Online video is killing the TV star - so much so that animator Jonas Lekganyane is laughing all the way to the bank with every view on his YouTube channel. The 23-year-old Limpopo resident is a top South African YouTube video blogger (vlogger), with more than 20 million views and about 70,000 subscribers.When Lekganyane failed to secure funding for his biochemistry studies in 2012, he was forced to drop out. That is when he found his "passion"."I started teaching myself how to animate using online forums and YouTube," he said.In 2013 he took his work online: "I showed my first funny video to my friends and they loved it so I thought, 'Let me put it out there'."Lekganyane is a "career YouTuber", able to generate income from vlogging. YouTube has more than a billion users, says owner Google. Up to 80% of the website's views are from outside the US.Vloggers earn a 68% share of the revenue per ad run on a channel. This is based on the number of views of the ad and the length of time which the ad is viewed. YouTube charges advertisers only once 30 seconds of an ad has been viewed.It's a lucrative industry.At just 26, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, earned an estimated $12-million in 2015, said Forbes.The vlogger owns the most-subscribed-to channel on YouTube with more than 46 million subscribers and 12.5 billion views.Dan Mace, more popularly known as Dan the Director, is another local star. Mace spends half the year overseas, where his videos have built him a following and work opportunities.Then there's Oratilwe Hlongwane, aka DJ Arch Junior, who has close on 49,000 subscribers and more than 9million views on his self-titled YouTube page."Consistency is the key to building a reputable YouTube channel," said Lekganyane. " That means producing as much content as you can." ..