YouTube Monetization Limited For Channels Over 10K Views

YouTube has announced a few updates to its partner program, including changes to the monetization and application process.

The YouTube Partner Program enables creators on the platform to monetize their videos and earn revenue by displaying ads from Google programs.

In its latest changes, YouTube monetization has now been limited to channels with over 10K lifetime views. YouTube channels with less than 10,000-lifetime views won’t be able to serve any ads on their videos.

2018 January Update: YouTube has again made additional changes, further limiting its Partner program. To be eligible for monetization, channels will need to have 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers.

YouTube wants to ensure that the revenue is only generated by the creators that play by the rules of the platform. The new changes make it difficult for those who abuse the platform and earn revenue by uploading others’ work.

YouTube already has strict guidelines in place for such abuse and terminates several YouTube channels that do not comply with the rules. The new rules make it even more difficult for new spammy channels that used to benefit from instantly getting approved for ad revenue.

YouTube Partner Program was introduced back in 2007, and initially, only a few elite creators were accepted into the program. Eventually, it became fairly easy to be accepted into the YouTube partner program as long as the channel had a good standing on copyright policies and community guidelines.

YouTube introduced a few requirements for other features such as a custom YouTube URL, but monetization as part of the partner program was a relatively easy process as of now.

YouTube Partner Program Changes

This new policy aims to protect creators and importantly provide more time and context to YouTube to see if a channel is following the guidelines of the platform.

In addition to protecting creators, YouTube also saw the need to introduce requirements to moderate the channels after the recent criticism that lead several advertisers to boycott the video platform.

YouTube wants to ensure that such requirements to maintain compliance with community guidelines and advertiser policies are entirely in favour of protecting creators and their work. While it might look discouraging to the new creators on the platform, it eventually works out in their favour.

Here’s the outline of the recent YouTube monetization changes and how it impacts the new and existing YouTube program partners.

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New YouTube Program Partners

For new YouTube channels, there will be a new application process for the partner program.

YouTube creators can apply to the program once they have reached the minimum threshold of 10k views for their channel. YouTube will then review the application and see if their videos comply with the policies to be accepted into the program.

New applicants will be able to check the status of their application in the Channel tab in Creator Studio, under Monetization.

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Existing YouTube Program Partners

For those that are part of the YouTube Partner program already, ads will no longer be served on the videos until their channels meet the minimum threshold of views.

The new changes, however, do not impact any revenue earned by the videos of existing YouTube partners with channels under 10k views.

Besides, all existing videos will also continue to appear monetized within the video Manager of the creator’s studio.

Once the channel has crossed the 10k views threshold, YouTube will automatically consider the channel for review and reinstate the ads against the content.

YouTube recommends new creators visit their YouTube Creator Academy to explore its resources for creating original content and growing audiences on the channels.

You can learn more about YouTube monetization and how to associate your YouTube account with Google AdSense in our detailed guide.

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