HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

It's just one data point, but Dave Jones from EEVblog made a video about half a year ago regarding his ad income: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8qdOAEQnps

Of course, these days it's often supplemented by stuff like Patreon and separate sponsorship deals.

Another person of interest here might be Jim Sterling of The Jimquisition, since AFAIK his main income is through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jimquisition

⬐ jdietrich

Sterling doesn't take ad revenue of any kind, as a point of principle. It's a key part of his appeal - his independence as a journalist is unimpeachable, because he's funded solely by fans.

⬐ pataphysician

I've thought about making YouTube videos before, as have many here have, I'm sure. The main deterrent for me has been the matter of supporting myself while spending so much time on YouTube. Leaving it at that, I went about my days wondering what it would take to be successful and exactly what success could look like. Then, one of my favorite YouTubers shared his results! Anyways, thanks for sharing Dave. Good on you! I hope it encourages others to explore making educational content.

⬐ ChuckMcM

This is an excellent breakdown of the blended strategy, part Patreon, part Youtube ads, part sales of merchandise on their blog.

There are three things I find pretty interesting about this;

First is that it is a job that didn't exist before the Internet. There are elements of it, and perhaps it might have been a late night television show, but really anybody can make a youtube or twitch channel these days. Whether or not anyone will watch is a completely different story.

The second thing is that this guy has 405K subscribers, you can call those 'viewers' in television lingo that is a pretty small audience (for television shows). And yet he is able to achieve an annual run rate of about $96K/year gross ($3K/month Patreon + $5K/month youtube) So while it would be crazy to try to produce a television show for that, as a one person endeavor it works out.

And the final thing was the percentage of his youtube revenue that is from RED. In his example its about 20% of his ad revenues. I would have expected it to be more although I don't know how Google computes RED revenue. I expect they would at some point adopt something like the ratings/share system that broadcast television has been using for years.