nerdcubed

Ooof

Added 2017-04-29 09:18:37 +0000 UTC

Some YouTube records broken this month. Not only is this the first year to ever have a month with a lower income than January but it's actually the lowest income I've ever had on record (apart from at the very start). Views held, subscribers were 33% up (thanks to that Battle Sim video) but, as you can see, the income dropped a whopping 25% since just last month. YouTube Red income, while small, remained the same. This issue is advertiser side. So what's happening?

Let's quickly break down how converting views into money works on YouTube. When you view a video, YouTube digs into a big pool of adverts and brings one up for you based on your preferences/history, channel preferences/standing and advertiser preferences. This all happens as you click the video, you kindof create the advert by clicking the video.

On average (at the moment) 37% of views receive an advert. (This is the "fill rate") This is due to ad-blocking, people using devices that don't have ads and adverts just not being served up. So for 100 views only 37 will earn the channel any money.

Then YouTube takes it's cut. 45% flat rate. This pays for the server costs etc. So for our 100 views, we're down to around 20 that pay out.

Then your MCM (Maker, Machinima etc) take their cut. This is around 5 - 15% depending on how good you are at negotiating.

So this month, roughly, for 100 YouTube views, the YouTuber was only paid for around 18 of them.

(After that I have to pay corporation tax, pay everyone who works for me and then pay personal tax on my own income but we're not going to go into that today. I'd like to sleep tonight.)

So, now we all know how this works... WHAT HAPPENED?!

The answer is simple. Less ads were served. The fill rate was 25% lower than normal. Still is. The adverts were still worth as much as they should be for this time of year, there were just less of them. Way, waaaay less.

OK, so why were there less ads? Well a load of advertisers did pull out this past month and many are blaming that. However, I'd put money on that not being the main reason. As big as the pullout was I don't think it was enough to gut 25% of the advertisement pool.

No, I think that YouTube has introduced a new way marking channels for advertisers. A way of letting advertisers ignore people that are more controversial, sweary or mature. My thinking for this is that while I've been hit hard, others (especially shitty "drama" and "prank" channels) have been fucking decimated. Channels who are squeaky clean have seen practically no drop. I think the huge drops we're seeing here are the start of YouTube's response to advertisers complaints. A hidden response to the last month of pressure.

Does that mean that this is a permanent drop? I don't know. I never know. YouTube doesn't talk to it's creators. Fucking hell, I'm currently imagining a stealth grading conspiracy and it makes sense to me! YouTube's lack of communication, especially in difficult times like this, fucks with you. Running a company is hard enough but running one where you suddenly drop 25% income is insane.

If I'm right about this then you're going to see some things. Small to medium sized YouTubers will start retiring, many people will move a large portion of their content over to Twitch and sponsored content will hit an all time high.

If I disregard the definition of insanity for a moment can I please ask YouTube to just talk to us. Please. My dashboard tells me that I can start a business around YouTube and that I can make money making videos. You encourage this now, why don't you just let us know what's going on?

Thanks for your support this month. It means a lot.

- Dan

PS. This has nothing to do with restricted mode. That's not an income issue at all for anyone.

PPS - OK, so a channel with videos aimed at children but contain gratuitous violence and sex may be affected by restricted mode but off the top of my head I can't think of any like that.

PPPS - I'd totally watch that channel though.