Was YouTube Worth It? - New York Times

"Last week, Google offered some details in its annual report. According to Robert Peck, an analyst at Bear Stearns, the data show that YouTube only produced about $15 million in revenues in 2006. That figure suggests that Google paid an eye-popping 100 times revenue — not earnings, but revenue — for the Web startup.
Google may not be getting much revenue from YouTube, but it is getting plenty of headaches. Most notably, the company has failed to reach deals with some big media companies over copyright issues. Google has sparred with Viacom, NBC Universal, CBS and others over the issue of YouTube users posting copyrighted material. And Google has been unable to reach the revenue-sharing deals with media companies that many had been expecting when the acquisition was announced.
“YouTube has ended up being a management, operational and legal overhead and a drag,” analyst Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research told the Red Herring."