I have to give immense credit to YouTube influencer/video host James Pumphrey for the way he’s played his departure from Donut Media. Not since the disappearance of the Lindbergh baby have so many random people been invested in the whereabouts of, let’s face it, a minor celebrity. He’s gone and, with it, Donut Media becomes something else.
‘Minor celebrity’ isn’t a knock here. Becoming famous for doing things on YouTube was only just starting to become a thing when Pumphrey started his “Up to Speed” series for Donut Media. The channel had already existed for a couple of years and had found minor success, but the roman candle enthusiasm of Pumphrey and his internet-pitch-perfect delivery made Donut Media what it is.
And now, after almost a decade, Pumphrey is gone and starting his own channel.
“Donut has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I’m very proud of what the team and I were able to do over the last nine years, grateful for all of the opportunities I was given and thankful for the people I’ve been able to work with,” said Pumphrey. “I’m excited to see what my friends do with the brand I love and look forward to what they have in store. I’ve been working on a new project with Donut’s former CCO Jesse Wood and I’m stoked to share that with the world.”
Pumphrey is the latest in a long series of hosts who have quit their channels shortly after those channels were sold. As I wrote earlier:
While some of the individual situations between CarThrottle, Hoongian, and Donut Media are a little different, they all follow a pattern that Tiernan describes quite succinctly:
- Passionate creatives build company, experience huge growth in YouTube/Insta expansion era.
- Original owners sell for reasons, new money comes in.
- Company gets resold or restructured, cuts costs, squeezes creative, and loses sight of what makes content good in the first place.
- Lacking any true “moat” people leave to start something new.
That is likely what happened here, but I have to credit Donut Media’s new-ish parent company Recurrent with at least recognizing that just letting stars leave and pretending like it didn’t happen until those stars make their own videos is a terrible strategy.
Instead, I got an email yesterday from a PR firm representing Donut Media/Recurrent with an embargo offer: Don’t write about this until their big press push and we’ll give you quotes.
Curious, I agreed, and I got the quote above from Pumphrey and another quote from new Editor-in-Chief Nolan Sykes, who will be familiar to anyone who follows the channel closely.
“I can’t wait for everyone to see what we’ve been working on. We’re going deep into drag racing, we shot a video in a single take which I’m super proud of, and we have a new build coming that I’ve never seen anyone do on Youtube,” said Sykes in the statement. “We’ve been pretty busy. I want to thank James for the years of mentorship and for all the laughs; we had a great, great time. I wish him and his new channel well. I intend to hold to the tenets that got Donut where it is today; and to continue celebrating car culture and the people that make it happen.”
There’s also a planned AMA over on the Donut Media subreddit later today, where most of the posts seem to be pining for the days of yore.
I don’t know if this is quite a win-win for everyone, but Donut Media at least gets to try and maintain some goodwill from its audience and, at the same time, Pumphrey gets a boost for his new channel, which was formed Jesse Wood and, I’m assuming, some other ex-Donut talent.
The new venture is called Speeed and is, so far as I can tell, a YouTube channel. If you want to understand the allure of Pumphrey, his channel with no content already has more YouTube subs than our channel.
As I’ve said before, I think this is more proof that the private equity era of media, as with other things, hasn’t been super successful. The biggest reasons seem to be that the people who buy these properties don’t genuinely care about the content/subject and undervalue the talent.
When “Up to Speed” started taking off I remember a lot of the 1st gen YouTube video creators getting upset, mostly because the content was mostly footage ‘borrowed’ from other people without any sort of permission. Before Instagram and TikTok made remixing videos more popular, a lot of professionals looked down their noses at Donut Media for this.
In doing so, I think a lot of these people missed what the future of Internet content was going to be. Donut Media may have stretched the concept of “fair use” a bit, but the mix of found footage and strong talent like Pumphrey was a sign of what was to come.
Donut Media pivoted more towards original content and pumped out some of the most popular car videos on web. It’s quite possible that Donut Media could do that again and find more talent, though the company now finds itself in the position that existing channels found themselves in a decade ago.
Can Donut Media, now the established player, outperform the nimble upstart? Can it do this now that the nimble upstart is someone they made a star? The internet isn’t zero-sum and both can exist simultaneously. Whether or not Donut will continue to flourish without the same talent is an open question.
Update: James has published his farewell video:
Good riddance. That twerp was the main reason I stopped sub’ing to Donut, and the reason I don’t listen to Past Gas podcasts.
All mouth, no brain.
Good Riddance.
Could never stand the guy. Donut would have a video that looked like an interesting/fun topic, I’d click watch, and after 2 minutes would have to stop. Dude is an utter tool and annoying AF.
I owe a chunk of my wardrobe to James.
PE bought my first company and kept me on CEO for 6 months as a transition period. That was genuinely the last 6 months of the company growing like it did when PE got interested in it. I didn’t exactly care as I was paid for the company but it did suck to see the soul torn from the company and within 18 months the entire company was sold for parts (don’t worry they made a metrick fckton of money doing that) and sunsetted.
So PE looked like geniuses, I got my cash and the cycle continued. But this was in healthcare and the tech we made lives on in GE, Siemens, 3M and Bosch’s portfolio. When the entire point of a company relies on viewers, the “soul” becomes way more important and I don’t think PE has quite figured that out yet. James, Jer, Jobe, these guys are 3 of the 5 main hosts that made the channel great, you can’t just replace on screen talent. Youtube is still a very personal relationship between viewer and creator, even at a media company like Donut where there are 69 people behind the scenes, you the viewer feel connected to the dudes on screen. I realized this was happening at donut over the last 6 or 7 months because they were heavily introducing new on screen guys like Jimmy and Max and they’re fun but they’re fun as sidekicks to the core 5, time will tell if they can successfully become the new members of the core 5.
Best of luck to all, end of the day I enjoy quality automotive content and that’s what we were getting and I don’t care if the channel name says Donut or Big Time or Speeed, it needs to be quality and that’s that.
If he does another U2S series, I just hope they get all the information correct on it. I started losing my mind at the stuff they’ve gotten wrong on all the Chrysler videos they did.
It seems that passion and big money don’t mix well. One is usually the detrimental to the other.
I’d love to go Office Space style and knock over cubicles in these private equity firms. Perhaps put toothpaste filled Oreos in their corporate breakroom and hassle the upper management.
And then interview with the Bobs and get promoted for being honest and not actually doing any work other than hassling upper management.
Eh, I’m not a fan of a channel really; I’m more a fan of the hosts and the projects. If they are able to do the production side in a similar or equally entertaining way then I’ll just watch them instead of or in addition to Donut. I wish them all well with the new ventures and will keep checking on Donut until it’s not enjoyable any more. I’ll be there to see how to it goes though at least.
Same deal for Torch, David, Steph and Mercedes as well. It’s not brand specific for me unless one considers the creators a brand (which I suppose is true to some extent). No offence meant by omission btw, those are just the folks that consistently speak to my interests specifically.
Aww ❤️
dont forget fancy kristen
exactly, i got an autopian membership because i like the authors. I watch donut because i like the hosts, now I’m watching big time and looking forward to Speeed.
Nolan and Justin are great but they were my least favorite hosts of the bunch, hopefully they keep it going but if not best of luck and godspeeed
As an avid Donut fan, it pains me so much go see Jobe and James leave. I absolutely loved their videos and the carefree and outright fun atmosphere they created. Watching Donut videos felt like hanging out with a bunch of your friends for a bit. It was incredible escapism. I’ll sub all the new channels, but I’ll always miss that specific collection of talent
I hate to say it, but Donut has an uphill battle. I want them to kick ass.
Donut was AWESOME but it all got so cooperate and exploded so fast. I knew the end was coming when i saw Donut media being advertised on my cable box.
I love Torch and Dave and realize this site is the baby. That said the YouTube side feels like a big missed opportunity. Lesser folks have grown faster and bigger using that platform.
I think wrenchups in major cities could be a way forward for this site.
Donutnik.