major changes come into YouTube's
partner program
hi I'm Ex-TV producer Jennifer Moore and
if you're a youtuber I'm sure you've
already heard YouTube is making some
pretty major changes to its YouTube
Partner Program which means your videos
are eligible for monetization or ads
rolling on the videos and the Creator
gets a percentage of that revenue so the
new standard YouTube is putting in place
as of February 20th is that your channel
needs to have one thousand subscribers
and four thousand hours of watch time
hours not minutes in the past twelve
months previously YouTube had rolled out
a new threshold of ten thousand lifetime
views so they've upped it from the ten
thousand lifetime views to both the one
thousand subscribers and the four
thousand hours of watch time that
equates to two hundred and forty
thousand minutes which is a pretty big
feat for a small youtuber on the YouTube
creator blog YouTube cited a desire to
weed out some of the bad actors on the
platform by introducing these and new
standards and it says that once you
reach that threshold you will have your
channel evaluated under some strict
criteria which we don't exactly know
what that is yet and evaluate and if
your channel meets all of their
standards you can join the Partner
Program also this means if your channel
is already in the partner program and
you don't meet the threshold you have
about 30 days to meet the threshold
otherwise you will actually be kicked
out and I know this is a pretty tough
blow for some smaller creators who may
have been in the partner program for
years and you know while it didn't make
them a huge amount of money it made them
a little something every month and they
seem to really appreciate that so I've
talked to some folks and they they seem
kind of disappointed and understandably
so so this video is really not a rant or
complaint but I do want to share some
thoughts as an ex TV news producer who
actually quit my job at CNN to pursue
YouTube full-time obviously I have a lot
of faith and optimism in digital media
like YouTube and other platforms that
may come along after YouTube I have four
channels in our house and between my
husband and I as of this new
announcement roll out only one of them
will be a
to be monetized I have a sewing channel
and then my husband actually has a
channel that he did some videos he
produced some pretty good quality
Evergreen videos like about cooking or
about you know home improvement and
those videos really do continue to get
views and that channel makes anywhere
between 75 and 90 dollars a month we are
well over the watch-time threshold but
we only have 800 in like 35 subscribers
as of now so if we did not get if we
don't get that additional like 165 we're
actually gonna get kicked out of the
program and I gotta be honest that's
that's a bit disappointing well no we
don't rely on the Adsense money every
month and we're clearly not doing
YouTube for money because none of my
channels have made me rich but it it was
kind of a nice thing to get every month
and kind of helps you kind of justify
your time and energy into doing YouTube
and also maybe helping to defray the
cost of things you buy or you know your
camera gear and stuff like that so if
you're a small creator out there I'm
also a small creator and I totally feel
you I do have some questions about where
YouTube is all going with this I'm not
exactly sure how just weeding out
smaller channels is really going to help
get rid of those quote-unquote bad
actors as from what I've seen the bad
actors can be from huge channels and
also from small channels so it's really
not something that's necessarily based
on audience size or view time watch time
so I guess I'm not really sure why the
smaller creators are being penalized
when really this doesn't really affect
the larger channels I've seen some huge
channels with millions of subscribers
that I really don't feel there's any
value to their videos and I've also
watched a lot of smaller channels that
offer what I feel is a tremendous value
and you can tell they really put their
heart and soul into what they're doing
and I get some great information out of
those in fact I follow a lot of nice
channels myself and a lot of the people
I watch probably don't meet that
threshold so it is kind of disappointing
to think that maybe those people might
not make content anymore or might be
driven away from the platform I have
seen comments kind of to the effect of
you know if that if that's would drive
them away from the platform you know
they don't belong there anyway or like
hey you know instead of just relying on
the Adsense money you need to be
marketing yourself in other ways too but
you to mean and being a YouTube creator
and a video producer is a lot of work
you put so so much time into it I've
been on YouTube for two years and I
think I've probably made less than two
thousand dollars seriously like less
than two thousand dollars so I am
clearly not doing this for the money I'm
doing it because I love creating videos
and I just like coming up with these
ideas and sharing some of the
information that I feel might be
valuable to other people so most of the
people I know who are on YouTube they
feel that way too they're not in it for
the money but at the same time even
getting a hundred bucks a month or fifty
bucks a month means something to them
and I'm a little bit frustrated with
YouTube for maybe not trying to work
with some of these channels that have
been in the program for a while if their
content is good and they have a clean
record maybe trying to grandfather some
of those channels in and not just
kicking them to the curb now I fully
realize YouTube is a corporation and not
some sort of government entity so
YouTube pretty much can do whatever they
want but again I would like to see
YouTube apply some of their standards
more consistently across all creators it
does feel like some of the channels or
videos that get flagged or demonetised
that doesn't seem very standard across
the board and that is a criticism I have
of YouTube now obviously I'm going to
continue doing YouTube I'm not going to
stop producing videos but this
definitely has made me rethink my
strategy I have two channels that are
not eligible for monetization actually
one of them the gentle surfer channel
became eligible under the 10000 lifetime
views threshold so I applied for the
program and it had but just been taking
forever so I was wondering if they were
just backed up and it turns out they
really had no intention of actually
letting me into the program they just
were waiting to roll out these new
changes so I do think that could have
been better communicated to channels
like mine and the other channel this
channel actually that I've been
experimenting with clearly
does not have the views or the
subscribers to be in the YouTube Partner
Program this is just something I do for
for fun and because I thought it would
be an interesting channel to do but at
the same time I have now have one
channel that makes uh any sort of
revenue so I mean that's just that's
just something to think about like do I
not experiment as much with the channels
that don't make money just because again
this is something I'm now doing
full-time and that's that's something to
think about you know my household budget
and our expenses you know again and I
think to the people that are in like New
York or LA you know a hundred bucks may
not be a lot of money there but like -
like a mom in Kansas or - maybe a
college student in Ohio you know that
that does mean something so I think
taking that away does it just feels a
little bit rough another thing I'd like
to address is advertising dollars
traditional media outlets digital
outlets pretty much everyone is fighting
over all the ad money out there and I
saw one comment on Twitter someone was
saying you know media outlets they do
have a vested interest in seeing
platforms like YouTube get hit with
credibility issues because again they
benefit because then those ad dollars
might go back to them and that is
something to keep in mind when you're
reading or watching something does the
outlet reporting this information what
kind of interests do they have in the
situation so that's something something
to think about I'm not saying that it
goes one way or the other but you do
have to think whenever you're getting
information from someone what do they
have to gain for it it'll also be
interesting to see if any viable
competitors come along to YouTube we've
heard about Amazon tube or open tube or
whatever they're trademarking will
Amazon come up with a platform that's
similar enough to maybe lure some of
those creators away I think that will be
interesting to see there could be maybe
some other company that also seen this
may be season opening for something that
would compete with YouTube and also
Facebook Facebook has yet to really
monetize videos they're Native videos on
a bigger level will
Facebook tried to do something like that
so I'm curious to see how this all
shakes out of course I'm still gonna
continue to do my thing here on YouTube
that is not going to change right now I
try to post between five and six videos
a week on my various channels and I am
kind of bummed about my husband's
channel getting demonetised because
that's the only one we have not been
able to regularly upload to just because
his work situation doesn't really allow
him the time to make videos anymore and
it used to so that is not gonna change
on my end but at the same time if some
other platform comes along like this
Amazon - I would definitely be open to
experimenting with it and seeing where
that goes as well just because again I
think if anything this teaches you to
diversify and not always put all your
eggs in one basket but at the same time
you know again I am still kind of
frustrated and disappointed in YouTube's
decision I personally don't agree with
it and I don't know if I see this really
accomplishing YouTube's goal of weeding
out the bad actors on YouTube I don't
see how this would stop a larger channel
from continuing to violate YouTube's
Terms of Service and really this doesn't
negatively impact the big channels in
fact they could benefit from seeing
additional ad revenue from all the other
creators being dropped so well it's good
for some channels I think this is also a
very big negative for other channels and
it would be sad to see some of the
smaller creators go because I do think a
lot of them have some value to the
platform you know now that it's going to
be a bit of an uphill climb for you to
get to the point where you might be able
to make some Adsense dollars off your
videos so when I first joined YouTube a
few years ago there really was no
standard for set amount of views you
just had to do some things and you could
join the partner program like you know
verify your email and stuff then they
moved it to 10,000 and now it's a
thousand subscribers on 4,000 watch
hours and another question I have is
what would stop YouTube from doing this
again what if they raised the bar to a
hundred thousand subscribers and a
million watch time hours I mean there's
really nothing to say that wouldn't
happen in the future if YouTube keeps
wanting to kind of weed out more people
anyways I'm very curious to see how this
all shakes out but I'll still be here on
YouTube so if you enjoyed this video
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