As of 20 February, YouTube’s new monetisation policies went into effect, with channels required to have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch-time in the last year before they are allowed to be ‘monetised’ through ads.
When YouTube announced the changes, it claimed that around 90% of channels affected were making less than $2.50 a month from ads anyway. However, DigiDay has an interesting piece quantifying the impact for multi-channel networks (MCNs).
“Paladin, a tech company that provides management tools for more than 50 YouTube networks and influencer marketing companies, estimates that more than 80 percent of channels within these networks fall below YouTube’s threshold,” it explained.
Which is as much a comment on the way MCNs signed up thousands of tiny channels for their networks in recent years – a policy that many were already rowing back on in favour of working with fewer, but bigger channels.
Something that’s not been written about so much, though, is the likely impact on independent musicians, for whom 4,000 hours of watch-time is (if they’re only posting music videos, of course) around 60,000 watched-to-the-end views in a year to get their channel monetised.
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