Hello! I see your complaints and it’s something that’s been talked about already at RGL and let me explain. The Video Team’s job at the moment is to grow the YouTube channel and to grow Competitive TF2. Because of this we have to play the YouTube game of analytics and seeing what helps and hurts the channel, and learning our audience. Thankfully YouTube gives us pretty good metrics to figure that out and how to grow.

So unfortunately the VODs hidden behind memberships aren’t like that for actual monetary reasons, it’s for watchtime percentage. I’ll be real here and just say a large chunk of matches realistically shouldn't be on the channel in general and are there because they have to be (ex a team needing representation or a match having playoff implications). Many many matches are rolls or stalematey hells that nobody that isn't already entrenched in competitive TF2 wants to watch (or is on the team). These matches hurt us in the long run, we get quick views initially to a point (usually less than 1k) but in the grand scheme of things it's holding the channel back, both from common viewers, and from YouTube. How this happens is twofold, the most obvious of which is the watchtime percentage of these VODs being incredibly low, where typically only 10% or less of people actually stick around to watch the entire thing and instead watch the first minute, then skip to the last minute before the match ends. This absolutely destroys us in the algorithm and it lowers the amount of recommendations we get since YouTube’s algorithm thinks everyone hated the videos. The second of the two problems is that VODs current drown out all other content on the channel which may range from things that aren’t hugely popular but are worth having (such as the POV demo guide), or things that ARE popular and are growing the channel (such as GTD).

The philosophy that I want the team to take going forward is the Star_ mentality which is that if each upload is good, people will binge our videos or at the very least become more interested in competitive TF2. Having the vast majority of our uploads being VODs really hurts this and is why we're likely going to move VODs to another channel and revamp membership (something that's been talked about for a few seasons now openly), which will be discussed amongst the teams.

In the future (hopefully after next season when revenue sharing for team members is all ironed out) all you really need to know is:
All VODs -> VODs channel
Great VODs -> RGL Main channel

I know it'll be weird to have 2 channels for a bit and to have some VODs uploaded twice but all everyone really needs to know is the Main channel will be for everyone (from existing Competitive players, to new competitive players, to people who don’t want to play but just want to watch), while the VOD channel will be for VODs!

While I’m here I guess I should mention that the Video Team is always looking for talent! There’s very few of us and a lot of work to go around, so if you’re interested you can apply through the website like you would any other position through here.

I was made aware of this thread by other RGL members and I don’t use TFTV, so if you have any further questions I made a thread on the RGL forums that you can ask questions on here.

And if there’s anything else you can also open a ticket in the RGL Discord under the “Misc” category and just @QueeQuey!