Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 12:55 PM PT

YouTube Pays Users $1 Million

YouTube said today it has paid out more than $1 million to its user partners through its partner program. The figure came as part of an announcement that YouTube is expanding the program to users in Japan, Australia and Ireland (it was previously only available in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom).

YouTube doesn’t disclose how it splits its revenue, but we’ll make do with what scraps of numbers we have. The site currently lists 100 partners, though that also includes entities that we’d think would be designated as professional partners rather than “user partners,” such as Universal Music Group and CBS.

Break a Leg’s Yuri Baranovsky said he’d collected $1,600 for more than 2 million views on YouTube. So if that means $800 for a million views (which it doesn’t exactly, but just to get an idea), user partners have been responsible for 1.25 billion paid views so far. Update: YouTube responds to say it pays different partners different rates.

Users complained after YouTube was bought for $1.65 billion by Google in October 2006 that they weren’t being rewarded for their own hard work to make the site what it was. So OK, this math is a little unfair, but if you divide that out, users have now earned about .06 percent the purchase price. Thanks a lot, Chad and Steve!

If you want more current numbers, Bear Stearns estimated that YouTube would pull in $90.2 million in domestic revenue and $13.8 million in international revenue this year, with the vast majority of that coming from banner ads displayed next to videos. YouTube partner videos are the only ones on the site for which YouTube shows overlay ads, which it says it tries to sell for a $20 CPM. Bear Stearns said it expected $22.6 million in overlay ad revenue domestically this year.

Revver, the OG video rev-share site, hit the $1 million-paid-to-users mark first, in September 2007. The site was later bought by LiveUniverse for about $5 million.

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Topic: Money & Power

Comments (8)

That don’t sound like alot of money considering how much Youtube makes…

But why the different rate for different partners?

Free Youtube Video Templates — 8:04 AM on April 17, 2008 Reply
How do I get some of that money?

mkmckay13 — 10:09 AM on April 18, 2008 Reply
don’t sound like alot of money

Mikey — 4:16 AM on May 18, 2008 Reply
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kalaichelvan — 9:10 AM on May 25, 2008 Reply
Oh bullshit.

Everyone and their brother knows that prior to the Google purchase, YouTube was nothing other than a huge video piracy download station.

Last I checked, viacom alone wants roughly the purchase price, and Google’s YouTube still has my girlfriend’s ANTM uploaded within hours of its airing, but the huge collection of movies seems to have gone away.

Jason Kennerly — 2:25 PM on July 23, 2008 Reply
Youtube is only one part of Google’s ‘world domination’ policy. Online advertising will become a massive revenue source and they aim for the biggest slice of the pie….Watch every move Google makes and learn!

digitalblue2u — 12:37 AM on September 23, 2008 Reply
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?

Marie Nasemann — 2:00 PM on April 27, 2009 Reply
Hi!

I have a film witch is viewed 100,000 times. How do i get profit for this?

NorthPlayer — 2:27 AM on October 9, 2009 Reply

Linkbacks (11)

[...] paid out $1 million in cash to video creators that are part of its Partners program. Excerpt from NewTeeVee article… YouTube said today it has paid out more than $1 million to its user partners through its [...]

Getting YouTube Views Via Related Videos… — 5:42 PM on April 16, 2008
[...] negative results on it’s quarter earnings, YouTube comes to the rescue. According to New Tee Vee, JP Morgan Stearns analyst Bob Peck estimates that YouTube will clock about $100 million of revenue [...]

YouTube Save Google | Lagahit.com — 8:15 PM on April 16, 2008
[...] to New Tee Vee, JP Morgan Stearns analyst Bob Peck estimates that YouTube will clock about $100 million of revenue [...]

SILICON ALLEY INSIDER | Google Is Saved!… — 8:29 PM on April 16, 2008
[...] All Partners Are Not the Same YouTube wrote in to let us know that our back-of-the-envelope math on its partner program had a fatal flaw, because the site pays different partners different [...]

YouTube: All Partners Are Not the Same «… — 10:13 PM on April 16, 2008
[...] Original URL: http://newteevee.com/2008/04/16/youtube-pays-users-1-million/ [...]

YouTube pays users $1 million « Power… — 3:19 AM on April 17, 2008
[...] to New Tee Vee, JP Morgan Stearns analyst Bob Peck estimates that YouTube will clock about $100 million of revenue [...]

TFO 2.0 » Archive du blog » Google… — 8:42 AM on April 17, 2008
[...] are part of its advertising partner program, the site announced on its blog. One of its partners, Yuri Baranovsky, tells NewTeeVee he has received $1,600 for the 2 million views received through his “Break a Leg” series, or [...]

andreas04: close to attraction — 7:48 AM on April 18, 2008
[...] in investment, NBC picked up Rosario Dawson’s new web series, and Youtube announced it paid over $1 million to its users. I guess now’s the time to be producing content on the [...]

Get Used! | Happy Hour with Mark McKay — 10:02 AM on April 18, 2008
[...] not the first to point out that these figures stink. NewTeeVee worked out they mean content producers paid by YouTube are on average earning only about $800 per [...]

Pirates Pay Better Than YouTube | jamie.com — 2:55 AM on April 19, 2008
[...] that’s not where the real money is. Though details are scarce, some number-crunching by NewTeeVee and Silicon Alley Insider in April found that YouTube charges, at best, $1 per thousand views. [...]

TPM sees dollars in online video »… — 5:12 AM on December 9, 2008
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