I've seen a lot of youtube channels where the creators don't own the channel come and go. It seems that when a channel gets big enough off the back of their creators, the creators tend to strike out of their own and channel they leave never seems to recover. Fitment Industries is the latest example of this in automotive youtube.
However, Donut Media doesn't seem to have much turnover, despite their hosts being among the largest faces in automotive youtube (i.e., Nolan Sykes, James Pumphrey). At first I felt this was because they paid them well, but online I'm seeing salaries of like 80k. In addition, their hosts often say they can't afford to buy rather modest cars…cars that youtubers who do own their own channels – and have similar clout, could easily buy. So if its not big salaries that's keeping Donut Media together, what is?
I was thinking that perhaps they have some sort of non-compete that prevents them from making video content related to cars during (so barring personal channels) or for a period of time after they would leave the company. Would this be enforceable in California? What do you think?