At Brandcast, Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, said “the new primetime is personal.” She added, “Most people say the content they watched on YouTube is related to something that they are passionate about. And according to our joint research with Omnicom, relating to a passion is three times more important than whether or not there’s a big Hollywood name attached.”

Now, we should have seen this trend coming months before Brandcast was held. At the beginning of March, Think with Google published “

Forget about primetime. To attract viewers, follow their passions

.” And in April, that was followed by “

6 industry leaders on the changing nature of primetime.

So, how does this impact you? Well, there’s still a lot of idle chatter these days that video viewers have shorter attention spans than goldfish. People scrolling through their Facebook News Feed may watch videos autoplay for only a couple of seconds, but the average viewing session on YouTube lasts more than 40 minutes. And viewers aren’t “snacking” on a random assortment of 300 videos for an average of eight seconds each during the typical 40-minute session. So, what are they doing?

People are delving deeply into topics that they truly care about for long stretches of time and skipping content that isn’t relevant or interesting after eight seconds. And, in a world where viewers have total control and a seemingly endless amount of content to choose from, this means traditional primetime has been replaced by highly engaged personal primetimes. Personal relevance and passion are now the key drivers of engagement, with over 60% of consumers who’ve watched something on YouTube in the past 24 hours saying it was related to something they’re passionate about. And, as viewer passion takes center stage, marketers must rethink their approach to video from creating “snackable” content to building long watch-time sessions that maximize viewer engagement and satisfaction.

2.	YouTube is Taking Responsibility Seriously

At Brandcast, Wojcicki said, “Let me be very clear, living up to our responsibility is my number one priority. And we are making significant progress. My leadership team and I – along with thousands of people at YouTube – are laser-focused on this.”

For additional context, you can read her recent post in the 

, which says, “We’re always balancing maintaining an open platform with managing our community guidelines. But to combat a number of concerning incidents we’ve seen in the last few months, we’ve had to take more aggressive action.” In February, YouTube announced the suspension of comments on most YouTube videos that feature minors. And in March, YouTube took unprecedented action in the wake of the Christchurch tragedy.

And if you haven’t already, you should also read Daisuke Wakabayashi’s recent article in The New York Times, which is entitled, “

The Most Measured Person in Tech Is Running the Most Chaotic Place on the Internet

.” The article concludes, “After a long conversation, Ms. Wojcicki became introspective. She said she joined Google because she wanted to do something meaningful with her life, and saw the company’s mission of helping people find the right information as inspiring. But now she recognizes that her ultimate legacy will be whether YouTube can get a handle on its problems.”

3.	YouTube TV Lineup Available in Google Preferred

YouTube TV’s 70 broadcast and cable channels will now be available as its own lineup in the Google Preferred reservation program during this upfront season. This change, along with audience guarantees and show-level exclusions, allows advertisers to zero in on live and on-demand inventory. And most importantly, brands can go beyond demographics to reach audiences based on their interests – just like with the core Google Preferred offerings.

What does this mean? Well, it depends. If this pulls more ad dollars out of TV budgets and shifts them to YouTube, then a rising tide may lift all boats – including your channel(s). If it doesn’t, then the giant sucking sound that you will hear is live sports, news, and shows on 70 broadcast and cable channels taking a bigger piece of the video advertising pie chart.

4.	Karate-chopping the Paywall for “Originals”

At Brandcast, YouTube also announced that all of its forthcoming original series and specials will soon be available for fans around the world to watch for free with ads - just like they enjoy everything else on the platform. In addition, YouTube also unveiled a new and returning slate of original series and specials focused on music, learning and personalities that will all be free with ads, including seasons 1 and 2 of “Cobra Kai” beginning this fall.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, “Cobra Kai”, which stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, is a critically-acclaimed scripted series that picks up the Karate Kid storyline decades after the original film. In its rookie season, “Cobra Kai” received an Emmy nomination, the Golden Tomato Award for Best TV Drama, and a 100-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes – making it the highest-reviewed reboot of all time. And just after its season two premiere last month, which reached 20 million views in six days, Parrot Analytics confirmed Cobra Kai is the most in-demand digital original series in the world right now. And you can binge-watch season 1 for free from August 29 to September 11 and then binge-watch season 2 for free starting on September 11.

5.	Celebrating Creator and Influencer Success Stories

At Brandcast, Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s Chief Business Officer, said, “Creators are driving record audiences to YouTube.” He added, “

200 million people come to YouTube every single day just to watch gaming videos. That’s twice the audience of this year’s Super Bowl.

” And he reveal that, “Over the last three years, the number of channels with over 1 billion views has grown by 400 percent.”

Kyncl concluded, “But creators aren’t just driving big numbers...they’re also redefining culture. They are using YouTube to break through to a generation of early adopters; the same way that 20th century media icons did through television and print.”

And several YouTube creators and influencers spoke at this year’s Brandcast, including Coby Cotton of Dude Perfect and Tiffany Haddish. Cotton said, “Ten years ago, we were just 5 college roommates at Texas A&M trying our best to balance studying with, what always seemed like, one too many intramural sports. Today, we’ve turned our passion into a career, and we’re grateful to now be one of the most watched creators on all of YouTube with 41 million subscribers and 7.7 billion views.” And Haddish added, “I’m a mechanic now, because of YouTube. I’m a therapist. I’m an ordained minister. I’m a reiki healer now. I can also make Red Bottom shoes, but you can’t walk that far, because they turn into brown bottoms. I can build a house from the ground up. I’m a carpenter now. I can do hair. I can do anything because of YouTube. I think it’s the most awesome thing in the world.”

6.	YouTube is Updating its Algorithm for Google Preferred

YouTube announced it is updating its P-score algorithm to include more of the content that is frequently watched on the TV screen and content that exhibits higher production value. How significant is this going to be? Well, Wojcicki said watch time of YouTube on television screens alone tops 250 million hours per day. Now, more than 70% of YouTube watch time still comes from mobile devices. So, the smartphone is still your first screen. But, the connected TV is going to be a significant screen, too.

So, when creating content, here’s what you need to know: Google Preferred preference score combs through YouTube’s vast video troves to select among the top 5% of engaging and popular channels on YouTube “taking into consideration, the popularity of the channel and the passion of the audience and a higher bar for brand suitability.” So, if that’s the kind of content that you’re creating, then you should benefit very nicely from the Google Preferred Update.

7.	Sales Lift Studies for Google Preferred Campaigns

At Brandcast, YouTube also announced that Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) will be available for Google Preferred campaigns before the end of 2019. The tool will measure lift in offline sales for U.S. consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, and provide deeper performance insights across audiences and creative.

Now, this is a big deal. Looking at the Nielsen Matched Panel Analysis (MPA) studies that YouTube has run to date, more than 70 percent of YouTube campaigns drove a significant lift in offline sales. So, document sales lift could act as a giant magnet that attracts even more CPG advertising to YouTube. If you create content in the food & recipes category, then drinks are on you tonight.

At Brandcast, YouTube shared some new research that revealed:

YouTube has the highest share in reach and watch time among all ad supported OTT platforms, according to Comscore OTT Intelligence and Custom Reporting.)

And more than half of 18- to 49-year-olds in the US are either light viewers of TV or do not subscribe, but over 90% of these people watch YouTube, according to a study commissioned by Google and conducted by Nielsen study.

Now, TV once made fun of the little video sharing site that featured funny cat videos, which is the equivalent of kicking sand in the face of a 97-pound weakling. But, the platform has built an audience the way that bodybuilders develop a powerful physique. So, no one is making fun of YouTube anymore.

YouTube also shared new research about the impact of advertising on the platform: Across all Marketing Mix Modeling studies that YouTube has commissioned with Nielsen in the past 2 years, Google Preferred had greater sales per impression than TV in all of them.

Across the Total Audience Ratings (TAR) studies that YouTube has commissioned with Nielsen, YouTube has consistently driven incremental reach at a much more balanced frequency vs. TV. On average, over 50% of the target audience reached by YouTube was incremental to TV. TV required on average 5X the frequency of YouTube to hit reach goals.

YouTube’s Google Preferred ads on TV screens drove a significant lift in Ad Recall and Purchase Intent, with an average lift of 112% and 53% respectively.

This is great news for most YouTube creators. The only exceptions might be ones like the Green brothers, who revealed in 2015 that less than 20% of their company’s revenue comes from advertising.

10.	Showcasing Advertiser Success Stories

Finally, YouTube showcased an advertiser success story at Brandcast. Alison Lewis, the Global CMO of Johnson & Johnson, said, “YouTube also gives us a direct line to our audience, allowing us to engage with them on their passions. And YouTube helps us to reach audiences we can’t with TV.”

Lewis added, “We can reach the health-conscious person at the gym; the frequent flyer on the go; the young professional commuting to work and many more. Not only that, we’re able to customize our messages on the fly, evolving as fast as the weather changes.” She continued, “Using data-inspired creativity, we increased our sales. We engaged with a previously untapped audience. And, we converted them into customers. Throughout it all, we relied on YouTube’s insights to adapt again and again. The launch of the campaign was only the beginning.”

Lewis concluded, “Today, we no longer look at digital as an add-on. We know it works and we know it delivers a better return on our investment. That’s why we’ve increased our YouTube spend 250% since 2015.”

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 

The 2019 YouTube Brandcast featured a ton of announcements that concern creators and advertisers. Here are the top 10 takeaways you should know.

Top 10 Takeaways from YouTube's 2019 Brandcast

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.

James Charles Vs Tati Westbrook: 72 Hour YouTube Subscriber Timelapse

For many users of YouTube - both viewers and creators - the subscriber count for a channel has been a hugely valuable resource for a number of reasons. It's a badge of honor for creators who have spent time and resources into building up their audience, and it's also a clear benchmark for viewers of the perceived popularity of a creator.

YouTube has always been transparent regarding subscriber counts, and while individual channels have the option to make sub counts private, those who choose to keep them public will find that data is also accessible via third-party sites like Social Blade.

However, today YouTube announced that from August 2019, it will 

no longer display the exact number of subscribers

 a channel has. In a blog post, the platform confirmed that it will only show abbreviated subscriber numbers publicly across "all public YouTube surfaces" - a decision that will also directly affect third party sites that pull subscriber numbers from the YouTube API. Individual channels will still have full access to their own sub counts via YouTube Studio.

Abbreviated YouTube Subscriber Counts: What Does This Mean?

Followers of vidIQ will know that we've followed the 

 race to the top of YouTube very closely. It's been an entertaining journey based entirely on which channel has the most subscribers on YouTube, and we've been able to bring you the news based on exact sub counts. Going forward, we'll know when either channel hits a new milestone (say 100M subscribers) but unless the two channels have vastly differing subscriber counts going forward, we won't know which one is exactly in the lead.

While exact subscriber numbers fuelled the PewDiePie vs T Series game across the world, monitoring the numbers can also have a detrimental effect on creators caught up in off-platform drama (i.e. James Charles vs Tati Westbrook). While social media can be a difficult space to navigate, the so-called 'Cancel Culture' that affected Charles and Westbrook has been particularly brutal, and the abbreviation of exact subscriber numbers may help curb this particular trend.

YouTube have confirmed that for channels with less than 1,000 subscribers, the exact subscriber count will still be shown. However, once a YouTube channel exceeds 1000 subscribers, it will start to abbreviate those numbers "on a sliding scale."

In other words, if a YouTube channel has 133,017 subscribers, the public subscriber count will read “133K” until the channel reaches 134,000.

YouTube has announced it is abbreviating exact subscriber numbers for channels with over 1000 subscribers. What does this mean for the YouTube community?

YouTube to Limit Access to Full Subscriber Counts

As you may or may not know, PewDiePie smashed 100 million subscribers earlier this month and we were fortunate enough to capture the moment live. However, had this happened in September, that would not be possible as YouTube has confirmed it is shuttering public-facing exact subscriber counts for good.

I want you to search for your favorite channel on YouTube and tell me exactly how many subscribers they have right now. Depending on when you watch the video or read this post, you're going to get this answer or you're going to get this answer and that's called an abbreviated subcount.

To the shock of the whole YouTube community, YouTube announced these changes three months ago and now they have updated us all on how exactly they are going to work. To summarize; with the exception of channels under 1,000 subscribers whose subscriber count will always be displayed to the single digits, all channel subscriber counts will be rounded down, depending on how many subscribers the channel has.

For example, 1,234 subscribers becomes 1.23K subs. 123,456 subscribers becomes 123K subscribers. And yes, in the case of PewDiePie, even if he had 99,999,999 subscribers, it would show his counts as 99.9 million subscribers until he surpassed 100 million subscribers. Or at least something similar. YouTube have not yet made those changes, but they intend to make them over the month of September.

What You Need to Know About New YouTube Subscriber Counts

Now, those are the basics, but there are some really important questions that need to be answered. The first question is what about my channel? Am I never going to be able to see exactly how many subscribers I have? Well, that's actually a tricky one to answer, because yes, you will be able to see a subscriber count to the last digit in your Creator Studio dashboard.

But this count is usually delayed by at least 24 hours because, as you can see, it doesn't match up to the subcount we get for vidIQ on YouTube search pages. Those are, however, changes are going to impact YouTube users and video creators. For those changes also impact us. As part of these changes, third parties use YouTube's API Service, and that includes vidIQ, will also access these same public facing counts you see on YouTube. As of the time of recording, none of this has happened yet. So we can only make an educated guess, but it may be some of our tools begin showing some abbreviations, like this. But right now this a chicken and the egg situation until YouTube make the changes, our developers can't start their work on giving you the best data that's available to us.

And of course, subscriber counts represent a tiny part of the vidIQ Chrome extension, that will help you research YouTube, analyze any video on the platform, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps that will help grow your YouTube channel to even higher abbreviated subcounts. It is free to download and 

But on the other hand, some third party vendors live on real time subscriber counts. And they're going to be impacted massively. Abbreviated subcounts will kill the real time subscriber count cottage industry that FlareTV began almost a year to the day when they started following PewDiePie and T-Series' subcounts. It's still running today and has helped the channel grow by over two and half million subscribers. Going forward, no one will ever know quite how close these channels are to their next subscriber milestones.

So, why have YouTube done this? Well, they say that beyond creating more consistency, this addresses creator concerns about stress and wellbeing, specifically around tracking public subscriber counts in real time. Now my guess is that the majority of you are going to disagree with what YouTube is saying here. Subscriber counts have been around forever. It wasn't broken. Why are you fixing it? I love the gamification of hitting those targets.

And these are all valid points and when we did polls on this earlier in the year, around about 85% to 90% of you disagreed with what YouTube was planning to do with abbreviated subcounts. And YouTube know this is not a popular decision. In the same update, YouTube said, "While we know not everyone will agree with this update, we hope it's a positive step for the community, both those viewing and creating content."

We've not heard many voices in support of it, so anybody who does think it's a great idea, we'd love to start a constructive debate in the comments of the video above. As for my own personal opinion, I've got to be honest. I don't really like the change. I think the consistency argument doesn't really fly, because view counts can still be inconsistent throughout YouTube. And we're not seeing YouTube try to change them. And as an analytics geek myself, I think it's a shame that we're going to lose some purity in the data. These numbers have been accurately tracked to the single digit for years now. And we're going to lose those pages of history to these abbreviated counts.

And nobody's really going to know when the channels are hitting these huge landmarks until they've happened. Except for the video creator themselves and I think they're going to find it hard to share that data. Because they only get it from the channel analytics, which is delayed anyway.

However, I do understand the wellness argument of this change. This is the trend that social media platforms are going towards these days, with Instagram hiding likes. And I have to be honest, I personally haven't been negatively affected by real time subscriber counts. And there are those video creators who potentially have been. You think about the Tati Westbrook versus James Charles real time subscriber count and what happened there. There are real serious considerations of how this affects the mental wellbeing of video creators.

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

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

We knew it was coming but now YouTube has definitely confirmed that public-facing exact subscriber count numbers will shutter in September 2019.

YouTube Will Kill Exact Public Facing Subscriber Counts in September

 for collecting data on young viewers, then targeting ads directly to those children based on the content they watch. The FTC stated that these practices are a direct violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and are an unacceptable breach of the rules.

While many are questioning why the fine was relatively lenient, the implications of the FTC ruling will have a much wider impact on both the platform, and for those creators who publish video content aimed at young children. As part of the agreement with the FTC, YouTube must immediately cease from collecting insights and data on any videos aimed at children under 12 years old, and it must obtain consent from parents before collecting or sharing personal details like a child’s name or image.

The FTC Impact on YouTube Kid’s Content Creators

While YouTube have been taken to task for data-mining that section of their audience, the real impact will be on the creators who focus on kid’s content, and who, in many cases, rely solely on the income made from publishing in this vertical.

By January 2020, any channels creating child-focused content such as nursery rhymes, learning games, slime stuff, gaming walkthroughs, dress-up and a thousand other topics must very clearly label any videos as being aimed at kids. The ability to enable comments and notifications will also be removed.

Most importantly, child-focused videos will not be able to monetize via targeted ads, a move that could have a devastating financial impact on hundreds of thousands of YouTube channels.

Kid’s Content on YouTube: The New Rules

blog post from YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki

, it was confirmed that the way the platform will treat their younger viewers will change significantly by the end of 2019. Changes will include:

YouTube will treat data from anyone watching children’s content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user.

YouTube will stop serving personalized ads on this content entirely, and some features will no longer be available on this type of content, like comments and notifications.

Creators will be required to tell YouTube when their content falls into the kid’s content category.

The platform will use machine learning to find videos that clearly target young audiences (presumably to find any content that has deliberately undeclared.)

While the upcoming changes may bring piece of mind to parents and guardians of young viewers, they will have a very serious impact on creators. A ban on notifications will mean creators miss out on generating views in the first few hours after upload, a crucial time for building view velocity. The knock on effect being that videos miss out on being recommended so viewership and engagements take a sharp drop, which, alongside the inability to run targeted ads is going to have a very serious impact on potential revenue.

Of course, the new guidelines dovetail nicely with the push for 

, an app (and now a website) based solely on child-friendly content.

Keep tuned to vidIQ for more news and advice about the new changes.

After the FTC just fined YouTube for collecting data on children, big changes are coming to the way kid's content creators can promote and monetise content. Find out why.

Kid's Content on YouTube: Why the FTC Ruling Will Have a Devastating Impact on Creators

There were extraordinary scenes on social media today as the much-anticipated launch of the new Jeffree Star & Shane Dawson cosmetic line sent Twitter into meltdown. The launch of the products, documented in a ground-breaking 

, was scheduled for today at 10am PST, but such was the demand from fans of both the make-up, and the creators, the website spectacularly crashed around 9.58am, and at time of writing is still off-line.

The demand for the #ShaneDawsonXJeffreeStar palette and lip collections not only crashed the 

 site, it lead to outages across other Shopify e-commerce sites:

Both Star and Dawson are actively managing the issue on their Twitter and Instagram accounts, begging customers to be patient as there teams work on fixing the issue.

The success of the launch is a testament to the power of YouTube, but also to the savvy marketing and promotion skills of both collaborators. Star has built a legitimate billion dollar cosmetic and merchandise distribution business in the past few years and has used the video platform to help build his brand. Dawson, a YouTube OG, has pivoted from his usually quirky style into longer-form content which has generated millions of views for his channel.

You can find out about the new cosmetics line here:

The much-awaited launch of the Jeffree Star/Shane Dawson cosmetic line sent both Twitter and Shopify into meltdown earlier today. Find out why!

How Jeffree Star & Shane Dawson Broke the Internet #JeffreeXShane

For over a year, YouTube has been running two analytics and video management platforms side by side. Those being the Classic YouTube Creator Studio and the New Beta Creator Studio. Up to now, creators have had access to both dashboards, but that’s going to change very soon.

 it plans to remove the Creator Studio Classic link from the left-hand menu bar, for about 1% of creators. Access will remain for the majority of creators until early next year. When the time comes, YouTube will notify each creator with two weeks in advance of when the change. So that's your fair warning. 1% of you reading this post are going to find you're locked out of the Classic Studio. But my guess is YouTube is picking channels that haven't used the Classic Creator Studio for a while anyway.

But for the rest of us, we’ll get two weeks’ notice that we’re losing the Classic Creator Studio. And my guess is, and this is just a hunch, I reckon YouTube want this completely done by March the 31st, before Brexit.

New YouTube Creator Studio: What’s Coming

In the update, YouTube has confirmed the new features that are coming, and going, from the Creator Studio. The following features are all exclusive to the New Creator Studio and will never appear in the Classic Studio:

Impressions and click-through rates at both the channel level and the video level, which update in hourly real-time, during the first 24 hours of a video's life.

There are new metrics that now tell you how many subscribers clicked on the notification bell for your channel.

There is a brand new upload workflow that consists of multiple screens, a new layout, and checklists.

There is a new comment filter tool that shows you comments you haven't responded to yet.

In the new video editor, you can save and edit a video as a new video or revert to your original video.

Copyright claims on your content will now appear in your video manager list, which you can click into, review, and dispute if you wish.

For a full preview guide, check out the video link below:

Now, even though the bulk of the Classic Studio will disappear, YouTube, by their own admission, haven't finished many of the tools in the new studio. That's why for a little while longer, you'll see features such as the end screens remain in their Classic mode, with this Return to the New Studio button. So along with end screens, you will find info cards, playlists, live events, the audio library, customized channels, live stream now, translations and transcriptions, status and features, and private video sharing.

You'll have to use your imagination for the following tools and screens as well, as YouTube hasn't yet ported them from Classic to New Studio. Those include the ability to upload multiple videos at once, easier options for sharing access for channel managers and importing notification cards on the dashboard, such as the ones you're probably going to get when YouTube tells you that you're about to lose the Classic Studio.

Now, I would ask for a moment of silence in remembrance of all of these tools and features that you will never see again, so say goodbye to the following:

The HD icon next to high definition videos on your video manager page in the YouTube Studio.

The ability to filter by the following in search:

Upload time, list of video IDs, tags, video length, videos that don't contain certain text.

The notification bell in the top right-hand corner.

Dashboard customization is also going, so you can't move around panels, which, to be honest, is a shame, as I would love this feature in the new dashboard which is far more useful. Comments directly from the dashboard are also saying a goodbye as well. And say goodbye to video statistics privacy settings and bulk changes to video syndication, although you can still do this on an individual basis.

Big news, video creators! YouTube has just made a huge announcement about the New Creator Studio. Find out what’s coming, what’s going, and when it’s going to happen.

Big YouTube Updates for 2020: What Creators Need to Know

As you might have guessed, the theme of this post is the one-two punch YouTube is hitting us all with as we slide into 2020; the FTC ruling on COPPA violations, and YouTube’s Terms of Service changes.

FTC and COPPA and you making sure that your content is clearly labeled as made for kids or not

, YouTube has little control over this because they have to comply with the law.

However, when it comes to YouTube's own rules such as community guidelines and Terms of Service, they have complete control and they're changing the terms of service which is causing a lot of video creators to absolutely lose their minds again.

. If you read for long enough, you'll come across this section:

Terminations by YouTube for service changes.

 YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account's access to all or parts of the service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the service to you is no longer commercially viable.

Now, when you read that passage in isolation, as a video creator, how do you interpret those words? I think there is only one natural conclusion that everybody comes to. If my videos can't generate money for YouTube, potentially YouTube could cut me off the service, and to be fair, given everything else that's going on right now, that is a reasonable assumption.

This sounds like a double whammy for kids’ content channels because the FTC and COPPA rulings mean that those channels can't use targeted ads. So they are going to generate a lot less income for both themselves and YouTube. So if those channels are a lot less commercially viable, why is YouTube going support those kids’ channels?

A lot of YouTuber’s are panicking because their channel is small or their earnings are low or even nonexistent, and YouTube may terminate their channel come December the 10th when these new terms of service come into play. Here's team YouTube's consistent response to all of these queries:

To clarify, the commercially viable section is not about terminating accounts because it's not making money. It's about discontinuing certain features or parts of the service because they are outdated or have low usage. This does not impact creators or viewers in new ways. So thanks for clarifying that, YouTube - on Twitter. It would have been helpful if you’d have made that clear in the TOS to begin with though.

Given YouTube's explanation on Twitter, this is how I interpret that particular Term of Service. Remember YouTube annotations? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Now, I seem to remember that YouTube said they removed annotations because they couldn't be used on mobile devices, and info cards and end screens did a more adequate job. That’s an example of an outdated piece of software on the platform, not commercially viable, removed from the YouTube service.

Now, annotations themselves never generated revenue for you or YouTube, but thinking five or 10 years down the line, what about 

? They're a big thing right now, and a lot of channels earn a lot of income from them, but in the future, it might not be commercially viable for YouTube to continue to support this feature.

So what if they remove it? Well, if that Term of Service wasn't there you might be able to legitimately argue to YouTube hey, this is worth 80% of my income on YouTube and you've just taken that away from me without any ruling on why you should do that. Well, that's why that TOS potentially is there. So to summarize that particular part of the new Terms of Service:

__It's not about your channel not being commercially viable for YouTube, it's the tools and services that YouTube provides you not being commercially viable anymore. __

Generally speaking, it wouldn't make sense for YouTube to terminate channels that don't create revenue for the platform because many channels create goodwill for the platform.

Take #TeamTrees, a perfect example of people uniting on YouTube for the greater good. I sincerely hope that the majority of video creators making content about #TeamTrees are not trying to jump on the trend to earn a bit of AdSense revenue, but are joining a cause to raise $20,000,000 to plant 20,000,000 trees. As a fundraiser, this is about raising money to do something serious and good in the world, and YouTube is a platform that allows us to do that. YouTube themselves have even pledged money towards that fundraiser, so strictly speaking, that's not commercially viable because they're losing money from it.

You could argue that supporting fundraisers is commercially viable because it puts YouTube in a great light, but that’s a pretty cynical point of view. Also, think about the channels and videos that never monetize their content either because they don't want to or they don't have the chance, but they still contribute to the YouTube ecosystem. Those videos are suggesting other videos that maybe have advertisements running on them, and YouTube states that the ad revenue stream and the search and discovery algorithm are not connected so it doesn't matter whether or not you monetize your content.

If your videos are being watched, they are valuable to YouTube. And if YouTube decides that they do want to remove all of these channels that are never going to make a dime for the company, then YouTube I think at this point has lost its soul. Another way of thinking about this is that YouTube could remove those features that they don't consider commercially viable to provide for free.

 or YouTube Stories. Instead, creators pay a premium, say $5 a month, to use these tools so that YouTube is guaranteed to earn income from them and it makes them more commercially viable. Again, right now I'm spitballing, and none of this is likely to ever happen, but I'm trying to interpret this Term of Service in a way that doesn't make you think that YouTube is going to get rid of your channel because you don't make any money from YouTube.

is one of the worst offenders on YouTube for not being commercially viable because we have over 400,000 subscribers, and this year, we've got 20,000,000 views, and yet we've not earned a single dime for YouTube or ourselves through ad revenue because we've chosen not to monetize our content. We want to make an impact on the people watching our content, the audience.

We want them to be educated and inspired to make their own content on YouTube. We are complete advocates of the platform, and it just so happens that we have a tool that you can download to help grow your channel and it's available off of YouTube. So yeah, does YouTube really want to get rid of us as a channel? I would sincerely hope not.

I would like to think that our channel and the tools that we provide have assisted millions of video creators to create a countless number of videos that have generated billions of views for YouTube, and if that's somewhere close to the legacy that we leave on YouTube if we're not commercially viable, you know what? I think we'll take that.

Three Reasons Why YouTube WILL Terminate Your Channel

Now, having said all of that about one particular part of the new Terms of Service on YouTube, there are a few other parts that raise a quizzical eyebrow. YouTube may suspend or terminate your access, your Google account, or your Google account's access to all or part of the service if:

You materially or repeatedly breach their agreement,

YouTube is are required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or a court order,

YouTube reasonably believes there has been conduct that creates liability or harm to any user, other third party, YouTube, or their affiliates.

If you break any of the rules on YouTube from their Terms of Service, they can take you off the platform or if YouTube feels that you harm the service, the users, or anyone involved in YouTube, they can do exactly the same thing. I think the basic principle of all of this comes down to one simple sentence in the entirety of the Terms of Service:

> Content is the responsibility of the person or entity that provides it to the service.

YouTube is under no obligation to host or serve content. Remember this, YouTube is rented ground that you get for free. It allows you to broadcast your video content to a global audience with an Internet connection and a camera. YouTube covers all of the costs, and they give you back some of the money when you are collaboratively able to earn it. But they are both gatekeeper and keymaster. If they want to change the locks, they are welcome to do so.

Now, it's up to us whether or not we want to continue to use the service. Remember, we are not obligated to put our content onto YouTube. We can take it to Instagram, Twitter, Twitch or elsewhere. So there is a fine balance here and YouTube is really struggling to try and find that balance that works for both them and us, but that's where we stand.

There has been a lot of scaremongering over YouTube's new Terms of Service. We bring you the facts about what 'commercially viable' actually means.

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