Hacker News Reader

Those $8.1 million did not come from Youtube advertisement: according to the original AP article, only $870,000 did.

https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlcpd0qGl...

This estimate seems to be based on views for all of PSY's channel, i.e. 1.3 billion views. That works out as a $0.7 eCPM, which seems more credible than the $8 floated below in this thread.

View on HN

"From just those sources, PSY and his camp will rake in at least $8.1 million this year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of publicly available information and industry estimates. But for online music sales in South Korea, he'll earn less than $60,000."

This is the important part of the article. He earns around US$0.00015 per song sold in his own country via online sales. He earns a hell of a lot more via Youtube and iTunes. What gets him up to 8M is other advertizing deals.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com