MTV Makes A Bunch Of Money Off Of ‘Teen Mom,’ See How Much Exactly
‘Teen Mom’ was brought into existence in late December of 2009. MTV had launched the show’s precursor, ’16 & Pregnant’ just a few months back, in June 2009.
Both shows did quite well on their own and continued to air for years to come.
Eventually, MTV decided to stop filming the first two entries in the series and followed up with ‘Teen Mom 2,’ ‘Teen Mom: OG’ and ‘Teen Mom 3.’
Out of those three shows, only ‘Teen mom 2’ and ‘Teen Mom: OG’ are currently active on television.
Needless to say, this is a business for MTV and its parent company (Viacom) so making money is at the center of everything.
How much revenue do the ‘Teen Mom’ shows bring in?
While the ‘Teen Mom’ salaries are essentially a ‘public secret’ at this point, MTV’s reported revenue for the ‘Teen Mom’ series is mostly unknown.
The only way to find out just how much money the company makes from the show is through financial reports – to which most of them won’t reveal individual show earnings but rather a cumulative entry.
The vast majority of the revenue attributed to the ‘Teen Mom’ series comes through advertising and TV deals. In other words, MTV makes its money invested into the show by allowing certain advertisers to run ads before and during the episode’s air time.
This is, of course, very lucrative for the network as they can demand a premium since it’s within their own network and they already have established connections with major advertisers.
Since the ‘Teen Mom’ IP is owned by MTV, they can also publish the episodes on platforms like Facebook Watch and YouTube, making additional ad revenue.
Most often, only episode excerpts are being posted on social media, incentivizing the fans to watch full episodes via MTV’s network.
A 7-minute-long clip viewed 1 million times could yield MTV as much as $10,000 to $25,000 in ad revenue. Given how the ‘Teen Mom’ page on Facebook has close to 8 million views and over 100 clips, MTV could be making millions just from the Watch platform alone.
Whereas on YouTube, MTV’s official ‘Teen Mom’ channel has over 280,000 subscribers and over 300 million cumulative video views.
Taking the cumulative video views into account, it’s certain that MTV had made more than $1 million in ad revenue only.
Keep in mind that the channel receives over 10 million views on a monthly basis, therefore making at least $30,000 in ad revenue, possibly even more.
The segment where the real money is made is of course the television part. MTV classifies itself as the “world’s premier youth entertainment brand for P12-34.”
Beyond the ad-supported monetization on social media platforms, MTV has deals with content distributors such as Netflix, Hulu, CBS, and more.
These companies often pay licensing fees to MTV and in return, they get to showcase the latest content on their platforms.
It’s been reported that Netflix has a ‘habit’ of paying millions of dollars for licensing fees for some of the fan-favorite series year-round.
That is also the case with MTV’s ‘Teen Mom: OG’ and ‘Teen Mom 2,’ where Netflix is paying a certain fee to the content producer (MTV) for the benefit of having entire seasons of content on its platform.
The exact sum that Netflix pays out MTV remains unknown to the public, but it’s likely in the seven-figures mark.
How much does MTV charge for ‘Teen Mom’ ads?
According to a 2016 report found on Statista, ‘Teen Mom’ was the third highest-earning show for MTV between the years 2015-2016. (Market spending share.)
Going into 2021 and beyond, it’s clear that the ‘Teen Mom’ brand is an essential one for MTV even though the ratings are falling short as of lately.
