Which YouTube Networks Have the Most Viewers?

via Bloomberg Businessweek

Bloomberg Businessweek has a look at the business of YouTube networks these days and the Hollywood-ification of the platform. Some key stats from the piece:

• 1 billion viewers a month


• 6 billion hours of video consumed a month


• 100+ hours of video uploaded every minute


• $3.4 billion (projected) in advertising revenue this year


• $1.7 billion to be acquired by Google in 2006

The article tracks the rise of multi-channel networks on YouTube, where traditional media companies have been investing heavily. “Big media companies, which a few years ago were furiously filing copyright lawsuits against YouTube, are jostling for a piece of the action,” writes BW staffer Felix Gillette.

Traditional media companies are all having to figure out the online business — digital advertising dollars are not sufficient to replace the loss of print ad revenue. However, on the video side, TV advertising continues to grow and dwarf ad dollars for digital.

“It’s obvious that the monetization and the economics have been lagging behind the size. But it’s definitely moving at a very fast pace,” Ynon Kreiz, CEO of Maker Studios, told BW. Maker Studios was bought by Disney in March for $950 million.

YouTube is still not a good business model for creators. But one day, it probably will be:

The rapid consolidation of YouTube programming has thrown the small players into a frenzy of excitement and apprehension. They’re concerned that the big companies will squash the community’s creative autonomy and turn its artists into creative serfs. The great hope, on the other hand, is that the newfound investment will free artists from the shaky economics of living video to video and allow them to focus on improving their craft. More premium programming will lead to more premium advertising, which will finally unlock YouTube’s full economic potential and make everybody embarrassingly rich.

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