Metacafe, the biggest potential buzzkill to YouTube, has topped $1 million in payouts to its user-generated-video-producers, proof positive that you can earn good pizza money if you make your own entertainment.
    
More than 550 people have cashed in on the video sharing site’s Producer Rewards program, which begins paying producers once their video has accumulated 20,000 views. From that point on, they rack up $5 for every additional 1,000 views.
    
The site’s biggest earner has made more than $80,000 since the payouts began in October 2006, while the vast majority of contributors have earned $5,000 or less. It has an estimated audience of 31 million people.

   
We spoke to Metacafe CEO Erick Hachenburg on the phone today while he was visiting the company’s Tel Aviv offices. He said the site is pulling in plenty of advertising revenue, above the payout amounts, but still has lots of costs to cover before becoming profitable.
    
On YouTube’s announcement that it was opening its revenue share program to any applicants in the U.S. and Canada:
There’s two challenges when you go to a large video sharing site: Will you ever be discovered and whether you will actually get paid. I think we have solved both problems.
    
It’s been a year since rumors of Metacafe’s impending sale to a big Internet media player. Are you mulling any offers?:
Right now we’re really busy building our media model … and at the same time we’re really turning our attention on how to monetize the site. We don’t comment on acquisition stuff. Right now we’re building a company, we’re not selling a company. If someone approaches us with the right offer we’ll consider it.
    
Will the Hollywood writers strike accelerate Internet video use?:    
I watch less TV right now. I’m catching up a lot more on my Internet stuff. It would not surprise me if we’re seeing increased traffic on U.S. Internet in general because television is getting more full of reruns. It’s hard to identify a single cause.