I can confirm that this is accurate.

There are a few tiers and it varies seasonally. I run a YouTube channel with ~80k subscribers at the moment and I get about $3CPM (price per thousand). I actually make closer to $5 and even $6 around the holidays as ad prices go up.

But if you are just starting out on YouTube, you are given lower paying ads. You'll see yourself getting CPMs in the $1-$1.50 range. After hitting 50k subscribers it jumps up dramatically. The really premium ads are reserved for whitelisted accounts that belong to certain approved video networks and can earn $5-$8 CPM. These are generally channels with 1M or more subscribers.