Pewdiepie, the Swedish gaming let's player, real name Felix Kjellberg, has been the #1 subscribed channel on Youtube for some time now and even when he isn't, only the official Youtube channel has eclipsed him in recent months. But with 27 million subscribers under his belt, how much money can he make from adverts alone? A lot apparently.
In a recent bit of dirt digging and interviewing, the Wall Street Journal has pulled out the figure of $4 million dollars. Per year, making Pewdiepie not only the biggest draw for the video sharing site, but also one of its biggest earners.
How has he done so well? While many older viewers may not understand his popularity, he's tapped into a new trend of media viewing which is regular, low budget and silly. This appeals to a generation raised on Youtube, rather than the video starved, more patient generation of internet users that came before them.
Likewise the length of his let's play videos works perfectly for Youtube's promotion system, which gives you more hype if your videos are viewed a lot and viewed for a long period of time. Let's plays can typically run from 20 minutes to an hour, so they are easy choices for Youtube to promote through its official channels.
He's also lived all over Europe, which means he garnered a following in each country he hung his hat, as Youtube promotes local content.
AND he's promoted by Maker Media, the company he's signed to and was originally bought by Disney for almost a billion dollars.
It makes sense really, but that doesn't mean we have to like his content.
