Is DanTDM for Real? The Ex-Tesco Minecraft YouTuber Forbes Ranked No. 1, Now a Classic FM Host

In December 2017, Forbes put a Minecraft YouTuber at the top of its highest-paid YouTube list. Daniel Middleton, who posts as DanTDM, has since turned that audience into books, live tours and, in 2025, a radio show. This is a sourced look at how that happened, what the money figures are worth, and what we could not confirm.

The come-up

According to Wikipedia’s entry on DanTDM, Middleton was born on 8 November 1991 in Aldershot, England, studied music production at the University of Northampton, and worked at the supermarket Tesco before YouTube, citing BBC and ITV News coverage. The entry dates his gaming channel, then called TheDiamondMinecart, to 2012, his signing to Maker Studios’ Polaris label to August 2014 (citing Tubefilter), and the rename to DanTDM to December 2016. We read these details on Wikipedia and did not open the underlying articles.

Guinness World Records listed his channel in its 2017 Gamer’s Edition for the most views on a dedicated Minecraft channel, quoting 7,943,141,552 views as of 23 August 2016 (Guinness World Records, October 2016). We read that figure from a search excerpt of the release, not the full page.

The Forbes number

Forbes’ 2017 list ranked DanTDM first with up to $16.5 million in earnings for the period 1 June 2016 to 1 June 2017. The top ten combined reached $127 million, and Forbes built its estimates from YouTube, Social Blade and Captiv8 data plus interviews with agents, managers, publicists, producers and lawyers (The Jakarta Post, 12 December 2017, summarising the Forbes list). Forbes’ own article blocked our fetch. The headline figure was widely repeated, including by Khaleej Times and Business Report, which we saw in search results but did not open.

Two cautions. This is a one-year estimate from 2017, not a current income, and Forbes itself describes the inputs as estimates. And Jakarta Post gave his subscriber count at the time as 17 million, against about 29 million now, a reminder of how fast these numbers date.

Net worth is murkier. Wikipedia reports that The Sunday Times estimated his net worth at £25 million in its 2019 UK influencer ranking, where he placed 41st. That is one outlet’s estimate from 2019; we did not open the ranking and have no second source, so do not treat it as a current figure. We ignore the net-worth pages that circulate for him.

Beyond the channel

Per Wikipedia’s citations, his graphic novel Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crystal was published by HarperCollins on 6 October 2016 and spent eleven weeks at number one on the New York Times hardcover graphic books list. It also lists UK, US and Australian live tours in 2016 and 2017, a YouTube Red series, and voice and cameo roles in Skylanders Academy, Ralph Breaks the Internet and Free Guy. That diversification is the useful lesson for brands: his value was never only pre-roll ads.

What he is doing now

On 8 January 2025, Classic FM announced that he would present Next Level with DanTDM, a video game music series starting Saturday 11 January at 9pm. The station’s announcement quotes him: “Teenage me wouldn’t be able to believe I have my own radio show!” It describes him as having studied music production and worked in video games for about 15 years, with over 20 billion views across his online content (Classic FM, 8 January 2025).

He has also spoken publicly about severe depression. Wikipedia cites a BBC News interview of 23 September 2023 for this; the BBC blocked our fetch, so we have not read it and say only that he has discussed it.

The numbers, as of October 2026

Wikipedia’s infobox, last updated 24 June 2026, lists 29.1 million subscribers and 20 billion views for the main channel. Classic FM said “over 29 million” subscribers in January 2025, which is consistent. Treat the Wikipedia figure as approximate, since it is a single source for the current count.

What our checker would add, and why we didn’t run it

YouTube is one of the two platforms our free authenticity checker can score. We did not run it for this piece, so nothing here states or implies a score for his channel. You can run it yourself at /check/youtube/dantdm; the methodology explains what it does and does not measure.

The bottom line

“Is DanTDM legit?” has a well-documented answer on the question of whether the career is real: Guinness recorded the Minecraft channel’s scale in 2016, Forbes estimated his 2016-17 earnings at the top of the field, and Classic FM has publicly put him on air. What is unconfirmed is anything about his income after 2017, and any claim of net worth from sources that don’t show their working.

Sources: Wikipedia, DanTDM; Guinness World Records (October 2016); The Jakarta Post (12 December 2017); Classic FM (8 January 2025).