Watch this YouTube video 1,000 times, and its creator will earn 80 cents
After Yuri Baranovski's Web TV series Break a Leg reached two million views on YouTube, Google cut him a $1,600 check. In advertising math, that translates to an $0.80 CPM, or cost per thousand views. Taking what NewTeeVee knows about YouTube's partner program, disgraced stock analyst Henry Blodget suggests that YouTube charges advertisers a CPM between $1 and $3.20 and gets to keep between $0.25 and $2.40. The equation's solution: On 3.4 billion YouTube views in January, Google grossed between $850,000 and $2.72 million. Taking the higher estimate, YouTube will have paid back Google for its $1.65 billion acquisition price in another 607 months.