PSY's 'Gangnam Style' is an $8 Million Blockbuster Hit on YouTube
PSY's " Gangnam Style" video already holds the title as the most watched YouTube video of all time. Now Google's revealing how those numbers translated into advertising revenue.
"It generated over $8 million in online advertising deals," Nikesh Arora, Senior VP and Chief Business Officer at Google, said on Google's earnings call Tuesday evening. (Google clarified to ABC News that this was an outside estimate; it was not based on its own numbers.) The video broke a billion views late last year and as of today has 1.23 billion views. Google said in November that "Gangnam Style" was still being watched between 7 to 10 million times every day.
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According to Quartz, the video generates an average of 65 cents every time someone hits the play button. The YouTube creator keeps half the money, which suggests PSY and his record company have made at least $4 million from YouTube so far. Of course, the South Korean rapper earned a lot more than that with revenue from downloads and other music distribution and, of course, now, his advertising deals.
The song has become such a hit that Jib Jab created a site that lets you star in your own "Gangnam Style" video. Sadly, you're not going to make nearly as much money off that as PSY.