Exclusive: Maker Studios CEO Letter to YouTube Partners About Transparency

A firestorm is raging through the YouTube community as a leaked image from Maker Studios‘ partner analytics tool makes the rounds around the ‘net.

YouTube provides analytics information to its networks, but they have no obligation to share with their partners.

In an unprecedented move, Maker Studios CEO Danny Zappin sent out a private email to Maker Partners announcing a full transparency policy, so that creators can know exactly how much gross revenue their videos are earning before Maker takes its cut.

Tubefilter obtained a copy to publish the letter in its entirety, which we’ve included below, along with a screenshot of the analytics dashboard:

Maker Partners,

As you all know Maker is a company founded by talent with a unique understanding of what it takes to be successful as a creator on YouTube.   We believe empowering our partners with as much access to their data as possible makes for a stronger partnership.

Today we are excited to announce that effective immediately you and all other Maker partner channels will have direct access to more detailed information about your business. Your channel analytics will now include estimated gross revenue and viewership data provided directly to you by YouTube which you can now access through your own YouTube account.

The Maker founding partners and management team believe deeply in full transparency and giving partner channels direct access to their YT analytics and revenue information. We are very grateful to YouTube for adding this new feature and are happy to be the first Network to bring this feature to all of our partners.

To access your estimated earnings, select the analytics tab on your channel and then click the estimated earnings tab.  Estimated earnings are before Maker’s revenue share and should be considered estimates as there may be a small margin of error from actual finalized reports.  Maker will continue to send you your finalized reports each month as usual. (see sample screen shot below.)

If you have any questions, please contact your Maker partner support manager.

Thank you all for being a part of the Maker Network. We value our partnership with you and look forward to providing new features moving forward.

Danny

As YouTube networks like Machinima, Big Frame, Fullscreen, and Collective Digital Studios compete for new talent, Maker’s move may be a competitive edge in the courting process.