Results of Last Year’s Digital Creator Survey
Half Have Fewer Than 10,000 Subscribers
Average Production Time Per Content Is 20 Hours
"Top Future Dream Job for Elementary Students..." YouTuber's Annual Average Income 13.46 Million KRW. Created by Ryuten AI
The average annual income earned by domestic digital creators, including YouTubers, was found to be approximately 13.46 million KRW.
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Radio Promotion Association, the average income from digital creator activities over the past year was 13.464 million KRW.
This survey was conducted online from September to November last year targeting 1,000 individuals who generated a certain level of annual income through digital creator activities.
By income source, platform advertising accounted for the largest share at 44%, followed by individual advertising and promotion (34.7%), sponsorships (5.3%), affiliate sales commissions (2.9%), and others (13.1%).
The proportion of male digital creators was 15.4 percentage points higher than that of females, and by age group, those in their 30s accounted for the largest share at 49%. Regarding residence, Seoul (36.8%) and Gyeonggi·Incheon (31.3%) had a high concentration in the metropolitan area. The proportion of digital creators working full-time was 32.6%, and 6.6% were found to be contracted with MCN companies.
The platform primarily used for content distribution was Google YouTube at 72.8%, followed by Instagram (17.4%), TikTok (3.2%), AfreecaTV (SOOP) (2.8%), Chijijik (1.2%), Naver Clip (1.1%), and Naver TV (0.6%).
Among creators who mainly use YouTube, 80.1% were male and 62.9% female. Conversely, the proportion of females primarily using Instagram was relatively higher at 25.5% compared to 11.4% of males.
The main reason for using these platforms was "because there are many users" at 36.4%, followed by "suits the media characteristics" (19.7%), "easy to generate income" (18.5%), and "convenient to use the platform" (17.7%).
The most common response for subscriber count was "less than 10,000" at 50.6%. Responses of "10,000 to less than 100,000" accounted for 32.4%, and "100,000 or more" accounted for 17.0%.
The average number of regular videos uploaded per month was 12.3, and short-form videos averaged 9.
Regarding the process of planning, production, editing, and subtitling for media and content uploads, 85.4% answered that they personally handle these tasks on average, 29.2% said regular staff do, and 3.0% said irregular staff assist.
The average production time per media or content piece was 20 hours, with production itself taking the most time at 10.6 hours. This was followed by planning (3.9 hours), account management (1.7 hours), and live broadcasting and hosting (1.5 hours).
When asked about difficulties as digital creators, the most common response was "it takes a certain amount of time to generate income" at 44.8%. This was followed by "media content planning" (10.5%) and "lack of technical skills" (10.3%).
Regarding support policies needed for digital creators, the responses were production cost support (42.5%), equipment support (15.3%), support for production spaces such as studios (12.9%), office space (11.6%), and education (9.6%).
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