YouTube income, living off it, and decline of traditional TV

mjheathcote

Centenary Club
Messages
9,033
How long will it last?
It appears that once you break 50K plus subscribers it's a possibility.
Just watched JayEmm and he has just picked up his Ferrari F430 Stradale, to go with his 550 and other cars, including his Maserati QP of course. Good for him, with 163K subscribers.
But many have far greater subscribers, over a million or more!
To keep it up you must burn out quicker, with the pressure to put out another video.
I'm surprised the number of ex TV presenters now jumping onto YouTube too.
It's certainly effected my TV viewing habits with myself watching more YouTube on our TV, than other sources. Traditional terrestrial TV broadcast is at the bottom for sure.
My kids watch zero terrestrial TV, this must be a concern with the TV broadcasting companies.
YouTube are dominating the streaming market, and could change their T&C's which could effect the income of the top tear substantially. I guess they won't at the moment, look at their own income and they don't have to produce anything themselves!
 

GeoffCapes

Member
Messages
14,000
Was talking with my wife about this yesterday. Our son who is 4 in October watches You Tube all the time on his iPad, or on the Smart TV, and the only thing he watches on 'normal' tv is Paw Patrol, and even that's on Netflix.

Some of the kids presenters have millions and millions of subscribers. So gawd know how much they earn, and all they are is videos of kids playing.
Kids, watching other kids, play. You couldn't make it up!

I think the amount you earn on YouTube is down to the amount of adds seen in your videos. So if JayEmm has 50,000 subscribers and probably gets 10 times that with viewer of each video. I'd guessing here, but he probably earns 25k per video?
And obviously that goes up all the time as the videos stay on there forever.

Just Googled the richest Youtuber, and they're worth $200m!!!!! The world has gone mad!
 

davy83

Member
Messages
2,809
I don't mind people making money from you tube and in terms of the status quo getting shaken up that's probably a healthy thing too. What I do worry about is the content. There is no standard that says the information presented has to be correct, so anyone's opinion can be an influence on the world no matter how much nonsense they talk as long as people watch it. I am also increasing concerned at how polarised everything is becoming because people are not interested in both sides of any argument/situation they just flip to a video or news article that supports their view. So politics and society have no place for pragmatism or tolerance of other peoples views, and with stuff like climate change and the pandemic we need pragmatism and unity and our world does not seem to support that anymore.
 

safrane

Member
Messages
16,749
As above, people will watch stuff that reinforced their own beliefs, feelings and views... so we will end up with a lot of unbalanced people in the world.

I believe 90% of content is carp and just silly antics... they will end up seeking a proper job once their balls drop.
 

allandwf

Member
Messages
10,958
People will become very clique and influencers , whatever the %@ they are, will become more prevalent.
 

Scaf

Member
Messages
6,512
Someone shared a video of a busker in Nashville in the pub last night,1.5m followers and the video had had 5m plus views.
They went on to say “someone this talented should do this professionally” I pointed out that they were likely to be making a very good living already !
 

Phil H

Member
Messages
4,107
You either need to be early into a market or create one of your own and keep your fingers crossed. In the UK car world Tim Burton (Shmee) is probably one of the most successful, but car events in the last few years have been awash with would-be Youtuber's most of whom have already missed the boat. It's a good business model for Google though.
 

Nayf

Member
Messages
2,734
I looked into this when Modern Classics went to **** and again when Strada ran out of, well, strada. Unless you are independently wealthy, which I’m not, it’s very hard if not impossible to make a living until you break a certain threshold. JayEmm even mentions it in the F430 video - when the numbers come, they can prove big. But it’s not guaranteed and you could be waiting a long time. And making videos - unless you can do 90 per cent of it yourself, is an expensive process. Shmee for example, may have started shooting cars on London streets but he’s independently wealthy before that.

For me, I’m not independently wealthy. That means that every day has to have a figure attached to it, even if it’s a magazine feature rather than a day of work. Say a video takes a day to script, a day to shoot, two to three days to edit - you’re looking a five days of work to earn the same as one day writing/subbing. The economics simply don’t stack up unless you already have a following (Jonny Smith etc) or independently wealthy (Shmee etc). The flip side is that you can eventually earn far more from video than writing, but the writing pays the bills you have now. Catch 22 really.
 

FIFTY

Member
Messages
3,100
No complaints from me. I have cancelled my Virgin TV subscription, I have no sky and no arial on my house. Everything I want to watch on terrestrial can be seen on streaming apps and the news channels are all live on YouTube.

Re YT again I do not see anything wrong with this. We are all getting free content and the people who do the work get advertising revenue in return (if they "make it") and various sponsorship outside of YT. Would you guys rather it go to TV execs and orange skinned presenters?

It really is a fantastic marvel of the modern world... Petrol head TV 24 hours a day or entertainment for your kids on demand whenever they want it - you barely even need to parent them, right? But seriously remember 20+ years ago when kids only had 2 hours of entertainment per day or 1 hour of top gear to look forward to once a week for 12 weeks out of the year... This YouTube internet lark is so terrible.
 

jonny

Member
Messages
525
I agree that terrestrial TV is awful now. Occasional good programme but mostly drivel (a dreadful series about Brits and their hot tubs was on last night... bilge but follows the trends for low-brow low-budget TV). The news is so biased (esp BBC) and you only have to watch Clare and Alex ruining the Olympics coverage to see the unfortunate lowering standards these days. Thumbs up for YT, Netflix, Prime, Disney etc. You get what you pay for.