YouTube channel a €1m hit for Daithi
ONE of Ireland’s top ‘YouTubers’, Daithi De Nogla, generated more than €1m from his YouTube channel last year.
The 25-year-old receives monthly pay cheques most people can only dream of but said yesterday that he leads “a meagre lifestyle” apart from travel.
This is confirmed in new accounts showing that the affable Co Limerick man paid himself only a fraction – €33,800 in salary – of his company’s €1m-plus income last year.
In an interview, Mr De Nogla, or David Nagle, said: “I don’t need any more than that. If I can live off that, that it is just fine. I do my weekly shopping at Dunnes – it is very simple living.”
Mr De Nogla’s greatest extravagance has been purchasing a bungalow “in the middle of nowhere” in Co Limerick last year. “It has good fibre optic connections, don’t ask me how,” he said.
Mr De Nogla’s other big outlay is travelling to the US for work and to meet YouTube friends and his LA-based girlfriend, Jaclyn, who he met on Twitter last year.
Mr De Nogla’s set up his YouTube channel, Daithi De Nogla back in 2012 and today it has 5.5 million subscribers and has accumulated a whopping 791 million views.
Subscribers watch Daithí’s ‘goofy’ YouTube persona playing video games “and having the craic and banter”.
The channel generates its revenues through adverts and views. Mr De Nogla said that the single highest monthly payment he has received from his YouTube work was a payment of over €100,000 this year.
New accounts for his firm show that accumulated profits last year increased by €587,638 to €860,244.
Not bad for someone who dropped out after the first year of a four-year Early Childhood Care and Education course at the Institute of Technology at Tralee (ITT).
“While I was studying at Tralee, I had one million subscribers but no one there knew about my YouTube life,” he said.
He added that “everyone eventually jumps off” from a life on YouTube. “I don’t think I will be doing this when I have a family. That is a good while away but I would like to be a stay at home Dad.”