Now what's all this talk about earning lots of money in a very short space of time from a very small number of people on YouTube? Well it all comes down to this. We recently published a video all about 

One of the tools we talked about during that video was 

, which are small financial contributions from viewers to live streams which will highlight their message in the live stream chat. Now Super Chats are not new, it's been a feature that's been on YouTube for a number of years, but what is new is just how profitable they are for video creators. YouTube has confirmed that there are now over 90,000 channels who have received Super Chats - with some streams earning more than $400 per minute!

Now we ourselves occasionally get Super Chats on our live streams and we're very appreciative of it, thank you very much. But to say that it's a number one revenue source for channels and that you can earn over $400 per minute seems fanciful, until I saw this livestream from Travis McPherson (tune into the video above to watch).

Travis is part of the vidIQ family. You may have seen him on our channel, or at live streams and he does lots of work with customer service in the background. But Travis is also a video creator in his own right with the channel 

And he does all sorts of things on technology including live streams. At the time of recording, Travis's tech channel is just shy of 40,000 subscribers and I have no idea what he's doing right here. But this is one such live stream he did recently on the Samsung Galaxy Note which ran for about 48 minutes and got around 1,000 views. Just some of the Super Chats Travis received during that live stream including a single donation of $100 Canadian dollars. So first of all Travis, that's some savage work my friend. But second of all, and most importantly, how on earth did you do this? We decided to ask him.

 Actually the ability for me to get all of these Super Chats really had nothing to do with me chasing different ways to get the money, it was actually more about me chasing ways to make my live streams better. Let me explain.



I would go to other live streams and I would try to figure out why people were so excited to be there and why they were so much fun. I would go to other creators live streams and I would enjoy them myself. And one thing I noticed was in one of my favorite creators live streams he would do sound effects periodically and people loved it! And then I noticed that the more sound effects were being used, the more people would send Super Chats which I thought was interesting.



So what I wanted to do first was put sound effects in my videos. There's multiple ways of doing this including free ways where you can do a soundboard on your computer. But I bought the 

 and it's already paid for itself.



Basically it has a bunch of different buttons that I can completely modify and put different sound effects and different, cool little visual effects in my live streams. It makes it more fun.



Secondly, I made sure that I'm full of energy every single live stream. People want that, people love that. They come to my live stream because they enjoy themselves. And of course the most important thing, the thing you're wondering about how do I get them to spend money, well I don't. I just enjoy myself. I play sound effects when cool things are happening and when someone sends a Super Chat it's a big celebration.



I have a specific song I play, I do a little dance, and you know what, it works. People love it when you can take a minute to just appreciate that someone has sent you money just for being live, they really appreciate it as well. And because I go to other streamers live streams I go to other creators live streams, they actually come to mine as well and a lot of those Super Chats were from other creators. I really believe that going to people's live streams, being apart of the community and then making your live stream as fun as absolutely possible, is all you need to do. Focus on the people in your live stream make it awesome for them, and the rest just kinda works its way out.

Making Live Streams Work for Your YouTube Subscribers

YouTube subscribers are a fickle bunch. You only need to look at your analytics to see how many views you get from actual subscribers and it's usually less than 50% on most channels.

Beyond your standard subscribers are actual fans of your channel, the ones who post comments in all of your videos, who turn into every single live stream, they volunteer to moderate, and in the most generous way they start to offer you Super Chats and become members of your channel.

Those are your super fans, and if you continue to give those super fans enough value and make them part of the fabric of your channel you will never need to ask for anything from them they will give it to you because they are so invested in your success.

Oh and one final thing, I said that Travis earned these $200 from about 150 viewers although the live stream said it got a 1,000 views this is because you have concurrent viewers watching the live stream there and then, they drop in and out, and in reality Travis probably earned that money from maybe 10 at max 15 Super Chat contributors. So in theory you can make far more money than you would ever make on AdSense with just a handful of diehard fans.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

How do you earn more than $100 in less than an hour from just 150 people watching your content on YouTube? We tell you how!

How to Make More Than $100 on YouTube in Less Than an Hour!

Even if your video has nothing to do with the 

, your content still may be demonetized. Worse still, it may even slow down your application into the YouTube Partner Program, so you can't monetize your channel at all.

 bookmarked, now is the time to do so, as this will be a fountain of information over the coming weeks and months.

, YouTube has informed us that to reduce the risk of coronavirus, they are reducing in-office staffing, to quite rightly prioritize the health and safety of their employees. Creators who log in to their account are also seeing this announcement:

The knock-on effect of this for creators is that YouTube will now be relying much more on machine learning to detect potentially harmful content on the platform.

To be clear, this is not just about coronavirus or COVID-19 content. This is all of the other potentially harmful and dangerous content that's pushed onto YouTube every single day and YouTube has comprehensive guidelines for.

What Increased YouTube Automation Means For a Creator

Now there are very few human reviewers looking at this content, and YouTube is relying on AI and machine learning. As a result, what you can expect to see, as creators, is an increase in video removals, even if, ultimately, they don't violate community guidelines.

Why? Because basically, machine learning sometimes gets it wrong, as we well know. Because of this expected increase in errors, YouTube won't issue strikes unless they have a high confidence that the video does actually violate guidelines.

And YouTube does already have an appeal system in place which you can still use but because the human workforce is less likely to be in the YouTube offices right now, you can expect delays in those appeals being reviewed.

Because of this, YouTube will be more cautious about the content they promote. Live streams and unreviewed content may not be searchable, or discoverable on the homepage or through recommendations.

The Impact on YouTube’s Partner Program

So, we know there are fewer people working at YouTube offices and that's completely understandable. Everybody, at this time, needs to be safe, and stay healthy.

YouTube has talked about how video content is going to be impacted on the platform. But what they didn't mention is the YouTube Partner Program. And I think that's going to be under similar constraints because human reviewers do look into each and every channel that they allow into that.

So if you have applied for the YouTube Partner Program or monetization in the last four to six weeks, don't be surprised if there is a significant delay. And folks, we have to accept that.

Now as well as the YouTube Creator Blog website, there is also a super useful support page that I will recommend you bookmark as well. And it's all to do with coronavirus and COVID-19 updates.

YouTube has set up a dedicated update page on the 

, which is being updated on a daily basis. So as well as the stories we've covered today, they are also closing their YouTube Space facilities temporarily and will be allowing creators to actually monetize a coronavirus and COVID-19 content. We'll have more on that in the near future.

As of right now, you may have noticed that if you do try and monetize content that even includes a passing mention of the coronavirus, you will almost certainly get the yellow dollar icon. As well as daily updates, the dedicated support page has a lot more information, including FAQs on monetization around coronavirus, and COVID-19.

YouTube has confirmed that it will be relying on automation and machine learning to detect potentially harmful content being uploaded to the platform during the current crisis. Find out what that means for creators.

YouTube Warns Takedowns May Increase During Coronavirus Crisis

If you’re a YouTube creator, you may have noticed that when you go to check your analytics, they look a little different to what they used to be. YouTube are encouraging video creators to try the new Studio Beta, because it has new analytics and it has a layout that YouTube wants you to use in the future. The problem is for many video creators is that they've been forced onto this new studio without being asked.

If you want to return to the Creator Studio Classic, as it's now called, in the bottom left hand corner, you should be able to click a button which will take you back there. However, this is only a temporary fix, because when you go back to your analytics on your next YouTube session, you'll be taken to the new Beta Studio once again.

How to Make YouTube Classic Studio Your Default (But Should You?)

To make the Classic Studio once again your default studio, click on Settings in the new Beta Studio and you should have an option in the General Settings to set the default creator experience. Set it to Creator Studio Classic and you should now go to your normal analytics, which you're all used to.

So now you know how to switch back to the old Classic Studio analytics. The question is should you? Well the most important thing to know right now is that the Studio Beta is the future, the Classic Studio is going to go away at some point in 2019. YouTube is still very coy on when this is going to happen, but at some point that Creator Studio is not going to be accessible. So you should at least familiarize yourself with the new Studio Beta. Another thing to note is that the Classic Studio is now in what you might call a maintenance-only mode, so that it's not gonna get any new upgraded features.

For example, there is an option to check Impressions and Click Through, but that's only available through the new Studio Beta. And this is another reason to start using the new studio for Impressions, Click Through rates, and so on. These are vital pieces of information which will really help grow your channel.

For all you vidIQ users out there, we will be concentrating more and more on the Studio Beta throughout 2019. You can already see we've got some features in the edit pages, such as the best time to publish your videos, the legendary SEO Scorecard and Checklist, as well as the Boost feature.

Personally, I love the new features in the Studio Beta, the dashboard in particular, with that little snapshot of your latest video, and Impressions to Click Through Rate is an absolute gold mine of information to really improve your thumbnails.

However, in the Classic Studio, there is still one page I absolutely love. Yep, still can't get enough of this page showing my views in real time for all of my latest videos, and it does help when one of those videos is going viral. Nice!

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

YouTube wants you to try Studio Beta to access new analytics data. We show you how to switch back to the old Creator Studio Layout.

How to Switch Back To the Old YouTube Layout [Creator Studio]

 has reached an incredible arsenal of (at time of writing) 304,131 subscribers! What did we learn from the journey? This is not going to be a perfect list of how-to tips and tricks to get to 300,000+ subscribers. These are my personal views and opinions from a genuine YouTube enthusiast.

Custom Thumbnails are KEY to Success on YouTube

I have made a lot of YouTube videos. I think around about 1,500 at this point. But for a very long time there is something I always neglected because I wanted to make the video and just get it out there onto YouTube. What I didn't spend much time on was thumbnails. A lot of channels have questionable thumbnails, which doesn't do their YouTube brand any favours, but since vidIQ began focusing on the very best thumbnails for our YouTube videos, our click-through rates have increased from 2.5% to 5% in just one year. That's much more views for effectively the same amount of work, just doing it better. Just as readers judge books by their covers, viewers judge videos by their thumbnails. If you can improve your thumbnails that can have a massive and positive impact on the entirety of your channel.

Improve Something by 1% on EVERY YouTube Video You Create

Something I am a strong advocate for, is striving to improve with every video that you make. Whether it is thumbnails, lighting, camera presence, voice narration or editing, you should always be looking for that 1% where you can get better. Trying to improve 100% every single video is going to drive you insane. But if you can come away from every single video thinking, I like that new thing that I tried there. Or that was some really tight editing, or I like the way I presented at that particular point in the video then that is one more step in the right direction.

Experiment With Your Content as Often as Possible

This next tip may fly in the face of YouTube experts and indeed myself recommend. And that is to experiment as often as possible. Now the reason I say this is because it comes from a foundation of consistency. If you are a regular visitor to vidIQ, you should have a general sense of the type of content that we create. We want to help educate you on your YouTube journey. Get more views, more subscribers, grow your channel, ultimately and potentially earn an income from it. I've been doing that for a couple years now here at vidIQ. Showing you how to use all of our tools and general tips about getting more views and subscribers.

But we decided to do last year was to follow YouTube news stories a little more closely and report on them if we found them interesting to our audience. It's why we jumped on ‘

’ as soon as they came out and the reason we rank number one for that search term now.

Going Viral: PewDiePie vs T Series on YouTube

. This started out as an experimentation in fame hacking. Seeing if we could latch on to a trending topic and add our own unique analytical spin on things. We didn't realize it at the time but we'd stumbled on some viral content. Now while we we're experimenting, we also practice what we preach. When those videos started to do really well, what else could we do but double down on them and make more content on the already successful stuff on our channel.

YouTube Watch Time: How we Increased Our Numbers

Now people may say that it's all down to PewDiePie versus T-Series stuff. And while I agree it has helped a lot, it's not what we are banking our channel on. These are the baseline numbers I'm more interested in. The day-to-day watch time hours that have increased around 75% in the last nine months. Outside of the viral hits, this is our bedrock. Our subscribers, our fans, the people who are watching this video and are invested in a channel at a much deeper level than anything our PewDiePie versus T-Series content could ever achieve.

Now as is always the case, when you start to create alternative content to what your community is used to, you will get push back. And we have here at vidIQ. But here's the ironic thing, we haven't produced less content than what we normally would do, in fact we're doing more content. On our 

, we're doing videos on a Monday, live stream on a Tuesday, news on Wednesdays and Thursdays. And beginner's guides on Fridays. What's changed is we're creating a lot more content that includes stuff about PewDiePie versus T-Series. And that is bringing in a lot more exposure for the channel and building a bigger community for the stuff that we're really interested in. Which is helping you grow your channel.

Now I know this post is not full of really useful tips and tricks. Make better thumbnails, make viral videos. That's hardly going to help you day to day. But consider this my open letter to the vidIQ community. This is the type of stuff I learnt in my last nine months getting from 200 subscribers to 304,131 subscribers.

Want to know how to grow your YouTube Channel to over 300K subscribers? Take a look at what vidIQ did to reach that goal and what you can do to build up your subscriber base right now.

How to Generate 300,000 Subscribers for Your YouTube Channel

Did you know that by adding a hashtag word in your YouTube description, you will trigger their appearance just above your YouTube video title? These hashtags are now an official source of categorizing your content on the platform, and they are clickable, and therefore searchable on YouTube. They allow the viewer to perform one click searches for particular search hashtag terms.

If you want to know how to use these hashtags for your videos, just 

click on this full tutorial to find out more

Use hashtags as a way of keeping viewers watching your content. Whether you use your Channel name as your hashtag, or a popular slogan you have, or you have a series of videos, whether it be Fortnite tips, beauty makeup challenge or the best Trump memes, use hashtags for consistency.

You have a limit of three hashtags per video. You can include them in the title or the video description. We've found that if you include them in the video description, then it adds them above your title. If you add the hashtags to your title it doesn't add them to above your title. So, add the hashtags to your description so it sits there just nicely above your title and save the title for really delivering that strong message that gets people to click on your videos.

These hashtags have a range of policies that must meet the community guidelines on YouTube much like all metadata on the platform. So, don’t use spaces, no over usage of hashtags, no harassment, no sexual content. Keep on the right side of YouTube and you shouldn’t have any issues.

Consider adding hashtags to your legacy content, particularly if you’ve uploaded videos with different topics.

Think about your future videos. If you consistently upload content around a certain theme then add 2-3 hashtags to your default description so you never forget.

Be patient. Hashtags can take a few minutes to appear so just keep refreshing the screen until you see them.

Some users are reporting that their hashtags are jumbled up with random spaces where they don't expect them to. That seems to happen when there are emojis in the vicinity of your hashtags. If you are having problems trying to represent hashtags properly in your videos, maybe just clean up the text and characters around your hashtags, especially emojis, and that should fix the issue.

Did you know you can test the performance of your YouTube hashtags? Just go to YouTube Analytics, then Traffic Sources and YouTube Search, and your hashtag results will appear like all of it YouTube searches in those analytics.

YouTube Hashtags - are they a legitimate way to grow your Channel? Here’s 8 things you need to know about them.

YouTube Hashtags: What Are They and How to Use Them!

As the PewDiePie vs T Series battle continues we’re taking a look back at all the high points and learnings from the race for the Channel with the most subscribers on YouTube. In this post, we ask if PewDiePie really tried to hack YouTube in a bid to hold on to his crown?

 that automatically played at twice the speed as normal. This naturally intrigued us as it brought Watch Time and playback speed into focus. Let's talk about the theory first. You can change playback speed on any YouTube video by going to settings, clicking on speed, and then changing it to a quarter speed or double speed. With some very rudimentary math, that means that you could watch a ten minute video at double speed, and it actually only takes you five minutes to watch. And a lot of people do that, including myself. If I am very short on time, and it's a very conversational video, then I'll watch it at double speed, just so I can get through it quicker and watch more content with the time that I have.

That's the viewer's perspective on playback, but what about the video creator? Is there something to gain from this? It's generally accepted that watch time is the most important metric on YouTube. So does slowing down or indeed speeding up the playback of your videos affect watch times positively or negatively.

In this example, what PewDiePie has done is slow his video down in his video editor, so that when you play back at normal speed it's just excruciating. This forces the viewer to change the playback speed to double speed so that it looks and sounds normal. But in YouTube land what actually counts, the 21 minutes of the actual video length, or the ten and a half minutes of real world time that it took you to watch the video? I'm glad you asked because we have the answer.

Earlier in 2018, we uploaded an 18 minute video and set it to private so nobody else could watch it. Then we watched the entire video at double speed, so that we could check the analytics on it. That single view, watching an 18 minute video at double speed resulted in a watch time of nine minutes, exactly half the length of the video itself. What it also gave us, rather weirdly, was audience retention of exactly 50 percent, which is a little confusing.

The next thing we tested was the complete opposite. We uploaded a one minute video to YouTube, set it to private, and watched it at a quarter speed. That meant that in real life it took us four minutes to watch this one minute video. And what did the analytics say? Yep, you guessed it. Four minutes of watch time and rather impressively, four hundred percent audience retention from a single view. Just to clarify that, You Tube watch time is calculated from your physical presence in the real world watching the video. If, and I hasten to underline that, if PewDiePie was trying to game the YouTube system, he got it all backwards.

The simplest way of looking at this, is if you double the playback speed, you have the watch time. Let's say for argument's sake that five million people watched this PewDiePie video, and they watched a full duration of the video at 20 minutes. That would give you, in normal circumstances, one hundred million minutes of watch time. But if it's played at double speed, that halves the physical amount of time the video is watched, and it brings us down to fifty million minutes of watch time. That's still quite a lot of cost.

If you were going to try and hack the YouTube watch time analytics, which of course we do not recommend, you would have to do this. There you have it folks. If our testing was accurate and the analytics haven't changed since then, this video will have had a detrimental effect on PewDiePie's watch time. Which begs the question, why did the currently most subscribed to You Tube channel on the planet do this? I don't know, it's PewDiePie.

ICYMI: As the PewDiePie vs T Series battle rages on we take a look back at the stunts pulled, including the time PewDiePie may have tried to hack YouTube Watch Time in a bid to hold on to his crown.

Did PewDiePie Really Try to Hack YouTube to Beat T Series?

First of all, let's say congratulations to PewDiePie. The first independent YouTube channel to reach 90 million subscribers. If he was a country, he'd find himself in between Vietnam and Germany. And, of course, let's not forget T Series, who hit the same phenomenal landmark just half an hour later. But, this continued neck-and-neck race between two channels is starting to raise some interesting and hard questions

I think we've all got used to the idea of PewDiePie being overtaken by T Series on occasion. It's happened a number of times, but the curious question is this, having taken a lead, why can't T Series maintain it and indeed stretch it? The gap always seems to be a few thousand subscribers, and doesn't last more than a couple of hours at most. Before by the end of the evening, PewDiePie finds himself maybe 15 to 20,000 subscribers ahead, and then we repeat. As day turns to night or night turns to day, depending on your perspective, PewDiePie has a lead that soon vanishes and now we find T Series once again in the lead. So what's actually going on in the 

PewDiePie vs T Series & the YouTube Algorithm

Now, you could maybe accept this happening for one or two nights in a row while some massive PewDiePie campaign of the likes we've seen before propelling him hundreds of thousands of subscribers ahead. But this type of subscriber fluctuation has been going on for months - almost as if it's being controlled on purpose to help each channel feed off of the continued media interest. It just doesn't make sense for T Series to catch up, and then still not be able to jump ahead of PewDiePie for longer than 24 hours. So what is going on here?

Well, I found a really interesting video by a chap called Mehditation, who talks about a 

. It's really brilliant stuff, and this is what he thinks is happening. We know T Series has been catching up PewDiePie for a long time, years in fact. Before this turned into a race, PewDiePie averaged 30,000 subscribers a day, while T Series would average in excess of 100,000 subscribers a day. Now yes, when it turned into a race PewDiePie got the occasional huge subscriber boost from the YouTube community. But, ultimately, they can only help for so long against a relentless T Series YouTube machine.

But as both channels grind towards 100 million subscribers, the rules of engagement seem to have changed. As if they are magnetized to each other, both channels averaging just under 140,000 subscribers a day. So, how might this happen? Let's go into conspiracy mode. Let's pretend that T Series has millions of fake accounts subscribed to their channel. And as they gather more and more real subscribers, they simply shave off the fake ones. Thus, controlling there ultra consistent subscriber count that they have had for months, if not years. Or, what if it's the complete opposite? What if it's millions of fake accounts that are being pumped into PewDiePie's channel? And as he gains new and legitimate subscribers, the fake ones are simply sliced off the top. Thus, keeping a subscriber pace that PewDiePie's channel has never been able to sustain for such a long period of time. It keeps both channels in the news, and both channels benefit from it.

Now, given the recent numbers, and how the subscriber rate has changed over the last couple of weeks, I find this theory absolutely fascinating with some plausibility. Do I think it's true or not?

In the race for the most subscribers on YouTube, T Series have taken the lead over PewDiePie on many occasions. But why can't they keep a hold of it?

PewDiePie Vs T Series: Why Can't T Series Maintain the Lead?

PewDiePie has the lead over T Series, once again, in the subscriber race and indeed the chase to 100,000,000 subscribers. The combined subscriber count is approaching 190M and of course, there's absolutely no duplication in numbers here, because there's no crossover between PewDiePie's audience and T Series' audience. Nobody's going to subscribe to both channels, are they? Or, they are and then, they're going to unsubscribe from one channel to bring the numbers down. You can see the issue here.

Now, of course PewDiePie and T Series subscriber sources are private. We're not going to have access to that, but we can investigate where subscribers typically come from for a channel and then you can decide where you think both PewDiePie and T Series' subscribers are generally coming from.

PewDiePie & T Series: Where are Subscribers Coming From?

We're going to be using VidIQ as a reference point to find out all of the different subscriber sources there are and you can do that by going to analytics, clicking the "see more" link on any of the channel-wide graphs, and then selecting subscriber source. If you have your own channel, it might be worth doing this right now to follow along.

Now, where else could we start but with the YouTube watch page? This is when a viewer found the content so valuable that they were compelled to click the "subscribe" button as they were watching the video. PewDiePie's "

" dis-track has amassed 65M views in a week, which has helped him bring in over 1,500,000 subscribers in that time.

Now, not all of those subscribers are coming from one video. PewDiePie produces daily content, after all. But in the previous week, he got 950,000 subscribers. Logic dictates that valuable videos that connects with your audience will bring in more subscribers and it always helps when the video goes viral, even if YouTube never puts it on the "trending page."

Just to make sure we're fair and balanced on this - if we look at this purely from a views versus subscriber perspective, things do get really interesting. Last June, before the subscriber rates really got going, T Series got eight times as many views, but only five times as many subscribers as PewDiePie. If we fast forward to December, when the race was in full effect, PewDiePie doubles his view count, while T Series increased theirs by around 40%.

But when it comes to subscribers, PewDiePie has increased his count by almost 800%. T Series on the other hand, have increased their sub-count 50%. More or less, in line with their increased view count. I think all of this tells us something really interesting on both sides.

PewDiePie & T Series: Views vs Subscribers

First of all, T Series is terrible at converting views into subscribers and that is due to the nature of their very diverse content. You've got all sorts of music genres on one channel and if you've looked at T Series, their views spike depending on what type of video is being pushed out on their channel. As for PewDiePie, 200% increase in views, 800% increase in subscribers. Time for an eyebrow raise. Of course, we kind of have an explanation for that. It's all of these other YouTubers, such as Mr. Beast and Markiplier rallying behind PewDiePie, but just because he gets some subscribers, it doesn't mean he actually gets more viewers from it and build an engaged audience with his channel. In most cases, a channel will get most of its subscribers from the video watch pages.

On the other hand, there are a bundle of subscriber sources that generate virtually no subscribers. Those being, the "subscribe" button on your channel page, subscriptions from the search results based on queries, interactive cards and end screens within videos, and so on. But two subscribe sources that do deserve more scrutiny however, are ‘other’ and ‘other YouTube channel’.

What does ‘other’ refer to? T Series, being a massive Bollywood film and music label, has external ways to encourage people to subscribe to their channel. One such place being their official website. ‘Other YouTube Channel’ is another potential fountain of subscribers too. Again, T Series has the opportunity to combine the might of all of it's YouTube channels to create a network of subscriber opportunities and they do. We took a deeper look into this and it also seems that individual videos from other channels can push subscribers to you too.

Not quite sure how that differs to watch page subscriptions, but if we look at it from this point of view, the T Series channel pushes out three to four videos a day, that's in comparison to PewDiePie, who averages a single video a day. That means, more opportunities for T Series to get videos suggested on other videos and more potential subscribers from that other YouTube channel source.

How YouTube Channels Also Lose Subscribers

Now so far, we've only talked about how each channel can gain subscribers, but don't forget, you can also lose subscribers as well. You can of course, gain and lose subscribers from all sources, but there are only a few that generate negative numbers and of particular interest in the PewDiePie versus T Series race, closed accounts is likely the one that's abnormally high.

If you're familiar with the subscriber race, you'll have seen those moments where either PewDiePie or T Series gain or lose tens of thousands of subscribers in a single second, which is impossible, unless there is a subscriber purge or audit. YouTube do talk about this in their "help" pages, citing spam subscribers and channels that have been terminated. YouTube have done big purges, but you'll see fluctuations of 1,000 subscribers here and there happen on a near daily basis when it comes to PewDiePie versus T Series. Closed accounts are those terminated due to policy violations and spam subscribers are those subscribers gained through artificial means. I'll just say it one more time, 200% increase in views, 800% increase in subscribers.

Since PewDiePie is, once again at time of writing, ahead of T Series in terms of subscribers, we ask where do all these subscribers even come from?

PewDiePie vs T Series: Where Do the Subscribers Come From?

On April 1st PewDiePie retook the lead for the most subscribed to Channel, in the 

' diss track which now has over 80 million views. PewDiePie went a few hundred thousand subscribers ahead, and then T Series slowly clawed that back. But that difference accelerated when T Series were about 50,000 subscribers behind, and then 24 hours later, they got to 80,000 subscribers ahead. A pretty significant difference, especially in T Series' favor. And what can we credit this sudden influx of subscribers to? Put simply, it's YouTube views.

Anything PewDiePie can do in terms of generating views, T Series can do more frequently and with a lot more resources. And although 

T Series is absolutely terrible at converting views into subscribers

, ultimately for this subscriber race that doesn't matter.

And now things have turned legal, PewDiePie's diss tracks have irritated T Series enough for the case to go to court. With those videos no longer viewable in India. Is this just the start of potential legal wranglings between the two? Now of course, as we all know you write off PewDiePie in the subscriber race at your peril. But for six months he was the one being chased and now the roles have reversed, the pendulum has swung. PewDiePie has to chase T Series down to 100 million subscribers. Everything seems to be flowing in one direction. But you know who we haven't heard from for a while? PewDiePie himself - don’t write him off.

While the title for the most subscribed to YouTube Channel flip flops between the two, we ask - how much longer can PewDiePie actually hold T Series off for good?

PewDiePie vs T Series- How Much Longer Can PewDiePie Hold T Series Off For Good?

First of all, let's congratulate T Series, the first non-YouTube aggregated channel to surpass 95 million subscribers. That's quite a feat, and PewDiePie should achieve the same milestone soon, which is even more remarkable, for an individual video creator.

Second of all, that subscriber gap got big in a hurry, didn't it? In the short space of just seven days, T Series increased its lead by more than half a million subscribers. Seven days versus seven months of back and forth puts things into a little perspective, doesn't it? And we're now into a phase of the game where PewDiePie never really catches back up irrespective of the world clock. Day or night, T Series is storming ahead. At this rate, by the end of this week, T Series will be more than a million subscribers ahead of PewDiePie in this race, and at that point, do we even call it a race anymore?

So, what happened over the last week? Well, as we mentioned, on April the 19th, T Series launched their music collaboration with western rapper Pitbull, and in five days, it's amassed more than 66 million views.

The video gets a perfect vidIQ video score, a perfect vidIQ SEO score, most of the tags rank number one, and the video was running at over one million views per hour for a solid 12 hours. The data that vidIQ is collecting here (

which it does for every single video on YouTube

), presents the average data analyst with some remarkable numbers. But when it comes to T Series, they operate on an entirely different level to PewDiePie, where single videos, or single campaigns, can drive many subscribers.

With T Series, it's just sheer weight of numbers from the entire channel. Since the release of the Pitbull video on T Series, which brought in 63 million views, the entire channel has generated 534 million views, along with nearly 800,000 subscribers, and those are only the numbers when I recorded this video. By the time you read this, they'll be even higher.

Is PewDiePie Suffering From YouTube Subscriber Fatigue?

Another factor that seems to be weighing against PewDiePie right now is subscriber fatigue. The last time PewDiePie's channel got more than 100,000 subscribers in a single day was April the 8th. As for T Series, well, I had to do little bit of digging here and, with the exception of a massive subscriber purge in the middle of December, the last time T Series got less than 100,000 subscribers in a single day on their channel, was the beginning of October 2018. That just shows you the difference between the numbers and the channels.

However, ‘International PewDiePie Day’, which marks the YouTube channel's ninth anniversary on April the 29th, could be the catalyst for something extraordinary. And, of course, there is still the YouTube community at large, making videos and starting campaigns to get their audience to subscribe to PewDiePie, whether PewDiePie wants that help or not.

By this time next week, we'll know a number of things. First of all, we'll know whether or not International PewDiePie Day had any effect on the subscriber race. We'll know whether or not T Series is more than a million subscribers ahead of PewDiePie.

As T Series becomes the first non-YouTube aggregated channel to generate 95M subscribers, its lead over PewDiePie stands at over 840K. Is the race for the most-subscribed to YouTube channel finally over?

PewDiePie vs T Series...Is the Race for the YouTube Crown Finally Over?

YouTube has a system in place that alerts you to any other video that may be using all, or part of your content. Here's our 3 minute guide to using the Copyright Matching Tool

How to Access the YouTube Copyright Matching Tool

When you are logged into YouTube, you should see your channel logo in the top right-hand corner of most YouTube screens. If you click on that, you have the option to go to YouTube Studio. This is currently in beta, but will become the standard as 2019 progresses. This is the new creator studio dashboard and from here, you want to click on the Copyright section down the left-hand side.

When you first visit this screen, you will need to read the guidelines and agree you understand how to use the copyright matching tool. This tool should be available to all creators in the 

Once you have access to the tool, the main screen will show you if there are any content matches. YouTube uses the earliest upload of the original content to know who to match it to. Duplicates uploaded after are displayed and show you the video details such as the number of views, upload date, and the channel with the matching content, the percentage match of a video against your original, and the three actionable steps you can take to protect your content.

How to Take Actionable steps to Protect Your Content

The first action is to simply archive the match. This means that you have taken no action, but have acknowledged the content ID match. There is an archive tab at the top, which you can click to take you to all of the previously archived matches. You can click on the three dots to the right here to take a new action, if you want to.

The second action you can take is the strongest one and that is to request that the content be removed. First, click on the warning sign and then, confirm the request to remove the video. Once you've confirmed this action, a lengthy form will pop up that you need to complete in full. This action should not be taken lightly, as you are claiming ownership of the content, which, in extreme cases, you may need to defend legally.

Because of this, there are three legal agreements you need to check before you submit your request. Also, consider the impact on the channel you are claiming against. If you request a removal now, this will instantly serve a copyright strike against a creator. If you schedule a seven day notice, this at least give the creator a chance to remove the video and protect their channel. Of course, this decision is entirely up to you. Once you've submitted the video removal, you can track it's progress from the removal request tab. Do note that you may need to take further action to get a video removed.

If you think all of this is a little too drastic, you can take the nicely, nicely approach and simply contact the creator using your content. This will automatically generate an email template that will be sent to the creator warning them of what they are doing and what could happen. All you need to do is add an email, so that you can have a conversation, if required.

Want To Get More YouTube Views & Subscribers?

YouTube's Copyright Matching Tool alerts you to any other videos that may be using all, or part of your content. Here's our quick guide to using it.

How to Use The YouTube Copyright Matching Tool

After the spectacular freefall that has hit James Charles over the past few days, we show you the true numbers playing out in real time. In the past 72+ hours James Charles has lost nearly 3M YouTube subscribers on YouTube as allegations against him dominate the news cycle.

In contrast, beauty guru Tati Westbrook, whose 

 kicked off the whole drama, gained 3.4M subscribers in the same time frame. Tati's (unmonetized) 43 minute 'Bye Sister' video has now generated over 36M views and contines to 

vidIQ has been collecting the data and recording the subscriber counts for the last 72 hours and this is what it looks like! Check out the live subscriber count for both YouTube Beauty channels!

As the James Charles vs Tati drama continues to play out on YouTube, we confirm the real-time subscriber counts for both beauty gurus.

Posts Written By Rob Wilson