Stargate News YouTube Channel Dial the Gate’s David Read Admits The Channel Is Struggling As Stargate Is Coming Back
David Read has spent nearly six years building Dial the Gate into the definitive fan resource for the Stargate community — nearly 400 episodes of interviews, retrospectives, and deep dives with the cast and crew of one of science fiction television’s most beloved franchises. He’s done it for free. He’s done it out of love. And now, just as Amazon MGM Studios has announced a brand new Stargate series for Prime Video with original writers Martin Gero and Brad Wright back in the fold, Read has been forced to post a video telling his audience he can’t keep going without help.
“This was not an easy video for me to make,” he said. “I can’t even believe that I’m doing it.”
What Dial the Gate Is
Before the struggle makes sense, the show deserves its proper introduction.
Dial the Gate launched in October 2020 as a long-form interview series presented by GateWorld. The long-running Stargate fan site that has been the internet home of the franchise’s community for over two decades. Read, who has deep roots in that community going back to the early GateWorld days, the Official Stargate Magazine, the canceled Stargate Worlds MMO, and Propworx’s prop auctions from the series, built Dial the Gate into something rare: a fan production that the talent actually takes seriously.
The guest list over nearly six seasons reflects that. Cast and crew from SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe have sat down with Read for conversations that go well beyond convention panel fare. These are long, substantive interviews — the kind that actually document what it was like to make these shows, episode by episode, season by season. For a franchise that ended its television run in 2011 without a proper conclusion, and whose fanbase has been waiting ever since, Dial the Gate has served as both archive and lifeline.
Nearly 400 episodes in roughly five and a half years is a production output that most professional operations would struggle to match.
The Reality Behind the Camera
What Read revealed in his video is the economics that have been running underneath all of it.
“This past five seasons, I have poured well over ten grand into this project,” he said. The majority of that, he explained, isn’t equipment. It’s guest fees. “The higher-profile ones — they will not do the show without being paid. And I will never ask anyone for a dime to help pay for an individual to come on, because that is my cross to bear. That is my choice to bring them on.”
Read has operated on a strict internal code: he brings on who he wants to bring on, he pays what he needs to pay, and he doesn’t pass that cost to the audience. “Up until now, it’s been very much my policy that I will not take from the pocket of a fellow Stargate fan. There’s no difference between us. None whatsoever.”
That policy has now collided with reality. Read went back to school for roughly 18 months, was made promises about work that didn’t materialize, and finds himself in a financial position he hasn’t been in since the 2008 recession, when he was out of work for two years. He’s been driving for Uber since before COVID to supplement his income. “You can’t increase costs 33% on average and reduce everyone’s payouts by about the same amount without there being major load-bearing problems,” he said.
Google ad revenue from the YouTube channel, once enough to keep things moving, no longer comes close. “I thought that’s all it would take, but that’s just not the case anymore.”
The result: Read can no longer produce Dial the Gate at its current volume without the show “doing serious structural damage to the load-bearing parts of my life that really need to hold up everything else.”
What He’s Asking For
Read has set up a Patreon at patreon.com/dialthegate with three tiers. He was characteristically direct about what it is and what it isn’t.
Every piece of content will remain free. Day one. Available to everyone. “It’s designed for you, my fellow Stargate fan. That’s just what it’s for.” There are no exclusives behind the paywall. Patreon members get credit recognition in the show and the option to remain anonymous if they prefer.
He’s also offering his services as an audio and video editor. “I’m not that great with a camera, but I am an editor.” Anyone interested in a consultation can reach him at dialthegate@gmail.com.
The ask is narrow and specific: help him keep up with the volume of coverage the franchise deserves, cover the talent fees for guests who require payment, and fund travel so he can cover the new show in person. “In order to keep the show up at the volume that I want to create it — and that Stargate deserves at this stage, with it coming back — I need a little bit of financial support.”
The Worst Possible Timing, and the Best
Amazon MGM announced the new Stargate series in November 2025. Writers’ room is active. Production is expected to begin in fall 2026 in London. Martin Gero is writing and executive producing. Brad Wright is involved. This is not a reboot — it’s a continuation from people who know exactly what the franchise is.
For the Stargate community, it’s the moment they’ve been waiting fifteen years for. For Dial the Gate, it should be the beginning of the channel’s most important chapter the moment when a show built to document and celebrate the franchise gets to cover its actual return.
Instead, Read is driving for Uber and asking whether he can keep the lights on.
“The question is how frequently, what volume of content — my feet have to touch the ground and I can’t live in the fantasy world anymore.”
That sentence lands hard for anyone who’s watched what he’s built. Dial the Gate exists because one person loved a television show enough to spend six years and more than ten thousand dollars of his own money making sure the people who created it got to tell their stories properly. The franchise is coming back. The audience is there. The host who built the infrastructure to cover it is asking for help.
If you’re a Stargate fan, this is the moment to show up. Head to patreon.com/dialthegate.
If the golden age of Trek and Babylon 5 left a hole in your sci-fi diet, The Stars Entwined fills it — interstellar espionage between two civilizations on the brink of war. Read The Stars Entwined on Amazon!
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