Alright can we stop claiming that the WSJ has "killed YouTube" and there's an ad-apocalypse going on? This is an AD CPM graph of the last few months http://i.imgur.com/ydZfF7R.png Noteable points are the drop off in January which happens every year due to advertising rates falling after Christmas (when nobody has any money) and the middle of February, which is when the blitz of articles came out about Pewdiepie and advertisers "pulling out" of YouTube as a result of their ads appearing on content they're not happy with. The end of the graph is where we are now. While there may be a long-term impact from companies pulling out of YouTube advertising that we have yet to see, there has not been an immediate impact on earnings, at least not for a channel whose primary demographic is ages 25-34. We are as usual in recovery from the annual January drop and our current CPM is 80% of top Christmas levels and growing on a daily basis. As usual I won't reveal specific CPM numbers but the scale of the graph is from the top CPM we ever received during that period of time to $0, which is at the bottom. You should be able to gain a pretty accurate rough idea of where cpms are relative to where they were by knowing that.



The WSJ may indeed be trying to damage YouTube, old media has a vested interest in trying to damage its newer competition just as new media does to old, however even if they are attempting to do that, that damage is so insignificant that it hasn't even moved the dial. CPM continues to climb not fall and the bottom is, according to these stats, not falling out of the market. I'd certainly be interested to see if those who run channels aimed at kids are seeing appreciable impact on their ad rates, but for my channel who caters primarily to adult males in Europe and the US, our rates continue to increase. As an additional note, about half the videos on our channel are affected by "restricted mode". My cursory analysis at this point shows no difference in ad payouts for restricted videos vs non-restricted, as is to be expected. Restricted mode is solely to keep very young children away from videos they probably shouldn't see. We don't have a significant demographic of young children in our audience, so why would restricted mode affect us at all? Indeed I think that more videos on my channel should be restricted than currently are, they're clearly not suitable for young children or made for them.



I'm seeing a few too many "the apocalypse is now" videos coming from the usual suspects and its just as bad as those old media outlets that have chosen to go after YouTube unfairly. Stop sensationalizing, stop lying to people and if you genuinely believe we're all fucked, show some data to support your assertion. Thanks.