The Late Late UK Vape Show (LLUKV) has left Vaping Underground Live as a host platform for the show.

The decision to leave VULive was agreed upon between myself (Vic) and my co-host Gwen.  Our reason for leaving is unusual view activity on a handful of shows on the network, which I will describe below.

As you can see from the screenshots included here for LLUKV, there is a gradual decline of viewers from its original release down to maybe 10 to 20 viewers at the tail off. As the days go on, fewer and fewer people view it. This is a natural progression of views from the original social media release (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) of the recording.

However, for this handful of other shows, the numbers peak for exactly one day, hit an EXACT amount (500, 1,000 or 2,000) and then drop to 0 views the following day. In one case (Mod Envy Halloween), the views drop to 0, stay at 0 for 3 days, suddenly jump to exactly 1000 views, and the drop to 0 again the following day.

Something wasn’t right.

Youtube views for recorded shows and normal uploaded videos can be bought.  This breaks Youtube’s TOS, but it is possible. Some sites offer the opportunity to buy 500, 1000, 1500, 4000+ views at an exponentially increasing rate.  The order is placed at the buy site, and it usually takes two calendar days for those views to hit the video all at the same time. The screenshots for this handful of other shows show no progression – they show that a spike in views came 2 calendar days after the video went public, and they also show an exact number of views for that day. In the case of the Mod Envy Halloween show, there were two spikes in views.  The fact is, that no social media outreach would provide an exact number of views, a sudden drop from the thousands to absolute zero 24 hours later, and then have the same pattern repeat a second time for the exact same video.

Some of you may ask how I concluded that these views have been purchased.  In addition to the facts above, from 2006 to 2008 I was part of the team at Google UK who was tasked with implementing the changeover when Google acquired Youtube (which they bought in the summer of 2006), so I have experience in identifying illegitimate view counts. 

Being part of a network that is engaging in the practice of breaking Youtube’s TOS would not reflect well on me or my channel, so I have made the decision to leave.

Gwen and I would personally like to thank Lucidious Rage, the council member of VULive who brought LLUKV on to VULive last year. He and most of the people who cast there are hardworking, dedicated people, who are always willing to help vapers. It’s a shame that the actions of one person can have this ripple effect, but it is what it is.

The Late Late UK Vape Show will return very soon.  For the time being the Thursday show will be broadcast live on the main Vaping With Vic youtube channel.  More plans will be announced, keep an eye on Facebook for details of possible time changes and the future of the Sunday show.

NOTE – According to some rumours, this was about views.  If it was, Late Late would have moved to my own channel, with its 14k subscribers, and i would guaruntee you it would get more live viewers than Mod Envy.   This is about flat out cheating and breaking of Youtubes terms of service which i want nothing to do with.  Neither Mod Envy or Late Late can claim to be the biggest show in vaping… that goes to Vapin Fagan’s live Youtube shows with over 1000 live viewers and TENS of thousands of replays and no one will ever be able to beat those numbers.