- It is official.
YouTube has brand new monetization requirements
for the Partner Program.
Now we need 1,000 subscribers
and 4,000 hours of watch time.
(record scratching)
Ah, that's exactly the same as it was before.
So yeah, last week's "New York Times" article was right.
YouTube have announced some pretty major changes
to monetization and the Partner Program
but the rumor that barriers to entry
were going to be lowered
haven't quite worked out as many speculated,
myself included.
So to clarify, the biggest update
that's most important
to most creators
is that there is no update.
As a long-form content creator,
to meet the requirements of YouTube monetization,
you still need 1,000 subscribers
and 4,000 hours of watch time.
I appreciate that for most small YouTube channels,
that wasn't the news you were looking for.
But now there is an alternative requirement.
If your focus is vertical short-form content,
then instead of 4,000 hours of watch time,
you can aim for 10 million YouTube Shorts views
in 90 days.
That doesn't sound very generous.
In fact, which of these two requirements
do you think is easiest?
Let us know in the comments below.
What makes this all important, however,
is that long-form content and Shorts merge together
into one YouTube Partner Program.
Whichever way you meet the requirements,
you gain access to all YouTube's income streams,
including ad revenue for both long-form content and Shorts.
All right, so let's be clear about one thing.
YouTube themselves never promised
a lowering of the monetization requirements.
That was a rumor from the "New York Times" article,
and YouTube do have something that might interest you.
YouTube are calling this fan funding
that will give creators limited access to income streams,
such as Super Chats, Super Thanks, and channel memberships.
It will offer lower requirements
and early access to the YouTube Partner Program
but crucially not ad revenue.
With advertisers being taken out of equation,
I can definitely see this fan funding requirement
being as little as 100 subscribers and 10,000 views,
but we won't know the details on this until early 2023.
But the details have been confirmed
for the creator's cuts of YouTube Shots ad revenue,
45%.
Where's 10% of a cut gone?
- We wanted to do was to be as transparent as we are
on all our other products
and make a commitment to creators
who are focused on short format.
- This is a video from me Creator Insider channel,
by the way, I'll leave a link to it in a description
just underneath for like button.
- And in short-form,
we're gonna share with all creators
who are part of the feed.
As a part of that,
that means spreading it out across all the creators,
whether it was right before the ad
or three videos away from the ad.
- I guess that kind of makes sense
because YouTube isn't showing an ad after every Short.
It has to associate the advert with the player,
not necessarily an individual video.
- Shorts is also an area where we're investing a lot
of product and engineering time
into things like creation tools,
as well as trust and safety.
And so part of that rev share
is being aware of the investment.
- So in other words,
Shorts is costing YouTube an absolute fortune,
but it doesn't say anything about a revenue split
going towards the music labels.
Yeah, let's talk about that.
YouTube is partnering up with music labels
so that creators can use popular songs
without getting hit by copyright claims.
In the YouTube studio for long-form content,
you'll soon be able to buy music licenses
at an affordable price and use them in videos
and fully monetize them,
or not buy the license and split the revenue
with the music artist.
And without thinking about that too much,
it sounds like a really good idea.
As for Shorts, you can still use popular music and sound
as you have already been doing
but still earn revenue from those videos.
The revenue split is 45%
regardless of whether you use music or not.
Shorts monetization, more music options,
that's your update in a nutshell.
If you are a Shorts creator,
I guess a big question you are going to be asking is,
how much am I going to earn?
I have no idea how CPMs are gonna work in this format.
And don't expect it to be calculated per 1,000 views,
it might be per million views.
As for 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time,
I now do believe that those requirements
are gonna be here for many years to come.
Everything we've talked about today,
pretty much kicks off in 2023.
So if you start your channel today,
yeah, you got just enough time
to get 10 million Shorts views.
Now, since, hopefully, a lot more review
are gonna be joining the YouTube Partner Program
because of these updates,
you'll be wanting to know whether or not monetized videos
get more YouTube views.
Well, you can find the answer out over here.