YouTube Monetizing Over A Billion Video Views A Week

make-money-youtubeYouTube is on the path to profitability in the “not-too-distant future,” Google reiterated today during its third quarter earnings call. And while that may sounds all well and good, they actually had some more specific impressive numbers to back it up.

One is that YouTube is now monetizing over a billion video views a week. Last week, YouTube announced that it was serving over 1 billion video views a day, so if you do the math there, it means that YouTube is monetizing one every seven video views.

The company also noted that 90% of the top 50 advertisers according to AdAge have now run ads on YouTube. And of its homepage ad inventory, 90% of it sold out for the quarter in the U.S., with lower, but still impressive sale rates for the rest of the world. Google also noted that YouTube was just starting to unleash its pre-roll inventory and let its salesforce have a go at selling that to advertisers, which should bring in more money.

And with Warner Music Group back in the mix, they now have the four major music labels playing ball again. As a one-stop shop for many music videos, YouTube will also be able to sell ads against those, as well as make some money off of affiliate sales from iTunes and Amazon’s MP3 store.

Earlier this month, CNET uncovered that Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted under oath that the company paid a $1 billion premium when it bought YouTube in 2006 (for $1.65 billion). The thought was always that the site was growing so quickly that they would scoop it up and figure out how to monetize it later. It would appear that they’re getting close to doing just that — albeit three years later.