Mid-January, YouTube rolled out an unexpected change: new rules for monetization of the video content uploaded to the site.
The changes went into effect this week and from now on, content creators who haven’t hit the target of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past 12 months are no longer eligible for YouTube’s monetization tools.
Up until now, anyone who had accumulated 10,000 lifetime views in their YouTube channel were eligible to monetize their content – as you can see, the change is quite significant.
In an official blogpost on the topic Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer, and Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer of YouTube, write that this change was prompted by the platform’s effort for protecting the creator ecosystem and ensuring stable revenue for content contributors:
We’re making changes to address the issues that affected our community in 2017 so we can prevent bad actors from harming the inspiring and original creators around the world who make their living on YouTube. A big part of that effort will be strengthening our requirements for monetization so spammers, impersonators, and other bad actors can’t hurt our ecosystem or take advantage of you, while continuing to reward those who make our platform great.
We don’t have information about the number of affected creators; some of them may be able to remain in the monetization program as YouTube is giving them a 30-day grace period to meet the new requirements – if they manage to do so within that rather tight timeframe, they’ll be automatically re-entered in the program. A challenging task, indeed.
Here is what YouTube management has to say about this:
Though these changes will affect a significant number of channels, 99% of those affected were making less than $100 per year in the last year, with 90% earning less than $2.50 in the last month.
We believe that this data is a fair argument for the change, however we are not sure if it accounts for new-ish channels that are just beginning to gain traction and will be forced back to Step 1 by the new monetization requirements.
Stremio to the rescue
We understand that if you have less than a thousand followers and not too many views of your videos, you’re probably not making a living off your YouTube career. Nonetheless, we don’t want you to lose your revenue stream.
We can’t get you back into the YouTube Partner Program. What we can do is offer you exposure to the almost 5 million Stremio users. This way you will be able to reach a large audience – and if your content is exciting enough, these people are very likely to subscribe for your YouTube channel and generate view time for your videos.
Your videos can be featured as recommended content on the Board screen of the Stremio app, or we can promote your YouTube channel in our Discover section. This way you will be able to reach a new targeted audience and increase your YouTube influence altogether.
Interested in this offer? Just fill in the table below and a Stremio representative will get in touch with you shortly.
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