Why Donut Media Is Falling Apart: An Explainer

Video Description

What is happening at Donut Media? Who bought them? Who left? Let’s talk about it. Jeremiah Burton and Zach Jobe recently left Donut, an automotive YouTube powerhouse, to start their own new channel called BigTime. Donut was a few years into its new era with venture-equity backing from Recurrent Ventures, and their “Why We’re Leaving Donut” video reminded everyone of the slew of “Why I’m Leaving Hoonigan” videos we’ve seen lately. Those videos came after after Ken Block’s always-edgy Hoonigan merged with aftermarket company Wheel Pros and got an influx of cash from private investment firm Clearlake Capital, and it's a growing trend among big automotive YouTube channels. Zach and Jerry were two of Donut’s five main personalities, along with James Pumphrey, Nolan Sykes, and Justin Freeman. The move has led to a lot of talk and speculation all over the internet and among people in the car industry, because these changes impact us all. So, what happened? Here’s everything you need to know, and the truth about how things change when investment firms get involved in media companies. If you don’t know my background, I’m Alanis King. I currently work for Motor1, Motorsport.com, and InsideEVs, and I’ve worked full-time for Doug DeMuro’s Cars & Bids, Business Insider, and Jalopnik. I also had a Formula One podcast with Donut Media called DRS, which got canceled after two seasons. Our F1 podcast was fun, had a huge audience, and featured two women as hosts, but we got the idea that the numbers weren’t good enough (despite being about half of Donut’s main show, Past Gas, and being a much younger show). I’ve only had four full-time jobs, but I’ve dealt with private equity a lot, and I’ve seen how it can sometimes impact media companies. In this video, we’ll talk about what’s going on at Donut, what happens when private equity gets involved in media companies, the pros of working in big media vs. on your own, the cons, and what I think the future holds for Donut Media, Hoonigan, BigTime, and other big YouTube channels. Jerry and Jobe talked about how it was bittersweet to leave Donut, but that’s how it works in the creative industry: If new investors come in and change the way you do things, you can go from making videos about building a car to doing listicles and rankings to reach a broader (but less engaged) audience. They talk about having their ideas rejected in favor of cheaper and easier ones, because the money people believed that to be best for business — even if the creative ones knew it wasn’t. Making videos about cars and reviewing them is a great job. But it has its own drawbacks, and hopefully this video can give you some insight on what happens when your favorite writers, YouTubers, and content creators have to answer to new money people. Thanks for watching my YouTube channel. Enjoy the conversation, and I’ll see you in the comments! #cars #automotive #donut #donutmedia #bigtime #hoonigan #media #hooniganracing #hooniganindustries #alanisking FOLLOW ME: Twitter: https://twitter.com/alanisnking Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alanisnking/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@alanisnking Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alanisnking.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alanisnking Website: alanisnking.com FOLLOW MY UPCOMING MOTORSPORTS PODCAST, 36 QUESTIONS WITH ALANIS KING: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeIuI8Ey1kVYzmXe6JCLeTwUSE CODE ALANIS24 FOR 15% OFF YOUR HOMEFIELD APPAREL ORDER: https://www.homefieldapparel.com/ USE CODE ALANIS FOR 15% OFF YOUR APEX COFFEE ORDER: https://www.apexcoffeeroasters.com CHECK OUT MY SHORTS CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@AlanisKingShorts/shorts WORK WITH ME: [email protected]