Blip.TV Stimulates Video Creators, Moves to Monthly Payouts

Check week is a big deal at blip.tv. The online video hosting, advertising, and distribution network splits ad revenue – the tune of $10 to $15 CPMs – 50/50 with content creators who upload their web shows to the blip.tv platform and engage all of blip’s advertising options. Every quarter, the company sends checks to those content creators who’ve accumulated at least $25 (and as much as $143,000) in revenue from the opt-in advertising program over the past three months.

It makes for a lot of checks and a lot of happy web video makers. But what’s better than check week once a quarter? How about check week once a month?

In order to do its part to stimulate online content creation, blip.tv is moving to a monthly payout system. Starting in April, blip will cut checks to web video producers for the money they earned in January. In May they’ll receive checks for February, June for March, and now you get the idea.

“This industry is very young, and not so long ago there were no checks to send independent producers at all,” Eric Mortensen, blip’s Director of Content told me over e-mail. “It’s exciting to now send people real money on a monthly basis, which removes some unpredictability from the production process and buys shows time to grow. We’re trying to make life easier for producers. That’s all there is to it.”

Blip.tv wouldn’t divulge any hard numbers regarding the payments for Q4 2010, but I was told they sent out more checks than ever before in the history of the company.