The Official Network Update - End of 2024 (Patreon)

Hello, hello.

I bring yet another update in our long list of updates and changes. I've been thinking long and hard lately about how I want to grow the network and how we can best make the show available to you all across a multitude of platforms. I want to bring you our shows as quickly as possible so you feel like the hard earned money you spend supporting us is giving you value. I want to get to a point where we have something coming out each day that you can watch if it interests you. I've been working on getting us to a point where all of these goals can be met. Which brings me to these core updates and changes.1. Weekly ShowsAs shown in the picture at the top, we're adding 3 new shows to our weekly uploads joining Red Thread and The Official Podcast. Reel Boys has been well received and I'm having a lot of fun making it with Connor, so we'll be uploading it to our membership sites every Monday. Criminally Stupid, a fan favourite, has been having issues on YouTube so we'll be stopping video uploads for the time being so that we can best protect the YouTube channel BUT this will free us up to bring the show out weekly on Tuesdays on membership platforms as well as audio platforms (after a week of membership exclusivity). Red Thread will continue to release weekly on Wednesdays across membership platforms. The Official Podcast will continue to release weekly on Thursdays across membership platforms and when Game Night begins to release, it will do so on Fridays weekly. But, I'm not done there. I am also working on two additional shows that I hope to bring to our audience in the future. Myself and FriendlyJordies are working on a light-hearted show about self-help called Get Confident, Stupid that I hope to bring out soon and make weekly before the end of the year and I'm also working on a more True Crime focussed podcast called Dead Air that I'm hoping to bring to you all before the end of the year as well.2. Membership SitesOne of the core pieces of feedback we've received for many years now is that the Patreon platform isn't enjoyable to use for the audience. I want to offer choices to the audience that let them get the content they want in the places they want to use. We've been working over the last few months to bring you those options. But I want to make this point crystal clear: Patreon is not going away. You can still use Patreon the same way you've been using it in the past. It'll still be supported the exact same way it is currently supported. These are simply additional options to use if you're not enjoying the Patreon experience. Introducing Official.Men. This new membership website has been made with love and care as an intended second option for people who want early access to our shows. The core changes are that you'll be able to support us on a show-by-show basis, buy merchandise as well as have access to early video content (something not available to us on Patreon but we will generally only be able to upload videos a day early still due to our production capabilities). The benefits are functionally the same as on Patreon. You get access to a members only feed with early access to the content (about 4 days early access to audio versions of the shows, ad-free). Again, you can sign up for a show-by-show basis for a discount as well. See below for the membership tiers. This will not change on Patreon, this functionality will only be available on the membership platform. This is so that people who only want to watch a particular show can receive a discount.   We will also be dropping a Red Thread shirt on November 7th to celebrate the launch and, if the demand is there for the merchandise, we hope to bring limited designs out over the next year for our other shows. Members will receive a discount on merchandise (patreon members as well).

Again, functionally, you receive the same benefits across both Patreon and Official.Men. Our membership website also has an app that you can download so that you can listen to and watch our shows on the go on mobile phones. We'll have more information about this on November 7th when the site goes live but I want to stress this point; we will continue supporting the Patreon with the same content that the membership website gets. The Patreon is not going away. This is simply for people who would like to support us but don't want to use Patreon. If you're happy on Patreon, you don't need to move over to the new website and you definitely don't need to sign up for and maintain membership on both websites to get the full Official experience. We are also now offering YouTube Memberships on the YouTube channel. This is simply a way for people to support the YouTube channel and get YouTube dependent benefits on that particular platform. If you frequently watch on YouTube, you'll receive these loyalty badges, emotes and early (roughly 1 day early) access to videos. Again, this is just an option and does not replace Patreon or the Membership Site. Due to the functionality of YouTube, audio only uploads will not be available on that platform and so membership there will only provide the badges, emotes and early access to the video uploads (at the same time as the membership platform). We hope that these additional options will give our audience and supporters choices. We want you guys to be happy and to feel like you're receiving the best bang-for-your-buck. Giving you the option to support us where you want to support us is essential to that goal. The new website (Official.Men) will be launching on November 7th and we'll be making a post then with a 100% discount for the first month for existing Patreon members and a 50% discount for new members.That's ItThanks for taking the time to read this blog post about what is coming up and the changes that we're making overall. I'm looking forward to getting to that point where we're releasing an episode of a show each day during the work week. I hope the changes, overall, are liked and I hope the shows themselves have been entertaining you all. I want to give everyone who has stuck with us past the major change in our hosts an enormous thanks. The kind words and support have been monumental in keeping us going and I've never felt more encouraged to keep trying. I truly am putting everything I have into these shows, and I'm sure my co-hosts are the exact same, and it's because you guys are there each week giving us that support and we truly don't want to let anyone down. We're recording a bonus episode later this week and we should have that out fairly quickly on Patreon. The goal is to get a bonus episode out every two weeks for the patreon and Official.Men audience exclusively and that should kick in later this week. It's taken a back-seat overall as we've been focussed on just getting a handle on everything past the major changes. If you have any feedback at all, or questions, please feel free to leave them below and I'll do my best to answer as many as I can. Thank you for your support,Jackson Clarke