Like I said this morning, Google announced 2006 earnings and with that, we learn a bit on how much Google paid out their AdSense publishers.
The Q4 release says:
The majority of TAC expense is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $916 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. TAC is also related to amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $60 million in the fourth quarter of 2006.
So in short: The Distribution partners got $60 million, and AdSense partners got $916 million.
We do not know however the difference between premium publishers and normal individual publishers.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.