Exclusive Interview: Susan Wojcicki's Plan to Make YouTube 'Stars' Real-Life Famous

April 14, 2014
YouTube, with estimated annual revenue just north of $5 billion, created the market for short-form video. But it's also attacking a market bigger than search and online display combined: TV's $212 billion global ad market.
In the past, YouTube treated all content and advertisers pretty much the same, but now it's packaging its top 5% of content as determined algorithmically (of course) in 14 categories and offering that up front on a guaranteed basis to advertisers. Called "Google Preferred," the offering is built for TV advertisers who want to reserve in advance and know what they're getting, separate from direct-response advertisers that buy YouTube impressions by the ton.
Yet the reality is media companies built on YouTube are generally either big and money-losing (Maker, Machinima) or small businesses that earn a considerable chunk of their revenue from YouTube. YouTube takes 45% of ad revenues.
http://adage.com/article/digital/exclusive-interview-susan-wojcicki-s-plan-youtube/292621/