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YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

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Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#21

Post by jeffool »

andrewvc wrote: post #2

In a hits based industry the 'average' isn't very interesting. What's the variance across those top 1000 channels? I'm really curious to see some more data here, I have a feeling that the disparity is severe.

I'm absolutely with you; I would love to see more data on this.

That said, while we definitely exist in a "hits" driven culture, I expect such hits would be boundary crossing, and I see no reason to presume a middle class can't exist in any given boundary. (Or, maybe, it could grow toward that.) I'm reminded of the recent post on Pandora talking about "middle class musicians".

My point being you're right. We need more data.

Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#22

Post by rorrr »

saurik wrote: post #19
rorrr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, only if the distribution in both directions is exponential, which is not the case here. The horizontal scale is just the rank, which is linear.

Interesting; FWIW, I am going based on the comment "the channels follow a power law" from the grandparent post. I was under the (possibly mistaken) impression that these are normally plotted using log-log; would you be willing to explain what I am getting wrong? (I am totally happy to believe I'm missing something btw, and I certainly did not anticipate the person I responded to deleting their post...). (edit: Furthe…

The parent is obviously wrong about power law (like e^x). It's not even e^(e^x), it's something that grows more rapidly, like x^x, or x factorial. I'm too lazy to figure it out.

Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#23

Post by citricsquid »

David wrote: post #3

What is the distribution like among the top 1000 channels? Presumably the top of the top 1000 channels far outproduce the bottom, just like the top 1000 far outproduce the rest of youtube. Given such a distribution, what are the top few channels earning? 100,000 a month? 1,000,000 a month? Even more? Other interesting questions: How much of that is profit? Relatedly, does it cost a prohibitive amount to have a highly…

There are literal kids (teenagers) making 6 figures a month from their Youtube channels with absolute 0 production costs. The best example would be a guy called Pewdiepie[1], he makes gaming videos and does something like 5 million views per day (which is probably around $10k revenue assuming he has a good deal...). He isn't alone, there's quite a few others approaching his level of success.

Something a lot of people seem to forget too is for every video they put out their old videos still get views. It's like investments, the money they make compounds over time because for every new video that's more and more views. So as their viewership grows, so does their previous video views and so do their potential views for the future. Even if someone "only" does 10,000,000 views from new videos in a month they can still be doing substantial revenue from old videos. This is how some of the bigger channels work, they produce incredibly popular videos every couple of months and fill the time with smaller videos.

A good example of that would be Captain Sparklez [2], a guy that makes video game music and commentaries, his music videos can do anywhere from 10 million to 70 million views and he then produces game play commentaries between his bigger hits.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/pewdiepie [2] http://www.youtube.com/user/CaptainSparklez/videos?sort=p&#3...

Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#24

Post by muyuu »

rorrr wrote: post #18
saurik wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way people normally plot these kinds of distributions is on a log/log graph (to be clear: where both axes are log'd, not where only one of the axes is doubly-log'd).

That's not true, only if the distribution in both directions is exponential, which is not the case here. The horizontal scale is just the rank, which is linear.

Rank can be considered linear or logarithmic. It can be argued that the difference between being 1st or 10th is orders of magnitude bigger than the difference between being 100th and 110th.

In fact I think a log scale for rank usually makes the most sense, especially when starting from 1st.

Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#26

Post by [deleted] »

rorrr wrote: post #17
nostromo wrote: post #5

The channels follow a power law. I got the number of views from here ( http://socialblade.com/youtube/top/5000 ) and plotted them: http://i.imgur.com/X6nEL.png If the $23k average for the top 1k is correct, then only the top 250 or so actually make $23k a month or more. At that line are some pretty big channels, like Husky Starcraft and big bands like Kesha and Muse. In which case, this doesn't seem like a lot of mon…

I charted the LOG(video views) here: http://i.imgur.com/WubeX.png What's really interesting is that LOG(LOG(video views)) looks pretty much the same: http://i.imgur.com/NnSrA.png So I'm not sure what law the distribution follows, but the top players get a TON more money than the rest. The top 211 players make more than the rest 4789. EDIT: It also means that the top player universalmusicgroup makes $485,707/month, an…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#27

Post by napoleoncomplex »

citricsquid wrote: post #23
David wrote: post #3

What is the distribution like among the top 1000 channels? Presumably the top of the top 1000 channels far outproduce the bottom, just like the top 1000 far outproduce the rest of youtube. Given such a distribution, what are the top few channels earning? 100,000 a month? 1,000,000 a month? Even more? Other interesting questions: How much of that is profit? Relatedly, does it cost a prohibitive amount to have a highly…

There are literal kids (teenagers) making 6 figures a month from their Youtube channels with absolute 0 production costs. The best example would be a guy called Pewdiepie[1], he makes gaming videos and does something like 5 million views per day (which is probably around $10k revenue assuming he has a good deal...). He isn't alone, there's quite a few others approaching his level of success. Something a lot of people…

There is also the fact that this is only ad revenue. I would wager that people with good marketing skills make much more from side gigs than from direct ad revenue.

Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#28

Post by 1wheel »

citricsquid wrote: post #23
David wrote: post #3

What is the distribution like among the top 1000 channels? Presumably the top of the top 1000 channels far outproduce the bottom, just like the top 1000 far outproduce the rest of youtube. Given such a distribution, what are the top few channels earning? 100,000 a month? 1,000,000 a month? Even more? Other interesting questions: How much of that is profit? Relatedly, does it cost a prohibitive amount to have a highly…

There are literal kids (teenagers) making 6 figures a month from their Youtube channels with absolute 0 production costs. The best example would be a guy called Pewdiepie[1], he makes gaming videos and does something like 5 million views per day (which is probably around $10k revenue assuming he has a good deal...). He isn't alone, there's quite a few others approaching his level of success. Something a lot of people…

rorrr posted a list of everyone making 100k+ per month; I don't think there are any kids on it.

Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#29

Post by citricsquid »

1wheel wrote: post #28
citricsquid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are literal kids (teenagers) making 6 figures a month from their Youtube channels with absolute 0 production costs. The best example would be a guy called Pewdiepie[1], he makes gaming videos and does something like 5 million views per day (which is probably around $10k revenue assuming he has a good deal...). He isn't alone, there's quite a few others approaching his level of success. Something a lot of people…

rorrr posted a list of everyone making 100k+ per month; I don't think there are any kids on it.

His list is based on top subscribers over all time, these people are fast rising to the top but are relatively new. Pewdiepie has been making videos for about a year (as someone popular) and is currently #18 on the most subscribed, the channels in the list compiled by rorrr are accounts that are ~5 years old.

Pewdiepie currently averages around 4,000,000 views per day, that's 120,000,000 per month which even at a really poor $1 CPM is still over $100k; at $2 CPM (or more) he'd be making well into 200k+

Re: YouTube's top 1,000 channels average $23K each month in ad revenue

#30

Post by InclinedPlane »

I'm glad to see more attention paid to this. The idea of the "youtube celebrity" has been around a while, but to my mind that's less interesting than the idea of people making a living off of youtube. And the fascinating thing is just how many people are now gainfully employed making youtube content. This is a phenomenon that has crept up rather rapidly and hasn't received very much attention in traditional media channels or even in business channels. I find it odd that traditional television networks and movie studios have basically been trying their hardest to pretend that youtube doesn't exist, or that it is merely a repository of funny cat videos.

There's a real revolution in video entertainment going on right now. And youtube is still growing at a phenomenal rate. The recent example of the explosive popularity of the Gangnam Style music video is a perfect case in point. It's not just "viral", it's a cultural phenomenon, and it's taking place on youtube whereas in the past you'd expect people to be exposed to popular music videos through television.

If I were in the traditional TV business I would be all over this. I'd be snapping up talent off youtube and I'd be setting up deals and producing content for the internet, etc. But it looks like this is still a case of two separate worlds. I suspect the "oh shit" moment will come when a more traditional format TV show or movie published on youtube becomes wildly successful, and it's really only a matter of time until that happens.

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