K-pop fans are no strangers to seeing their favorite artists on YouTube ads. Entertainment companies and fanbases have been paying thousands of dollars to get artists' MVs used as ads on YouTube for a long time. There seem to be many fans who see paid advertisements as a good strategy to have their favorite artists introduced to new people and boost MV views at the same time, as well as those who think this is a manipulation of numbers to create a false image of popularity and might be unfair to less popular artists whose labels can't afford to spend much money on paid advertisements.

Let's start with how paid video advertisements affect MV views. As stated in a blog post released by The YouTube Team, YouTube no longer counts paid-ad views in their YouTube Music Charts calculation and when looking at a 24-hour record debut as of September 2019. As reported by Forbes, paid ad views still contribute to view counts outside of these, including the view counter on YouTube's website and mobile apps. According to YouTube Help, paid ad views are counted as views when "someone watches at least 30 seconds of an ad that’s more than 30 seconds long."

What exactly are YouTube Music Charts,  specifically Top Music Videos chart and 24-hour record debuts? Top Music Videos chart is a weekly chart that ranks official MVs by view count from every Friday, 12:00 AM ET to Thursday, 11:59 PM ET. 24-hour record debuts are the MVs with the highest views within the first 24 hours of the video’s public release. They are different from the view count on YouTube or mobile apps at the 24-hour mark and are usually announced by YouTube spokespersons. Both YouTube Music Charts and 24-hour debuts count views only from "organic sources." According to YouTube, this includes direct links to the video, search results, external sites that embed the video, and YouTube features like the homepage, watch next, and Trending.

The most recent examples of idols with large fanbases and/or from big companies getting major view boosts on their MVs are ITZY's 'In the morning' MV (JYP Entertainment) and NCT DREAM's 'Hot Sauce' MV (SM Entertainment).

As seen on the Top Music Videos chart, ITZY's 'In the morning' MV (Released: April 30, 2021, at 12:00 AM ET) garnered 32.2 million organic views in 7 days. According to

ddalgijisu

on Twitter, the MV had approximately 68.6 million views on the view counter around the same time. There was a 36.4 million difference in views coming from paid advertisements (53.1% of total).

As seen on the Top Music Videos chart, NCT DREAM's 'Hot Sauce' MV (Released: May 10, 2021, at 5:00 AM ET) garnered 23.6 million organic views in 3 days and 19 hours. According to 

NCTDREAM_Global

 on Twitter, the MV had approximately 63.2 million views on the view counter around the same time. There was a 39.6 million difference in views coming from paid advertisements (62.7% of total).

Doubling or tripling MV views is certainly not easy for smaller entertainment companies and fanbases. According to a Rolling Stone report, some labels “might shell out between $20,000 and $60,000 in the first 24 hours and up to $100,000 in extreme cases.”

Interestingly, the amount of paid-ad views seem to differ from artist to artist under the same label as well.

As seen on the Top Music Videos chart,

NeoGlobalTeam

 on Twitter, the MV had approximately 47.3 million views on the view counter around the same time. There was a 29.5 million difference in views coming from paid advertisements (62.4% of total).

As seen on the Top Music Videos chart,

kjaxiyours

on Twitter, the MV had approximately 15.5 million views on the view counter around the same time. There was a 2.9 million difference in views coming from paid advertisements (18.7% of total).

Both NCT U and KAI are under SM Entertainment and released their MVs in the last quarter of 2020. However, NCT U's MV received significantly more paid ad views than KAI's.

A different occurrence seems to have happened in JYP Entertainment. As seen on the Top Music Videos chart,

TWICEYTData

on Twitter, the MV had approximately 58.1 million views on the view counter around the same time. There was a 21.6 million difference in views coming from paid advertisements (37.2% of total).

As seen on the Top Music Videos chart,

jnyoungpjy

 on Twitter, the MV had approximately 18.6 million views on the view counter around the same time. There was a 6.5 million difference in views coming from paid advertisements (34.9% of the total).

Both TWICE and GOT7 were under JYP Entertainment at the time and released their MVs in the last quarter of 2020. Despite TWICE's MV receiving approximately 15.1 million more paid ad views than GOT7's, the percentage of views both MVs have from paid advertisements are very close.

Lastly, it is important to point out the number of views on the Top Music Videos chart, and the YouTube view counter doesn't differ much when MVs don't rely on paid advertisements for views. Some examples are BLACKPINK's 'Lovesick Girls' as well as BTS's 'Dynamite.'

DISCLAIMER: This article doesn't suggest that the MVs mentioned above are the only ones that used paid video advertising or that there are entertainment companies/fanbases that never used paid video advertising.