Multimedia organization Ozy Media shuts down after impersonating YouTube exec on phone call

by ian

Ian Patrick, FISM News

 

Multimedia organization Ozy Media recently announced that they will be shutting the company down just days after the New York Times broke that an Ozy company official impersonated a YouTube executive and that they used misleading information about their consumer base. Ozy Media CEO Carlos Watson informed employees on October 1 that the company would be shutting down.

Ozy Media marketed itself as “a diverse, global and forward-looking media and entertainment company focused on ‘the New and the Next.'” The company started as a news organization seeking a fresh way to get information to the newer generation. It soon included talk shows, podcasts, tv shows, and live events.

The story reported on by the New York Times involved a phone call between Ozy’s executives and Goldman Sachs concerning a $40 million investment. The bank was interested in supporting the company based on their supposed reach, but needed to hear from YouTube since Ozy claimed it had a “great relationship” with the video-sharing media site.

Ozy set up a conference call with Goldman Sachs and YouTube claiming that Alex Piper, the head of unscripted programming for YouTube Originals, was speaking with the bank. However, the bank noticed something sounded off with the YouTube executive’s voice, so they checked in with Alex Piper to verify that he was on the call. Piper responded saying he had no idea what they were talking about.

It was revealed that Ozy chief operating officer Samir Rao, co-founder of Ozy Media, was impersonating Piper on the phone call in an effort to exacerbate the supposed relationship between Ozy and YouTube. When the report from the Times broke, Watson claimed it was a “hit job” and tweeted copies of a memo sent to his company as well as his responses to a Times journalist on the matter.

According to these documents, Watson said Rao had “a mental health episode” and determined that he was still fit to operate in his position as COO despite the phone call incident.

The questions from the Times reporter also revealed details about the supposed scope of Ozy Media. One of the questions asked about the “50 million monthly unique visitors” that Ozy had boasted which contradicted information from Comscore which states that the company saw somewhere between 2.5 million and 230,000 visitors to its site.

Watson responded saying the information was incorrect, claiming that they have 26 million newsletter subscribers, 25 million people who watch their television programs or listen to their podcasts, and 30 million people who see content posted by Ozy on various social media outlets.

These numbers, however, are disputed because of the Comscore stat and because Ozy has stretched the truth in the past. Amazon had picked up one of Ozy’s programs starring Watson, known as The Carlos Watson Show. Ozy proclaimed it to be Amazon’s first talk show on billboards around Los Angeles, which Amazon forced them to take down later on the basis that the show was picked up by Amazon but not an original from the company.

Regardless of Watson’s attempts to ease the situation, high-profile collaborators like former BBC anchor Katty Kay began to leave the company shortly after the NYT piece dropped. Within one week the company had to shut down.

The Times reports of a phone call Watson made to Ozy’s board on October 1 in which he said the company was “blessed with a remarkable team of dedicated staff,” but due to the the reports he “must announce today that we are closing Ozy’s doors.”

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