What do Justin Bieber, Psy, and the keyboard cat have in common? They all got their start on YouTube.
“Google bought YouTube roughly six years ago for $1.6 billion. It’s worth easily 10 times that much right now. It’s not so much if you’re watching YouTube, it’s how much and what you’re watching,” Fortune’s Andy Serwer explained on Thursday’s Morning Joe.
The site averages one billion unique viewers a month, making Google $3.6 billion, mostly from YouTube’s advertising. YouTube takes a 45% cut of the profit from each ad on a video, Serwer said.
Since ad rates are far cheaper online than on TV, companies see it as a cost-efficient way to reach a larger audience. Advertisers can also target specific demographics on YouTube—something the Mitch McConnell campaign had utilized successfully.








