{"id":828322,"date":"2021-09-29T15:59:23","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T19:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=828322"},"modified":"2021-09-29T15:59:26","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T19:59:26","slug":"ozy-media-executive-apparently-impersonated-youtube-executive-company-allegedly-inflates-site-statistics-company-defends-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ozy-media-executive-apparently-impersonated-youtube-executive-company-allegedly-inflates-site-statistics-company-defends-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Ozy Media Executive Apparently Impersonated YouTube Executive, Company Allegedly Inflates Site Statistics. Company Defends Itself."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fozy-media-executive-apparently-impersonated-youtube-executive-company-allegedly-inflates-site-statistics-company-defends-itself%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=828322&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/GettyImages-1003933084.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A blistering New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/09\/26\/business\/media\/ozy-media-goldman-sachs.html\">report<\/a> on Sunday raised questions about Ozy, a digital media company aimed at millennials and founded in 2013, and whether the company was being honest about how many people it reached through its various products.<\/p>\n<p>The report, from Times columnist Ben Smith, included a curious detail about a conference call between Ozy and Goldman Sachs, which in February was nearly ready to purchase the media company. From Smith:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"25\">\n<p><em>The scheduled participants included Alex Piper, the head of unscripted programming for YouTube Originals. He was running late and apologized to the Goldman Sachs team, saying he\u2019d had trouble logging onto Zoom, and he suggested that the meeting be moved to a conference call, according to four people who were briefed on the meeting, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal details of a private discussion.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Once everyone had made the switch to an old-fashioned conference call, the guest told the bankers what they had been wanting to hear: that Ozy was a great success on YouTube, racking up significant views and ad dollars, and that Mr. Watson was as good a leader as he seemed to be. As he spoke, however, the man\u2019s voice began to sound strange to the Goldman Sachs team, as though it might have been digitally altered, the four people said.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Someone from Goldman Sachs reached out to Piper through a contact at YouTube. Piper said he had no idea what was going on and had never spoken about the deal. Goldman determined that someone had pretended to be Piper on the call. YouTube\u2019s security team took the impersonation seriously and opened an investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Carlos Watson, Ozy\u2019s chief executive, ended up apologizing and saying that Ozy co-founder and COO Samir Rao had impersonated the YouTube executive. Watson said Rao suffered a mental health crisis and briefly left the company to handle it before returning.<\/p>\n<p>Goldman Sachs didn\u2019t end up buying Ozy.<\/p>\n<p>The Times also noted that Ozy\u2019s claims of social reach seem far-fetched, as Comscore shows they reached 2.5 million people at time sin 2018 but less than 500,000 a month this summer. By contrast, Ozy claimed in 2019 that it had 50 million monthly unique users. Brian Morrissey, former editor-in-chief of the publication Digiday, said the numbers didn\u2019t make sense, remembering that \u201cnever once in my life has a piece of content from Ozy crossed into my world organically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The same goes for this millennial Daily Wire writer.<\/p>\n<p>Ozy CEO Watson <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/carloswatson\/status\/1442351771544735749\/photo\/1\">responded<\/a> to the Times\u2019 \u201cridiculous hitjob\u201d by insisting its unique users comes from multiple platforms, including its email newsletter subscribers (it claims to have 26 million subscribers across five newsletters, which would mean an average of 5.2 million each), podcasts, TV shows, and its festivals.<\/p>\n<p>Even some of that seems suspect, given Ozy\u2019s inaccurate claims. The company claimed on billboards in Los Angeles that \u201cThe Carlos Watson Show\u201d was \u201cAmazon Prime\u2019s First Talk Show,\u201d even though it did not partner with Amazon Prime. The show was uploaded to Amazon Prime using a service, but it is not an Amazon Prime show as most people would understand it. Amazon complained about Ozy\u2019s claims and the company promised to take them down, though Watson maintains the claim is \u201caccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even its claims about Watson\u2019s show being \u201cthe fastest-growing talk show in YouTube history,\u201d were considered suspect, as many videos have more than a million views but few comments, which is unusual for YouTube. Watson said in his response that the show \u201chas achieved more than [200 million] views in its first 12 months, which is more than any other premium daily talk show we\u2019ve been able to identify that was launched on YouTube.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The allegations against Ozy printed by the Times led to the resignation of one of the digital media company\u2019s biggest stars, longtime BBC anchor Katty Kay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had recently joined the company after my long career at the BBC, excited to explore opportunities in the digital space,\u201d Kay wrote in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/09\/29\/business\/media\/katty-kay-ozy-media.html\">a statement<\/a> about her resignation. \u201cI support the mission to bring diverse stories and voices to the public conversation. But the allegations in The New York Times, which caught me be surprise, are serious and deeply troubling and I had no choice but to end my relationship with the company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other fallout from the Times article include a new investigation from the Ozy board into the company\u2019s \u201cbusiness activities\u201d and leadership. Rao, who impersonated the YouTube executive, was asked to take a leave of absence pending the results.<\/p>\n<p>Watson has also pulled out of an Emmys ceremony this week, where he was to host the Documentary Emmy Awards for documentary filmmakers. Ozy Fest, which the company had scheduled for October 16 and 17, was also canceled.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A blistering New York Times report on Sunday raised questions about Ozy, a digital media company aimed at millennials and founded in 2013, and whether the company was being honest &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-828322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}