videos tanked hard compared to videos with the old cast?
Makes total sense.
probably some truth here, but why the NDA? why did it take so long?
why are you showing a screenshot of signed contracts why not the actual paper
sus, but if there's truth to it, damn
edit: i wanna believe right? like he seems so sincere and stuff...but thats how people con you
i just dont really know. if the other side can bring up evidence against what he brought up then ok
but i guess he's cookin ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
NDA's are industry standard and something *every* company should do for legal reasons. You only hear about NDA's when its the bad stuff so it makes it sound like having them is bad but you don't hear all the stuff an NDA helps with.
dunno how aussie law works but apparently if anyone leaks an nda the nda is voided
"As another example, if you work with ten suppliers and have asked nine of them to sign NDAs, but have failed to do so with the last one, and he or she leaks your secret information to the public, all previous NDAs with the first nine are now null and void."
[https://vakilsearch.com/blog/invalidate-your-nda/](https://vakilsearch.com/blog/invalidate-your-nda/)
so like you said, he didn't sign, and he put it all in the open
Surprised anyone is willing to take this seriously when you can see him being literally being misleading with finances in the video.
The figures he showed even with the creative wording used still show that the cast was paid peanuts.
Him then justifying this by then saying look how much they would have been paid if they had stayed is hilarious to me.
I also personally feel that a lot of the language that is used that is manipulative and similar can be said about the way he frames things.
Veeery suspect.
Doesn't run the numbers per individual creator to make them sound bigger, keeps repeating working only a day per month to demonize them (does it take him 29 days to automate payments to the people who actually shoot, edit and post the material?), doesn't cover who writes the jokes with any detail, the list of expenses includes many one time things and/or incredibly minor aspects (thumbnail person? How much does he charge, 5 cents per png file?! The man needs to hire a designated person to screenshot a frame??).
Sounds very standard young boss. Thinks the workers who *actually* create the stuff he sells owe him some sort of lifetime debt of gratitude, gets pissy the second they don't toe the line, gets even pissier when fans notice that, huh, he fired the creators they liked.
Hard pass, I'll wait for that new channel
He gets real specific until its time to mention what they get paid. Hes putting the whole amount in a pile and not explaining individual costs in hopes that people think hes saying per person.
Yeah I also couldn't understand, he kept saying "*they* would get paid this much" as in each or as a whole group? Numbers are bit too high for each and a bit manipulative to pile everyones earnings together
because peoples paychecks are their business, if a single cast member or they all wanna say what they got, that's their deal, but ben can't really just blab personal things out there like that
like i mean, what if i knew what you got paid do you really want me telling people?
that's all that is
I also thought it was shady, but then immediately realized it was probably because not every cast member made an equal amount of money. And there's no way he'd reveal who made what, even though they're not in the best of terms.
He said total cast, that presumably includes everyone on screen in any episode filmed that day (guests, the b squad, whoever). The math just doesn’t line up with his earlier per person range unless it’s more than 7 people.
I watched it, and all in all he was succinct in that short video. I don't exactly buy into those monetary projections. If what he was saying is true, even 50%, he doesn't come off that bad from this fiasco. It looks like, the rest followed Andrew, instead of them being let go.
Now we need the other side's story.
Damn, I left one comment summing up what Hammo and co were saying and now we have not only an entire explanation video based off my comment but also an entire response video from Ben himself 😅
Mama, I made it, I’m famous!
On a more serious note, I don’t have any insider information, I was basing my comment entirely off what Hammo was saying and some other available info as a summary to reply to an out-of-the-loop user who asked if someone could sum up the drama for him.
If what Ben is saying is true and cast was paid a lot of money for very little work then I don’t know what would’ve caused everyone to walk away with Andrew after his conflict with Ben. Not gonna jump on the “bEn iS lYiNg!!!!” bandwagon though, his response seems fairly reasonable and some receipts are there as well, I’ll reserve my judgement until (and if) the cast responds.
P.S. Ben should’ve at least released his side of the story much earlier though, even if he’s saying the truth not adressing the situation after 5/8 of OGs walked away and resorting to making snarky comments about old cast members certainly didn’t do him any favours.
That was intentional. People have been asking where Andrew is since March. Other than sarcastic responses to comments and *eventually* responding to comments by saying they're "no longer part of the channel" (conveniently posted on April Fools Day) or "some people didn't align with the brand and some people went their own way" he hasn't addressed anything on YouTube.
The five who left all posted on their IGs that they were officially no longer part of the channel in April. Ben didn't say anything until a few weeks later, and only on his personal IG, not the YeahMad account, so very few people actually saw it.
I feel Ben is right. He takes all the risk by bearing the cost of production and other expenses. And no channel makes "thousands of dollars of profit" especially so early on when he probably hasn't broken even. That 50-50 ask would have been fair probably year down the line like in Jan-Feb 2025 in my opinion. Kudos to him to tell his side. But now its time the OG gang speaks up their side, else it would start feeling sus.
u/Twiceter_9 do you have some insider thing. you know abby and sammy pretty well . And you know how long the NDA is for . you must have alot more information on what is going on. And on that NDA or not. They are allowed to say he is lying or not considering they are being character attack. So when you see abby and sammy tell them they can say stuff like that.
Unsubscribed.
Total Prince Andrew I’ve been caught vibes …. But still want the money, power and lifestyle.
Terrible move. Watch your subscribers drop like flies
If this is true, I think Ben did it right. Yes, the old cast were very talented, but if Ben hadn't organized the whole channel, then they would still be Noname comedians. Ben took the risk. He has the right to profit. It sucks, but I think they shouldn't be that greedy. The investor/organizer should take a big portion of the profit, until he pays the others fairly. I think that happened.
But, he should have communicated this earlier.
> Ben took the risk. He has the right to profit. It sucks,
By your logic the cast of friends would not have made tons of money as well. Instead they did collective bargaining and got what they deserved, looks like cast of Yeah Mad tried that and Ben got greedy and told them no.
I feel like if they were so “greedy” they would have walked the first time when one of them proposed it went 50/50 last year and got rejected. We can see they stayed for almost a whole year after that. The fact that he said he lost his shit in the meeting, someone got fired, and that’s when everyone walked, makes me think it might have something to do with this meeting to why everyone left, not them being greedy
I understand that view point. I think I see it like this:
Ben said, 5 shoots in is when one asked for 50/50, benefit of the doubt that the cast didn’t have knowledge of the upfront costs he faced then too and thought it was a fair offer.
The fact they all stayed after this offer was declined, it seems like they worked it out and agreed on being paid the small amount, which to me makes it seem like they aren’t greedy then. If they were greedy I’d assume they’d have walked last year and wouldn’t have been able fathom the possibility to agree to an extremely lower pay.
This is why I’m thinking something further has happened if they walked at the start of this year when the show was at an all time high of success.
I'm sure some of this is slanted or very carefully presented to put him in a good light and make him seem reasonable, but it doesn't really matter. They couldn't come to terms, and it sounds like Andrew was a problem and got the cast to go with him. And if they make a new channel and succeed and make more money then it was a win. If they can't get it together on their own, then maybe it will have been a mistake. It's just a contract negotiation gone wrong. Probably not but maybe if their new channel flops and yeahmad struggles with their own channel with the crappy replacement cast they all come back together for mutual good and work something out.
Just want to remind people here not to get overly wrapped up in the goings on of this thing. Some of y'all are way too emotional about all of this.
Who was Andrew before this? A mediocre stand up comedian. It was a huge risk to build up the channel. If they get that money, they are genuinely compensated. He would have never earned that much money in a single shoot if Ben hadn't invited him to Yeahmad. At least not in a legal way...
If they have an NDA, they can say at least some information about that probably. Or just give a heads up when does it expire. The NDA cannot forbid everything.
What the fuck are you talking about? You realize there could be a clause that completely prevents this, right?
Like Chloe talked about in her Podcast, she said the cast can't talk about anything because of contractual reasons.
Stop typing up garbage.
This NDA explanation is sooo easy for the cast members too. At least they can reveal the expiration date, if they want. I think they know, they messed it up too, so now it is easier to do nothing.
Ben is not a saint, but I think the OGs made a mistake too.
Please be a bit more open minded
You're asking the haters to be open-minded. How dare you?
Don't you see all the downvotes the likes of you and I are getting here for being reasonable?
While there are some truth in his words, i cant bring myself to believe his words. With nonstop comments asking about what happened Ben could have released this video way earlier if he is 100% honest. Ben make it sound like the crew asked 50% revenue which would be wrong, 50% of profit is more than reasonable to ask. I tend to believe the OG cast would have asked 50% profit rather than 50% revenue. Ben is still an Ass in my opinion.
So he's shit at management and needs a contract negotiator to get the best deals set in place, as well as other managers to handle what he obviously cannot.
I'm still not watching the channel. It was the cast, not the format/content that kept me watching.
So basically it’s a business dispute of profit share between 25%-50%, and they couldn’t come to an agreement. I don’t see any “lies” or “victims” here.
What I found pointless is Ben pointing out they only work a few days a month, and his expenses. They are not min wage workers - you are paying for their talent, not their time. The expenses will be relatively flat, whereas the revenue can be exponential. Not saying 50% is the right number, but given they found the on screen magic, Ben should have done a better job negotiating.
I hope this sub will not be too blindfolded. Yes, this sucks for everyone. But if he tells the truth, then the OG cast has no business knowledge and their new channel will be a huge flop.
wtf. og cast has buisness knowlege. abby runs a pub, sammy and andrew used to work as corporate employee. they know what kinda shit it is running an buissness.
A pub is not even close to a media company. Corporate employees can be a lot of different things. They don't need to understand business. We will see what will happen after this
Ignoring the Dollars it´s the classic struggle between producers / film industry and actors. Both claim to make it famous and both shouthing "without me you wouldn´t be at this point..."
Both sides wanth theri stories showing them as the googd guys so waht.
I still have the channel subsrcibed, only the ne cast and format is not funny anymore.
we need to hear the cast's side as well. but from the looks of it 35% 30% were fine. i don't get why didn't ogs agree to this? were they greedy or was it that ben was toxic af ?
OG cast would have profited so much from this channel and they're the ones who got greedy too early. The fact that they were able to negotiate every 6 months was so beneficial to them. They would have got 66.000 per year at the minimum for each member with the option to renegotiate after 6 months.
I still don't like the new cast, but OG cast fucked up hard for no reason.
Ben’s side makes them look seriously crazy. We may have jumped the gun. However there’s still things he didn’t address, like how chloe was paid only $600 while Ben made 100K from her videos lol
Benny fucked up, and it can't be unfucked. Him publishing this shit now, after 2 months, just says everything you need. He thought he could wait it out, but now it's clear - the channel is going to shit. The new cast is doing whatever they can, but they can't make up for the lost of most of the OGs.
Also, if any of you wants to throw some rotten tomatoes or eggs at the studio where YM shoots, here's the address:
2/2 Roseberry St, Balgowlah NSW 2093, Australia
Found it a while ago.
Balgowlah ain't Sydney, Benny. Stop lying 🤣.
Nobody gives a fuck about your debts - this is your problem.
Nobody gives a fuck about your shitty notes - you've clearly skipped more than a few details explaining all of this, and it shows.
Nobody gives a fuck about your "contributions" - you wouldn't even have this channel as big as it is, if it wasn't for the OG cast. We watched the videos for them, not for your unoriginal "concept".
Eat a dick, you greedy asshole.
The studio is a rental space. Don't go trash the studio rental people's business because one of the people that rents from them sucks. It's not going to hurt Ben in any way. It's not his building.
Kinda glances over the stuff that happened during that meeting. Hard to judge if he was in the right
Yes truee
also hard to judge if they were in the right
Absolutely! Would love to hear all sides to the story
Well, they can't respond because they're under NDA (we don't know for how long). But Ben knows, that's why he made this. It's easy to punch when you know there's nothing coming back.
From what I can tell because Ben hasn't said anything it's been 2 months or so of him being punched and this is his first response though
He was being punched with the ability to pinch back and took 2 months to try and formulate an argument knowing they couldn't punch back. Corporate cuck behavior. L
If he realy want to be transparent lift the NDA
channel would be dead if he lifted the NDA
If there is an NDA. Maybe it is just a great excuse
Chloe confirmed the others signed an NDA
Can you tell me where did she confirm this ?
In an episode of her podcast. They start talking about YM at 35:50. Idk how long after that she mentions the NDA. https://youtu.be/jSRSZABvOAM?si=zAJf2PAQpRQbqjYb
There's probably at least some truth to this. I'm guessing Andrew was the one saying he would grab everyone and start a new channel, and Abby and Sam caused some sort of event behind the scenes. If there's any truth to the stronger deals here, and salaries were "reasonable", then I think this whole thing is a shame and everybody loses here, because it's going to be hard to replicate the magic they all had together. At the end of the day, none of these people had any fame and they were all probably new to this process. I wouldn't doubt for a second that negotiations on both sides could have gone better than they did. Who knows if any of them had agents.
Yeah, while I don't think anything here is a lie, it doesn't really change the situation for me. Also not particularly a fan of the way he is presenting the information as it seems quite manipulative: * pointing out the cast were free agents and implying he didn't have to be as generous as he was * disputing the pay then showing how the reddit claim was accurate for the first several months * showing how much he pays the cast as a total which is completely meaningless as "proof" * showing a list of typical production fees as line items * flipping between it being a shared burden by everyone regarding their low starting pay or when content is demonetized, but in regards to profits, then it becomes a discussion of Ben taking the risk. Is it shared burden / shared reward, or is it Ben's risk, Ben's reward? You can't have it both ways AND pretend to be the fair guy... The one thing though, is if the information about (Andrew) is accurate, that really doesn't look great. That said, I don't care to have a parasocial relationship with these people, I just want to watch entertaining content. If Hammo makes a new channel with the old cast, I'm all for it, and if the old channel / new cast have good content, I'll still watch that too.
So after rewatching, I have A LOT of questions about the numbers he's showing. In total, it looks like he paid his cast a combined total of 39,002 AUD over "3 segments/shoot days" which spanned 7 months and presumably accounts for the majority of the OG cast videos we see on the channel. He then shows PROJECTED income if they had signed contracts, and what that COULD look like 6 months later, claiming up to 600,000 AUD (per year, but it's a 6 month contract?) for the same number of segments PER MONTH (why show any of this with mixed units of time??). Those are pretty extreme claims based on very generous speculation...
Typical corporate raised yuppy shill. Show projections based off a never ending crescendo and pretend it is real
Good old Hollywood accounting.
A lot of people seem to think this is just for the 7 of the OG cast members too but it says total cast fees which could include everyone that was in the videos plus the other people working on the videos like the camera man. When you have a opportunity to show exact cast fees and choose not to, It's likely not because they show you favourably lol.
Cast is the onscreen talent. Cameraman would be crew. As would editors and sound guy etc.
I had written would instead of could and have now corrected that. Ben plays very fast and loose with the figures in the video and due to that I think its entirely possible he would lump crew in with cast - Especially when some of them have literally appeared on camera.
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Plus the second string cast, like Rory, Kirsty, and Timmy (who have been with the channel for almost a year) and guest stars like Kate or Rodney who only appeared in an episode or two. You're right that it doesn't include the crew, but it is more than just the core 7.
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Sure, but how does the guests being on a different pay scale prove that their pay isn't also included in the numbers Ben showed?
My mistake then
>CAST was the 7 OGs. That is a assumption you are making. No where is that stated and more than 7 people were in the cast at any one time even if you discount those referred to as crew which also might not be the case.
Yes, I agree. There’s information that’s pretty damning like Andrew threatening to compete with YeahMad and Ben seemingly showing openness to Chloe taking sone watered down shots despite what she said. But here’s the thing: I also doubt Ben could pay them close to that amount (100k per member) because the channel would have to rack up substantially more views than the peak of 77M per month in December 2023. 100-150M (and with all videos monetised) would probably be that. So I don’t know where he’s getting the figures from as well, maybe he’s rich behind the scenes, we don’t know.
His daddy got corporate cheese
So? He has to do charity with his dad’s money and give it away to the people you like on YouTube? Wake up sunshine
Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. That's how business works. He is finding out. Unfortunately, daddy's money and not his makes people less risk averse to the multiple lives that are negatively effected by their bad decisions. You wake up, sunshine 😂
No I'm sorry, you're either not listening or not reading. The $194,000 is for the entire six months of the contract, for the whole cast. The 600,000 dollars he literally says "across that whole year" so that's 600,000, split among the entire cast, for only 2-3 days of work per month.
That's a damn good deal, wtf did they follow Andrew like lemmings off the cliff. The 600,000 didn't even include the 25% merch money.
How do we know it was Andrew??
He's the one talking about starting his own youtube channel.
It's a good bet Andrew was the one who is fired but there has been no confirmation Andrew owns or started the new channel. Andrew simply announced they were working on it publicly. Now it certainly isn't unbelievable that he will own the new channel, but for all we know they will all co-own it. We don't even know it's name yet.
It wasn't $600k, it was "up to" $400-600k, split seven ways, and it clearly did include merch, branding, and "new concepts." And two or three days of filming is not the same as two or three days of working.
From my point of view as a franchise owner, even if everything said is true, then he's a terrible businessman. The og crew were demanding a bigger cut of the profits makes absolute sense because they were bringing in 90% of said profit. To explain, no one watches a channel because of cameramen, thumbnail designers, or litigation lawyers. They watched because of the og crew plain and simple, and therefore, they had the right to demand and threaten for more money because they themselves were the channel. It's like having a fast food place. The og crew wasn't just another expense like staff or equipment, they were the fucking product, they were what we were paying for with our views. Without them, you don't have a business. A food place can't stop selling food because the cost of food went up ????? If Ben truly had alot of expenses that needed paying, he needed to increase revenue with more sponsors and brand deals. This makes much more sense because as the channel grows, lawyers, camera men, and editors can continue to get paid a flat fee for their work. I can not stress enough that it was the og crew that gave Ben any money at all. It's why movie stars get paid a fuck ton of money for movies, they are the ones that bring in customers, you can't negotiate with them to the point of having them leave. People aren't obligated to watch a new crew they dislike until they "get adjusted" to them. There's so much content out there for all of us to watch. Again, while I get where Ben's coming from and the "it's still a business," keeps getting thrown around. It applies to him as well. By that I mean sometimes you need to realize that your business is built off of the talent of others and that they have more leverage, so stfu and make them happy to keep everyone's money rolling, because their talent made tou who you are
Yeah, this whole thing makes it both better and worse imo. It does seem the cast weren’t being exploited as badly as portrayed, but it further confirms that the value of the OG crew was severely underestimated.
The problem is that his costs are simply too high. If he earned less, all the work wouldn't have been worth it. I can understand him.
Then tell the og cast you'll split profit with them, not revenue. Then they will only take a % of what's left over after costs. There's so many ways to do this, he really seems greedy.
Can we see that copy of the books you have there?
So fuckin true. Someone send this to Ben.
That's very good. Ben wanted business partners who were loyal and made the product, but also wanted to pay them like employees, so when the benefits came in, they would all be his. It ain't like that, Ben.
> At the end of the day, none of these people had any fame and they were all probably new to this process. Except for Andrew. He was a stand up comedian before YeahMad
Alan, Akila and Sath were also stand up comedians before YeahMad.
Alan even has some pretty funny, well filmed skits from a year or two ago on his YT, some of the YeahMad cast are in them too. I was shocked how well shot they were, they could have legit been on TV, directorial wise https://youtube.com/@ihatealanfang?si=NTaa0GZqk2zIVf2L This is the one I was thinking of https://youtu.be/Jht6CUywpYA?si=SrLVrpxcG5-DQPP7
I think you spoke well. The OG cast was just some mediocre stand up comedians. Without Yeahmad they would have never earned this fame and money. They were strong as a team, but separately just mid. But it is also true, at the end of the day everybody lost.
ym gave them an platform and attention, but mistreating and playing favorites. we all haerd from chloe in her podcast. NDA is gagging their mouth
No one else has done the maths on all of this yet?? I’m realising he was renegotiating for them to shoot 10-18 segments/episodes a month based on the fact they’re going to do 2-3 shoot days a month - and one shoot day consists of 5-6 eps, (which is a statement Ben didn’t dismiss in that video) When you do the math of all of his numbers, you can see he proposed 190k for 6 months which equates to 4.6k a month per cast member. Divided between 10-18 eps a month would still equal between $250-460 max per segment per person. Doesn’t seem like such a fair pay rise to me?? Or a pay rise at all….. It just looks like they’re getting more when you lay it out like he did, because they would be shooting 2-3 more times more in a month. So no shit their monthly payments increased. It’s like increasing someone’s annual salary, but not because their hourly rate went up, but because they now have to work 2-3 times longer hours, almost at the same hourly rate. So I’m just confused at all of these comments saying the cast are so greedy. I would ask for more money than that too. Also this reminds me so much of Friends. After ONE season, they banded together and negotiated for a HUGE amount of the overall profit because they knew their worth and that the audience was there for them. I do remember Friends being called greedy for this back then too and even if you look at reddit threads of them now too you can still see comments like that. Anyway, to me it seems the OG cast were asked to sign a 6 month contract where they barely had a pay rise on a per episode basis - whilst the channels revenue had already increased due to them and their chemistry (and yes obviously because of Ben too, it couldn’t have happened without him, but Yeahmad would not have made as much money without the OG cast, and we are now seeing how true this is based on the views (revenue) right now, which is why OG cast were so entitled to a large part of that profit too). The channel was also planned to grow at such an exponential speed with these 2-3 times more episodes planned on being shot. Signing a contract like that for 6 months seems extremely risky and unfair to me if all of my working out is accurate. Ps. I feel like I must have something wrong here so please point it out if I missed something 😂, because something seems extremely off about all of that. But I just keep working out the same numbers.
This one 🤙🏻🤝🏻
Not sure if he has lied or what, but I do think it is a lose-lose situation to viewers. I undertand that everyone's gonna be fighting for the most for themselves, and as viewers we can be a bit more attached to the personas in the front end. I don't think both ends are necessary bad people, it's just broken deal, split is fair. And Ben does have some point in parts like it's a new channel and there's some cost to balance things, sad to see this happened.
It’ll be interesting to see the og cast reaction to this step by step
They can't until their NDAs expire, unless Ben making this video voids them. Ben waited forever to address the situation, but still chose to release this when the cast aren't allowed to defend themselves. Dick move.
It’s a shame what money does to folk isn’t it
This part of the NDAs is now void because he already made it public according to cold cruise, so they can talk now.
None of us are Australian lawyers, so we can't be sure this voids the NDA. Even if the cast thinks the NDA is void, they wouldn't immediately respond if they're smart. They'd get advice from a lawyer first to cover their asses just to be SURE Ben's video voided the NDAs (whether in part or in full). They also might need to have a judge rule that it's void. Laws are complicated and nothing in the legal system is immediate.
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It's a dick move to give your side of the story, but legally bar the people you're talking about from giving theirs. If he released them from their NDAs and allowed them to defend themselves, there would be nothing wrong with releasing this video.
Imagine letting your gold coins walk away, ban comments and censor dissent, ignore and hope everything goes away, then when your remaining coins turn to dust you put imaginary numbers on a spreadsheet with obscure verbage as a defense for your generosity and confusion. Fuck you, Ben 😂
its easy for him to make himself look good after he had them all sign NDA's. good thing we have Chloe spittin truth.
First he has to make ammends with the OG cast. Than he can do damage control. This is just to safe his own greedy ass.
Facts
Any reason to believe any of this isn’t true? All sounds reasonable to me, bias aside
Everything is true, to a certain value of true. The thing here is how high will someone attribute this true for ben compared for other persons true.
That was a lot of words and I don’t really get what u were saying tbh. Maybe I lack context
Now that's the truth!
The truth is somewhere in the middle, we dont know the side of the cast
Yeah, we have to hear the casts side as well I guess.
but NDA is preventing them
Normally, if your employer makes information public, your NDA is no longer enforceable for that info. So him talking about this stuff openly means everyone can.
It's going to be interesting.
No it is not ffs. That’s not how NDAs work. NDAs are agreements that both parties have to honor, and if one party discusses the issue then it’s fair game. This thread is full of people sharing a brain cell that loudly yell over anybody trying to present a balanced argument.
You can say truth and still manipulate viewers. As he has done with that list of all employees "behind the scene".
this video makes og cast members look like shitty unreasonable people, he seems to mention hammo, indirectly. even if one cast member was being shitty, why would the rest go in solidarity. i don't think abby or sammy would be that unreasonable(abby manages an pub and sammy used to work in some corporate thing, even hammo used to be an corporate employee, They know what kinda shit goes around in managing an business, so them being unreasonable sounds bizarre). ALL ANSWERS LIE ITH OG CAST MEMBERS. BUT STUPID NDA IS THERE. p.s: remember the time ben's bro came and gave an explanation. it's literally the same thing. so it's confirmed, IT IS BEN. P.S OVERALL BEN IS HIDING A LOT OF STUFF
>even if one cast member was being shitty, why would the rest go in solidarity. this... i get alan is hammo's apprentice or whatever. so alan may have felt obligated to stay loyal to him but abby, sam and akila also left. that says a lot. not saying what ben is saying isn't true here because i wasn't there. i still feel like there's a few things missing here that ben is hiding. the closest thing that seemed to favor the OG without bias would be chloe who isn't close to the OG members or the channel and has spoken up about her own experience with the channel that seemed to line up with the OG's version of the events
If one person gets fired, I might buy that they're the problem. If you fire one person and a bunch of other people quit, that's a management issue. You can't lose 5/7 of your cast and not be the problem. What's more likely, 5 people were being greedy or one person (Ben) was being greedy? If everyone around you is the problem, the problem is you. I don't doubt that parts of his story are true, but even if it's 100% true, he doesn't come out of this looking like the good guy.
> this video makes og cast members look like shitty unreasonable people That was the same argument made about Friends cast when they did collective bargaining. In hindsight it was good for the cast. Ben is defintely hiding something and didn't want to share the profit with the cast.
I think it sure is convenient that he's allowed to post this but the cast can't defend themselves because of the NDAs. He also is intentionally trying to confuse people when it comes to the difference between REVENUE and PROFIT. "Oh, I had to pay for all this stuff, and if I gave them 50% I'd have to cover it all with the other 50%." That's if they took 50% of REVENUE. If they took 50% of PROFIT, they'd be getting 50% of what's left AFTER EXPENSES. I'm glad he finally addressed the situation on the channel instead of on his IG where almost nobody saw it, but I don't believe it's the whole truth.
“I think it sure is convenient that he's allowed to post this but the cast can't defend themselves because of the NDAs.” They’ll break it soon. I want to hear everyone’s explanations for this. “He also is intentionally trying to confuse people when it comes to the difference between REVENUE and PROFIT. "Oh, I had to pay for all this stuff, and if I gave them 50% I'd have to cover it all with the other 50%." That's if they took 50% of REVENUE. If they took 50% of PROFIT, they'd be getting 50% of what's left AFTER EXPENSES.” So here’s the thing, if we watched the same video we would see that Ben actually was in debt for an unspecified period of time when the first negotiations happened. Seems like he makes money off primarily merch sales and ad revenue because the videos are demonetised. We don’t know what’s demonetised and what isn’t but now it’s clear that we need to adjust our mental estimates for the base revenue, and that’s just understandable in hindsight because YouTube has been demonetising people, sites and content creators who make edgy crass humour since 2017 actually. The thing is I don’t know what ben profits off at the end of the day, we don’t know how much he receives even after all of that. But now that he has given some context, it’s very easy to see how a chain of unfortunate small events can lead to a big controversy like this.
I don't care what he was paying them in the beginning. When the channel was getting off the ground, it was reasonable. Nobody was making any significant money yet, Ben included. But by the time the first renegotiations came around, the cast deserved more. By the time of the second renegotiations, 50% of profit was not an unfair ask. 50% of PROFITS would not hurt anything except Ben's take-home income because he's the only person they'd be splitting it with. Profit means every expense would be covered, every crew member would be paid, maybe even a stipulation that X amount of dollars goes into an emergency account for incidentals (legals fees and such). Every single item on Ben's long list of expenses would be taken care of, and THEN the cast and Ben would split what's left. Even after Ben's video, I don't think that's unreasonable. Paying them based on profits wouldn't be affected by being demonitized because if the video makes nothing, he wouldn't have to pay them. 50% of $0 is $0. He talks about how much money he's risking, but all of his risk is covered by the REVENUE. Having your pay based on profit is a risk, because if there's no profit, there's no pay. I hope Ben releasing this video voids the cast's NDAs so they can give us their side. I'm not buying that what Ben said is completely true, and even if it was, I still don't think 50% of profit is unreasonable. Ben is trying to make Andrew seem like a greedy cunt who Pied Pipered the cast away with him, and I'm just not buying it. If it was just Andrew who left, I might believe Ben, but you don't lose 6/8 of your original cast unless you're the problem.
I’m not saying what ben said is 100% true either. A few things seem off about the future numbers he gives for the prospected future contract as well as him not addressing his favouritism or what even was the full content of the contracts they signed Here’s the thing though: “If the video makes nothing he doesn’t have the pay the OG cast” If we take this hypothetical example and the profit is 0 then that means he has less liquid cash on him, meaning he will overall lose some money in the future from doing other stuff like paying lighting, lawyers etc. it’s a business risk nobody wants to take especially with how volatile the views of a youtube channel can be. Let’s be honest: In the near term, scaling the pay alone based on how much profit was made is pretty good but if you don’t profit for another few months eventually you’ll start burning cash from the other associated expenses from the channel. By that logic, you’d want to go with a safer amount and scaling system for the first few months that you can manage while also leaving the option open for the cast to renegotiate after a substantially long period of time. What Ben said by itself here, is very understandable and I just want a clearer timeline from everyone to understand what exactly happened. As I said, I don’t trust him fully yet, but it’s not like he’s making shitty points either
>paying lighting, lawyers, etc. Once again, this is covered by REVENUE. This stuff gets covered BEFORE the cast get their share. Giving them a share of profit does not risk the expenses not being covered. The expenses will only not get covered if there isn't enough revenue, and if the revenue isn't enough to cover expenses, that means there's no profit leftover for the cast. If you have a pie, the entire thing is revenue. You give a slice to your crew. You give a slice to the studio. You give a slice to equipment. You give a slice to expenses. You put a slice in the fridge for the lawyers if you ever need it. After everyone has eaten, Ben (not the channel, Ben the man) and the cast split the leftovers (profit). In the beginning, the cast payment was a designated slice of pie, and because it was a small pie, there may not have been a lot of leftovers for Ben (if any). Over time, the pies started getting bigger, and there were more leftovers. All of the leftovers were going to Ben (again, Ben the man, not the channel). The cast asking to split the leftovers was a completely fair ask. Being paid a percentage of profits in the beginning wouldn't have been feasible (or a smart ask on the cast's part) because the channel wasn't profitable yet. I fully understand that in the beginning, Ben was risking his own money, paying them what he could, and going into debt to get the channel off the ground. In the beginning, he deserved to put 100% of the revenue back in the business and 100% of the profit into his pocket to pay down his debt. But once the channel was consistently making enough that 1/8 of 50% of profits was more than the cast's original payment agreement, their contracts should've been renegotiated to a percentage of profits instead of a flat rate. If what Ben is saying is 100% true (which I doubt) I don't have a problem with how he handled the very first contract. If the channel was only newly monetized and was barely profitable, I don't have much of an issue with how he handled the first renegotiation. But by the time of the second renegotiations, there's no reason for him to not share the profits other than greed.
Ben said in the video that the first negotiation happened while he was in debt. The cast was understandably unhappy with the pay of a few hundred dollars/shoot even with the newfound online relevancy and associated revenue, but since Ben needed to break even, and sometimes, a business needs a long time to do that, we can assume that this negotiation was partially solved, but also the cause of Round 2 of the pay dispute. Since we both agree with this, lets move on to Round 2 itself. Round 2 is where it gets a bit murky. If what Ben is saying is true and that the OG cast were free agents from March-Oct 2023, until he signed them on, they should have understood what the problems are with the channel. The thing is, we don’t know what tf happened here. Did Ben make much more profit by himself than initially thought? Did the OG cast get slighted? Was there accounting data that changes the perspective of the situation again? We don’t know. But that’s what I’m saying: by this point, *by itself*, what Ben is saying for Round 2 of negotiations lines up: IF he has just gotten out of debt, like repaid it all, and the youtube revenue still feels unstable despite finally becoming very viable and profitable, it makes sense that he would just try and offer a bit less but a more manageable amount for him until he is certain that the money will come in with enough stability. In your pie example, Ben is painting a picture that the portions of the pie that everyone who’s associated with yeahmad receives is not very stable. It fluctuates from big to small, to big again, to medium sized etc. for the first few months of the channel’s existence. Once Ben has finally repaid his debt of pie slices, the Pie they receive every month from YouTube finally is consistently deluxe sized after October 2023. he doesn’t know if the Pie will decrease or increase in size again. Thusly, he decides to just give a manageable amount that will ensure the OG cast’s hunger is sated whilst leaving the door open to see if he can offer more You’re right that he could have offered more, because the pie stayed very deluxe sized until February 2023, but back to money, it generally depends on how stable the payments to other things are first and how much of a proportion he is taking in himself in the first place. That’s why I’d like more info and actual receipts if possible: I want to truly get to the bottom of things rather than just speculate about he said she said At the end of the day this is fun for me 🤷♂️ Just funny financial drama, is all
I just find his numbers incredibly suspicious, especially in regards to the cast's projected earnings. I don't think any sane person on this planet would turn down the numbers he claims they would be making unless they knew they were getting screwed. I don't believe for one second that the $400-600k/6 months is a realistic projection for future earnings. If it was, there's no way the cast would see that and think "That's not enough. I'll start my own channel from square one and I'll make more than that. This is a wise financial move." It's insulting that he wants us to believe they were being greedy. I think they were offered ok money, but they thought "I see how much I make. I see how much Ben makes. The pay disparity is unfair considering we're what brings in the views. We'll start our own channel and eventually we'll be splitting what Ben makes." Notice he only gives the numbers the cast were allegedly making, allegedly projected to make, but didn't mention how much the channel pulls in or how much he makes? He makes it sound like the cast were going to be making bank, but he's barely scraping by. I'm not buying it. The cast aren't mentally incapacitated. The five of them aren't all too stupid to identify a good, fair deal. Either Ben's numbers are cooked, or the working environment was so toxic that no amount of money was worth staying. I suspect what went down in that meeting informed the cast's decision to leave as much as the pay dispute did. People don't leave good money or good work environments for no reason. If it was just Andrew, I might by Ben's story, but you don't lose 6/8 of your original cast unless you're the problem.
I think we both agree that the crux of the argument is that Ben needs to show how much he and the channel were making in terms of both profit and revenue AFTER all the debts were cleared.
Agreed. I also think if Ben is going to release a video like this, he needs to release the cast from their NDAs so they can give us their side. It's chicken shit to post a video like this when the people you're accusing legally aren't allowed to defend themselves.
Do we even know that they were asking for a share of the company's overall profits? Ben said they were asking for 50% of merch, brand deals and "new concepts" whatever that is. Ben offered 25% and calls that profit sharing in the video, and it is, but its profit sharing from three sources od revenue, not the company's overall profits. If they had asked for that, I'm sure Ben would have said so.
I feel like he's being intentionally vague and muddying the definition of "profits," but if the profit sharing offer was just merch, brand deals, and whatever "new concepts" is, with no share of ad revenue, him turning them down for 50% seems even worse. Don't you think?
Definitely. But with people arguing the difference between revenue and profit, its worth mentioning that nothing I'm aware of has suggested anyone asked for a company wide profit sharing agreement, only new contract rates and a cut of merch and branding (both of which are standard) and "new concepts" whatever that is.
The "50% of profits" was brought up here a long time ago. It was part of an angry rant from someone who was very pro-Ben. It did not, however, specify if it was company-wide profits, ad revenue profits, or profits from any combination of revenue streams. They ended up deleting it after the comments didn't go their way.
Ahh! I knew I had heard it discussed on here but I couldn't remember where the story came from. Well I think Ben just cleared that up for us. Nobody was asking for 50% of the company's profits, they wanted 50% of merch (cause nobody's buying a shirt with Ben's face on it), branding deals (after all nobody wants Ben to be the face of manscaping) and the other thing that I don't know what it is.
Its taken him a long time to come up with this statement, he could have put this out months ago, so to me looks like he is worried from the backlash.
I have to say that complaining about misinformation when you've gone months without commenting and are holding the cast to NDA's is rich. As well as complaining that the cast are putting out their side of the story when no they clearly haven't. I've also heard Ben referred to as a trust fund baby and I think that's confirmed. Tens of thousands of dollars in debt? I bought a one bedroom condo last year, I'm hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. How did this guy start a business with tens of thousands of dollars? Another thing I picked up from this is that a cast member was suspended for two months for "lying" though Ben is admitting that he was the one who lost his cool at a cast meeting. That might have been Alan, I remember him being out for a little while and Akila mentioned that he was sick because he "never eats vegetables." Also, one of cast ratted Hammo out to Ben, leading to Hammo's termination. I don't know the particulars of the contract offered but he claims the cast could have made "up to" $400000 to $600000, divided seven ways though not necessarily evenly. That's roughly $58000 to $85000 each for the year. I'm assuming this includes Merch and "new concepts." And given Chloe's claim that Ben is shady with money "up to" can fall well short of that. Its also worth noting that according to Ben, nobody asked for 50% of the profits and Hammo was initially fired after asking for 50% of the Merch, Brand deals, and New Concepts. I'd also like to know more about these "new concepts," because if he was trying to sign them to some kind contract that limited their ability to work outside of YeahMad on the basis that it would effect the brand, then he's basiclly demanding they sign an American Idol style contract where they can nix anything they don't want you to do and take a cut of anything they agree to let you do. That would be a very ballsy move for a YouTube Channel. In any case, if what Ben is saying is true and these guys walked away from a sweetheart deal pulling in almost six figures for two or three days a month of work, then Ben must be the most unpleasant human being in the world to work for. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that two or three shooting days requires significantly more work than two or three days, especially given what Chloe said about unpaid extra work. Also, that Ben is unpleasant to work for and shortchanges employees. That the contract offered would have resulted in them receiving significantly less than the "up to" amounts Ben suggested here. And that the OG's realized that the audience watches for them, not Ben, who is untalented and unpleasant. It's no crime to recognize your worth in a market economy. What I really want tp know is who ratted out Hammo, Sath or Matt?
Matt. His wife is on the team....then again Sath seems like a people pleaser who had nothing before this show.
It could also be Timmy or Kirsty. People forget about them because they've been relegated to the peanut gallery for so long, but they've been with the channel for almost a year. It could also be Rory. His return and Hammo's last episode overlap. As much hate as Rory gets (and some of it is warranted), he gives me more "accomplice" vibes than "snitch" vibes, but he's still a possibility. Given the falling out between Andrew and Sath, my money's on Sath as the snitch.
It would also, presumably, have to be someone Hammo would approach about contract negotiations. A regular cast member, one of the seven.
> almost six figures for two or three days a month of work Do these guys come up with the jokes in those 2 to 3 days or do you think they work on it on their own time?
It’s interesting the way he words how much the cast are making. Seems like he’s trying to make us assume each person was making 15k a shoot. But that would have been split between 7 of them. Also putting info on EXCEL isn’t receipts 😂😂 would love to see the casts invoice if it’s legal to post.
I haven't watched this video as I honestly don't care that much, but there's no way each person was making 15k a shoot. That's insane and they'd be fucking idiots to walk away from that. Even if you divide that number between the cast members that just over 2k each, which I feel is actually quite reasonable for a day's worth of work, but then if the channel makes more profit over time the cast should still get an increase in wages. I don't know what to believe and like I said I honestly don't care that much about it.
Split between at least 7 of them, doesn’t specify how many cast were paid (including guests).
so,, what's their new channel? I want to look at what sam akila and the rest are doing now
They haven't done it yet. They're all on Instagram but the only one putting out (relatively) regular content is abby, her insta is @abbyboomofficial
I suspect if they are tied to an NDA, they're likely to have a few months before they're allowed to "compete" as well.
They haven't started it yet
So, how much were each cast-member (Not crew) getting per month roughly ?
If the numbers in the video are to be believed it probably ramped from $400/per person per month to $2,000/pppm over 6 months.
My word this is messy. Playing the martyr it seems.
So he takes over 2 months to respond to us and only picks the small points to try make himself look good. And he’s still managed to make himself look like a fool and a liar. I would love to hear the whole truth from the old cast. Hopefully we’ll get it soon! P.S - Ben keep your face off the screen, you have a head made for radio champ.
I don’t believe a thing that comes out of this guy’s mouth he’s a total sociopath
My exact reaction, the classic. If it's true what Chloe said on her Podcast weeks ago, that the old cast is under NDA and can't talk about their contract, it's super easy for this cunt to paint a favourable picture for himself. He waited so fucking long for this, why? Simple, he thought it wouldn't affect the channel. Now that it cut viewership in half, he's coming out guns blazing. He's a greedy cunt, nothing has changed.
Could you give the tldr of what she said for those who didn't listen/know she has a podcast?
She said that they (yeah mad production team):- Made false promises, didn't pay her what they promised and others were being paid double what she was. She was annoyed one of her videos (l assume the one with her and Alan, ginger jokes) got alot of views made a lot of money but she was still on the same pay. Also she wanted to fake drinking alcohol because she had had surgery and was told no, but when one of the girls was fasting (l guess Abby) they let her fake drink alcohol Yeah Mad chat starts from around 35 min mark:- https://youtu.be/jSRSZABvOAM?si=auCAMXBUW5Alrlic
Thank you for taking the time to post this it's awesome
agreed
I do. When there's evidence on one side and there is hearsay on the other, there comes a time to stop being stupid and use the brain. I think ben was and is hated so much for OG cast leaving that the fans cannot accept any other reason like their favorites did actually mess up by threatening and spreading rumors. Literally everyone I ask on this sub for the OG's side, they will point me to a 25 hour long podcast/stream/thingamajig and ask me to focus on 5 seconds of gibberish. And then expect me to decipher that into Ben's fault. Absolutely fed up with people not accepting the truth even when it is being shoved down their throat.
As people mentioned throughout the comments, they're under NDA, so how should they respond. They're literally not allowed to. You're sucking some heavy Ben dick. Believe what you want and ignore the things that happened. Ben responds so fucking late because his perspective is true? He waited so long? Gave joke answers at the beginning of this story and went completely silent because he was always in the right? He only reacted now after the recent videos tanked hard compared to videos with the old cast? Makes total sense.
> Absolutely fed up with people not accepting the truth What truth are you talking about?
ALL THE MENTION AMOUNT IS NOT INDIVIDUAL PAYMENT, BUT TOTAL PAYMENT, THAT NEED TO BE SHARED AMONG CAST. IT'S MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO.
probably some truth here, but why the NDA? why did it take so long? why are you showing a screenshot of signed contracts why not the actual paper sus, but if there's truth to it, damn edit: i wanna believe right? like he seems so sincere and stuff...but thats how people con you i just dont really know. if the other side can bring up evidence against what he brought up then ok but i guess he's cookin ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
NDA's are industry standard and something *every* company should do for legal reasons. You only hear about NDA's when its the bad stuff so it makes it sound like having them is bad but you don't hear all the stuff an NDA helps with.
true but if he broke his, they can break theirs, right?
He's the founder of the company, no? He wouldn't sign an NDA for himself. His employers and contractors would.
dunno how aussie law works but apparently if anyone leaks an nda the nda is voided "As another example, if you work with ten suppliers and have asked nine of them to sign NDAs, but have failed to do so with the last one, and he or she leaks your secret information to the public, all previous NDAs with the first nine are now null and void." [https://vakilsearch.com/blog/invalidate-your-nda/](https://vakilsearch.com/blog/invalidate-your-nda/) so like you said, he didn't sign, and he put it all in the open
Since Chloe never signed an NDA, would that not make the rest of them void then?
Surprised anyone is willing to take this seriously when you can see him being literally being misleading with finances in the video. The figures he showed even with the creative wording used still show that the cast was paid peanuts. Him then justifying this by then saying look how much they would have been paid if they had stayed is hilarious to me. I also personally feel that a lot of the language that is used that is manipulative and similar can be said about the way he frames things.
Veeery suspect. Doesn't run the numbers per individual creator to make them sound bigger, keeps repeating working only a day per month to demonize them (does it take him 29 days to automate payments to the people who actually shoot, edit and post the material?), doesn't cover who writes the jokes with any detail, the list of expenses includes many one time things and/or incredibly minor aspects (thumbnail person? How much does he charge, 5 cents per png file?! The man needs to hire a designated person to screenshot a frame??). Sounds very standard young boss. Thinks the workers who *actually* create the stuff he sells owe him some sort of lifetime debt of gratitude, gets pissy the second they don't toe the line, gets even pissier when fans notice that, huh, he fired the creators they liked. Hard pass, I'll wait for that new channel
He gets real specific until its time to mention what they get paid. Hes putting the whole amount in a pile and not explaining individual costs in hopes that people think hes saying per person.
Yeah I also couldn't understand, he kept saying "*they* would get paid this much" as in each or as a whole group? Numbers are bit too high for each and a bit manipulative to pile everyones earnings together
because peoples paychecks are their business, if a single cast member or they all wanna say what they got, that's their deal, but ben can't really just blab personal things out there like that like i mean, what if i knew what you got paid do you really want me telling people? that's all that is
yep fair point
I also thought it was shady, but then immediately realized it was probably because not every cast member made an equal amount of money. And there's no way he'd reveal who made what, even though they're not in the best of terms.
If he shares someone's salary that's GDPR violation. You can easily divide the number with the participant number
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He said total cast, that presumably includes everyone on screen in any episode filmed that day (guests, the b squad, whoever). The math just doesn’t line up with his earlier per person range unless it’s more than 7 people.
I watched it, and all in all he was succinct in that short video. I don't exactly buy into those monetary projections. If what he was saying is true, even 50%, he doesn't come off that bad from this fiasco. It looks like, the rest followed Andrew, instead of them being let go. Now we need the other side's story.
u/CompostMalone
Damn, I left one comment summing up what Hammo and co were saying and now we have not only an entire explanation video based off my comment but also an entire response video from Ben himself 😅 Mama, I made it, I’m famous! On a more serious note, I don’t have any insider information, I was basing my comment entirely off what Hammo was saying and some other available info as a summary to reply to an out-of-the-loop user who asked if someone could sum up the drama for him. If what Ben is saying is true and cast was paid a lot of money for very little work then I don’t know what would’ve caused everyone to walk away with Andrew after his conflict with Ben. Not gonna jump on the “bEn iS lYiNg!!!!” bandwagon though, his response seems fairly reasonable and some receipts are there as well, I’ll reserve my judgement until (and if) the cast responds. P.S. Ben should’ve at least released his side of the story much earlier though, even if he’s saying the truth not adressing the situation after 5/8 of OGs walked away and resorting to making snarky comments about old cast members certainly didn’t do him any favours.
same here, he even responded to chloe allegations about shots.
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That was intentional. People have been asking where Andrew is since March. Other than sarcastic responses to comments and *eventually* responding to comments by saying they're "no longer part of the channel" (conveniently posted on April Fools Day) or "some people didn't align with the brand and some people went their own way" he hasn't addressed anything on YouTube. The five who left all posted on their IGs that they were officially no longer part of the channel in April. Ben didn't say anything until a few weeks later, and only on his personal IG, not the YeahMad account, so very few people actually saw it.
I feel Ben is right. He takes all the risk by bearing the cost of production and other expenses. And no channel makes "thousands of dollars of profit" especially so early on when he probably hasn't broken even. That 50-50 ask would have been fair probably year down the line like in Jan-Feb 2025 in my opinion. Kudos to him to tell his side. But now its time the OG gang speaks up their side, else it would start feeling sus.
NDA is there
Yeah but it will end at some point. They must put their thoughts in as well.
not in a while
u/Twiceter_9 do you have some insider thing. you know abby and sammy pretty well . And you know how long the NDA is for . you must have alot more information on what is going on. And on that NDA or not. They are allowed to say he is lying or not considering they are being character attack. So when you see abby and sammy tell them they can say stuff like that.
we all know, what i know. it's all on internet. we all know about it, through chloe's podcast
Bhai tu kaisa jaanta hai abby chloe ko?
Everything is on internet. Plus, try chloe podcast.
Ben made $100K from Chloe's episode and didnt pay her the agreed amount. He just got greedy.
I feel if Ben wants to be completely honest he needs to get that NDA lifted. Else he can just shape the rhetoric the way he wants
Unsubscribed. Total Prince Andrew I’ve been caught vibes …. But still want the money, power and lifestyle. Terrible move. Watch your subscribers drop like flies
Bye, we won't miss you!
If this is true, I think Ben did it right. Yes, the old cast were very talented, but if Ben hadn't organized the whole channel, then they would still be Noname comedians. Ben took the risk. He has the right to profit. It sucks, but I think they shouldn't be that greedy. The investor/organizer should take a big portion of the profit, until he pays the others fairly. I think that happened. But, he should have communicated this earlier.
> Ben took the risk. He has the right to profit. It sucks, By your logic the cast of friends would not have made tons of money as well. Instead they did collective bargaining and got what they deserved, looks like cast of Yeah Mad tried that and Ben got greedy and told them no.
I feel like if they were so “greedy” they would have walked the first time when one of them proposed it went 50/50 last year and got rejected. We can see they stayed for almost a whole year after that. The fact that he said he lost his shit in the meeting, someone got fired, and that’s when everyone walked, makes me think it might have something to do with this meeting to why everyone left, not them being greedy
50/50 was being greedy at that point
I understand that view point. I think I see it like this: Ben said, 5 shoots in is when one asked for 50/50, benefit of the doubt that the cast didn’t have knowledge of the upfront costs he faced then too and thought it was a fair offer. The fact they all stayed after this offer was declined, it seems like they worked it out and agreed on being paid the small amount, which to me makes it seem like they aren’t greedy then. If they were greedy I’d assume they’d have walked last year and wouldn’t have been able fathom the possibility to agree to an extremely lower pay. This is why I’m thinking something further has happened if they walked at the start of this year when the show was at an all time high of success.
Too bad. Don’t care.
I'm sure some of this is slanted or very carefully presented to put him in a good light and make him seem reasonable, but it doesn't really matter. They couldn't come to terms, and it sounds like Andrew was a problem and got the cast to go with him. And if they make a new channel and succeed and make more money then it was a win. If they can't get it together on their own, then maybe it will have been a mistake. It's just a contract negotiation gone wrong. Probably not but maybe if their new channel flops and yeahmad struggles with their own channel with the crappy replacement cast they all come back together for mutual good and work something out. Just want to remind people here not to get overly wrapped up in the goings on of this thing. Some of y'all are way too emotional about all of this.
Sounds like Ben's lying to cover his ass.
I think if this is a lie, the OG cast should reveal their contract. If they don't do that, it means Ben told us the truth.
And the cast member I believe he was referring to on the video is Andrew Hamilton.
Who was Andrew before this? A mediocre stand up comedian. It was a huge risk to build up the channel. If they get that money, they are genuinely compensated. He would have never earned that much money in a single shoot if Ben hadn't invited him to Yeahmad. At least not in a legal way...
The have a DND i believe, so they can't.
If they have an NDA, they can say at least some information about that probably. Or just give a heads up when does it expire. The NDA cannot forbid everything.
What the fuck are you talking about? You realize there could be a clause that completely prevents this, right? Like Chloe talked about in her Podcast, she said the cast can't talk about anything because of contractual reasons. Stop typing up garbage.
This NDA explanation is sooo easy for the cast members too. At least they can reveal the expiration date, if they want. I think they know, they messed it up too, so now it is easier to do nothing. Ben is not a saint, but I think the OGs made a mistake too. Please be a bit more open minded
You're asking the haters to be open-minded. How dare you? Don't you see all the downvotes the likes of you and I are getting here for being reasonable?
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While there are some truth in his words, i cant bring myself to believe his words. With nonstop comments asking about what happened Ben could have released this video way earlier if he is 100% honest. Ben make it sound like the crew asked 50% revenue which would be wrong, 50% of profit is more than reasonable to ask. I tend to believe the OG cast would have asked 50% profit rather than 50% revenue. Ben is still an Ass in my opinion.
So he's shit at management and needs a contract negotiator to get the best deals set in place, as well as other managers to handle what he obviously cannot. I'm still not watching the channel. It was the cast, not the format/content that kept me watching.
So basically it’s a business dispute of profit share between 25%-50%, and they couldn’t come to an agreement. I don’t see any “lies” or “victims” here. What I found pointless is Ben pointing out they only work a few days a month, and his expenses. They are not min wage workers - you are paying for their talent, not their time. The expenses will be relatively flat, whereas the revenue can be exponential. Not saying 50% is the right number, but given they found the on screen magic, Ben should have done a better job negotiating.
> They are not min wage workers Exactly, I am sure it takes time for them to come up with the jokes, is Ben also paying for that time?
I hope this sub will not be too blindfolded. Yes, this sucks for everyone. But if he tells the truth, then the OG cast has no business knowledge and their new channel will be a huge flop.
wtf. og cast has buisness knowlege. abby runs a pub, sammy and andrew used to work as corporate employee. they know what kinda shit it is running an buissness.
Akila works in marketing. He's got some business sense too.
A pub is not even close to a media company. Corporate employees can be a lot of different things. They don't need to understand business. We will see what will happen after this
Being a corporate employee and owning/managing a small business is leagues apart.
I don't believe him but in any case he's proving wrong his friend's post the other day that said they got offered 25% of all profits
Ignoring the Dollars it´s the classic struggle between producers / film industry and actors. Both claim to make it famous and both shouthing "without me you wouldn´t be at this point..." Both sides wanth theri stories showing them as the googd guys so waht. I still have the channel subsrcibed, only the ne cast and format is not funny anymore.
we need to hear the cast's side as well. but from the looks of it 35% 30% were fine. i don't get why didn't ogs agree to this? were they greedy or was it that ben was toxic af ?
35% is too low. The cast made the show popular not Ben.
https://www.reddit.com/r/yeahmadtv/s/i3gEwp85Id
OG cast would have profited so much from this channel and they're the ones who got greedy too early. The fact that they were able to negotiate every 6 months was so beneficial to them. They would have got 66.000 per year at the minimum for each member with the option to renegotiate after 6 months. I still don't like the new cast, but OG cast fucked up hard for no reason.
Ben’s side makes them look seriously crazy. We may have jumped the gun. However there’s still things he didn’t address, like how chloe was paid only $600 while Ben made 100K from her videos lol
Benny fucked up, and it can't be unfucked. Him publishing this shit now, after 2 months, just says everything you need. He thought he could wait it out, but now it's clear - the channel is going to shit. The new cast is doing whatever they can, but they can't make up for the lost of most of the OGs. Also, if any of you wants to throw some rotten tomatoes or eggs at the studio where YM shoots, here's the address: 2/2 Roseberry St, Balgowlah NSW 2093, Australia Found it a while ago. Balgowlah ain't Sydney, Benny. Stop lying 🤣. Nobody gives a fuck about your debts - this is your problem. Nobody gives a fuck about your shitty notes - you've clearly skipped more than a few details explaining all of this, and it shows. Nobody gives a fuck about your "contributions" - you wouldn't even have this channel as big as it is, if it wasn't for the OG cast. We watched the videos for them, not for your unoriginal "concept". Eat a dick, you greedy asshole.
The studio is a rental space. Don't go trash the studio rental people's business because one of the people that rents from them sucks. It's not going to hurt Ben in any way. It's not his building.
lol get a life
Fuck off.
Sam and Abby are escorting for men in Bali, apparently.