YouTube will soon offer new monetization options for creators of short vertical videos (YouTube Shorts). Could this be a fatal blow to TikTok and its short-form video leadership? The New York Times reports that YouTube will soon add a new direct monetization option for YouTube Shortswhich would give short-form content creators a more direct route to make money with their YouTube Shorts.
Monetization of YouTube Shorts: 45% of advertising revenue soon to be donated to creators?
“YouTube will introduce advertising in the Shorts, according to audio recording of an internal meeting and two people knowledgeable about the subject. The company plans to pay creators 45% of the money from ads, according to one of those people. YouTube creators have traditionally received 55% of the money from ads shown before and during their videos.
New York Times
According to these internal sources, YouTubers publishing Shorts could thus supplement their various current sources of income with a new string to their bow: advertisements on the Shorts and 45% of the advertising turnover generated by YouTube on their videos which would be donated to them.
Simplified access to the YouTube partner program soon?
According to a leaked internal audio document, YouTube will also lower the entry barrier for the YouTube Partner Programwhich will allow more creators make money from YouTube ads.
Currently, you must reach a total of 4,000 hours of viewing by the public on your channel in the last 12 months to be entitled to monetize your videos via YouTube advertisements. You must also have more than 1,000 subscribers to be among the creators authorized to monetize their videos.
These requirements are probably not compatible with Shorts, where the total watch time is generally much lower, while reducing the number of subscribers would allow more new creators to have a financial incentive to create YouTube Shorts.
All of this could make YouTube Shorts a much more attractive prospect for short-form video creators (and thus overshadow the current king of the industry: TikTok?).
If you also consider that Shorts content is now viewed by 1.5 billion YouTube users per month (source: YouTube Shorts guide) and has seen strong growth over the past year, the case for creating on YouTube and monetizing your content would clearly be strengthened by this expansion proposal.
The info having leaked, YouTube has officially confirmed which levels will have to be eligible for this new monetization program.
The creators will need to have 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days to be eligible for the new partner program and gain access to “exclusive features.”
YouTube took the opportunity to announce the end of the Shorts fund for 2023. (This fund, a low-paying means for creators, should only be missing by a few YouTubers).
Are New YouTube ad formats coming soon?
If YouTube plans to monetize the Shorts within a few weeks/months, it’s a safe bet that one or more new YouTube advertising formats should soon see the light of day.
The latter should indeed be inspired by the new (and current) advertising formats of TikTok (not to mention the sponsored Stories / Reels of Instagram and Facebook).
