Used to be that when a beloved media property was replaced, you found out by flipping the dial. Maybe you'd tap the "favorite" button on your car dash or tap the 2- or 3-digit channel number on your remote, only to find that a beloved radio or TV channel had switched formats.

On Thursday, the Internet equivalent happened to a once-beloved YouTube channel—and showed exactly why those old days of quiet format swaps aren't so easy to do anymore.

Caught changing the Source

The SourceFed family of video channels began as part of YouTube's "original content" initiative in 2011, and it revolved around hosts commenting on news and gossip. The initiative eventually splintered off with video feeds focused on certain topics, including a dedicated "NERD" channel that eventually topped one million YouTube subscribers on its own. SourceFed's various feeds lasted about five years before its final owners, Group Nine Media, shuttered the operation in March of this year.

Those channels' archives remain on YouTube, and most of their original viewers chose not to tap YouTube's "unsubscribe" button. That meant that more than one million fans of the splinter SourceFedNERD channel were alerted to a new video on Thursday. However, this was delivered under the auspices of a new brand, "NowThis Nerd," and a new host—which all happen to be hosted at the original "SourceFedNERD" URL. The channel's announcement issued a pledge to make "a new video every day about the stuff you care about and the info you need to know." But it didn't specify exactly what kind of content viewers should expect beyond teases about Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

The Group Nine subsidiary NowThis chose to leave the comments open on this announcement video. You might expect vitriol—but surprisingly, for a YouTube feed, many comments are heartfelt and polite in their adamant disapproval.

"It's not just the fact that you guys are putting out the same nerdy content as SFN was," one commenter wrote. "We built a relationship with the hosts. It was a genuine community." Most other commenters were clear that they had not subscribed just for the idea of a "nerd" channel but because of the access and communication they had with the original content creators, who had all been fired when SourceFed shut all of its feeds down last year. Similar complaints dominated the usual social media suspects, including a surprisingly thriving Reddit community dedicated to the dormant channel.

May-day

New host Mike Calabro admits in this announcement video that the channel's launch is inherently problematic. He claims that the launch strategy "wasn't our decision," then he pleads for viewers to bear with him. "I feel awkward sitting here," Calabro says. "I know all of you guys are watching me like I'm Ramsay Bolton in Winterfell. I understand what you're feeling. At the end of the day, we all love the same stuff."

He does not comment on the new channel's strange choice of header image, which sees Spiderman apparently painting over a wall—which seems a bit on the nose for a channel trying to ride its predecessor's coattails.

Shortly after the announcement was published, the new feed served its first "content" video: a recounting of the "history" of Star Wars-related "May the 4th" events. This video, with a different host from the announcement, starts by promising to tell stories "you might not know about." But it runs out of historical steam so fast that it includes a recommendation that viewers just go to Disneyland on any day of the year to see Star Wars-related content—and then it spends time talking about unrelated sci-fi series that happen to have ties to the month of May. Between those issues and the host's stilted, whiny delivery (I could barely watch the whole seven-minute video, compared to the likable and charismatic hosts of SourceFedNERD), it's not a good first-foot forward for a channel trying to retain the original channel's million-plus subscribers.

Shuttering and reopening channels with similar content happens all the time, and even original SourceFed hosts piped up to address this reality (though, admittedly, before NowThis Nerd's launch). "Group Nine isn't some evil, bad corporation," former host Dani Rosenberg told fans. "Our views were low. This is how the entertainment industry works. We got five years. We're incredibly lucky."

But modern entertainment isn't like the days of old, when such a shift might cause you to privately remove a "favorite" from your radio or TV controller of choice. Now, those actions sit right next to 500 "comment" buttons and light up as trackable activity—like this chart of the former SourceFedNERD channel losing followers by the thousands since the switch was announced.

Also, if you're going to try a format swap on a channel with the word "Nerd" in its name, you have to be ready for precise, granular blowback—like someone unaffiliated with Group Nine registering the "NowThisNerd" username on Twitter and turning it into a "F___ you NowThisNerd" reaction page.