TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

What The New YouTube Partner Program Rules Mean For Creators

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YouTube announces major YouTube Partner Program changes for 2027, and we break down what’s real, what’s scary, and what’s actually a win for creators. We map the new numbers to practical strategy so you can decide whether to double down on long form, commit to Shorts, or use fan funding while you build. 
• three-part update to YPP earnings and eligibility 
• Premium Light global expansion and what it pays 
• Shorts creator pool changes plus new incentive programs 
• requirement to maintain 10 million Shorts views to earn on Shorts 
• new YPP entry thresholds for 2027 at 8,000 qualified watch hours or 20 million Shorts views 
• fan funding access staying at 500 subscribers plus lower thresholds 
• why YouTube says higher thresholds lead to more meaningful payouts 
• what “qualified watch hours” actually counts and what it excludes 
• staying active rules and how easy they are to meet 
• live chat Q&A on watch hours vs subscribers, clipping, and live streams 
You gotta come over to the YouTube channel and watch what we’re about to do


Breaking News And Live Recording

SPEAKER_00

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that does breaking news. Like there's no other podcast that does that. I'm Travis and I'm here with Dan. Breaking news Dan is what I'm calling him today. Oh. I don't usually get new nicknames. That's exciting. You got a new one. Today we are breaking the news. YouTube monetization has changed forever, and we're doing something different. If you're listening to the audio podcast, or if you're watching on the vid IQ um podcast, you'll notice that every towards the end here, we're actually live streaming this. We've never done this before. Uh, we've never live streamed the recording of a podcast episode. We're doing it today on the main vid IQ channel. So we want to shout out to everyone who's there. And we're going to go over everything that is going on with the YouTube monetization uh changes. So we're going to get right into it right now. There's no reason uh to slow this down. So let's get into the things that were announced this morning as of the recording of this. Updates to the YouTube partner program, new earning opportunities and changes to eligibility. Um, that sounds at the beginning of this, it sounds really good. So while YPP, let's also read this. While YPP has grown alongside the platform, the program has remained remained unchanged since 2018 to reflect the growth of YouTube and allow us to invest in new incentive programs, which is one of the things, by the way, that we'll talk about that directly support your growth. We are making three important updates from the way you earn from YPP. Number one, expanding premium light. We'll talk about that, evolving the shorts payout models and opportunities. That's a big one, and updating YPP ads and premium entry thresholds. That's a huge one. We're gonna talk about all these. Uh, with these changes, our

The Three Big YPP Changes

SPEAKER_00

total investments with creators remain unchanged. In fact, we expect to pay out even more to creators in 2027 than we did in 2026. So when you read this, you think, oh, wow, we're gonna make more money. And when I was on the meeting with um YouTube earlier today, they said the same thing. They say they actually expect to pay out more to creators. But once we read this, you might think, how is that possible? So here's what's happening. Number one, they're expanding premium light. So premium light is the newer, lower price YouTube premium membership. Now, I use YouTube Premium. I know you do, Dan. Like, how can you watch a lot of YouTube and not use it? But there's a premium light, which uh I think it just doesn't give you like music or something. Is that what it is? Yeah, no music, and there's like some ads. I don't have premium light, so I don't know what that looks like. Yeah, I have the regular one, but it's cheaper. So viewers may still see some ads on music content shorts and when using a search or browse. So they're expanding this to all countries where premium is available. So it wasn't available in all countries. So they expect that that means you're gonna make more money because there's gonna be more premium light users, which is totally possible. And that's what they say here. Now, here's where things get interesting evolving the shorts payout model and opportunities to help ensure creators have meaningful ways to earn from shorts, especially those earlier in their journey, we're adopting the way the shorts creator pool is distributed and launching new incentive programs to reward growth and engagement. Now, the we actually asked YouTube directly about this, and I think there's a video on their channel about this. What they're saying here is sometimes you don't quite make the, what is it, 10 million, whatever, but you're kind of like you're close and you're kind of making it. They want to make new, and it by the way, none of these are completely settled on that. They said very clearly we're still working on it. But let's say, for example, you do a bunch of shorts and stuff, and this is for shorts only, um, and you you use the the little pay thing, like where you bought you use something in the video, and you're like, you can buy this thing and using the YouTube thing. They might give you more money for using the shopping uh uh ad for that, right? Or if they see you uploading more often, that's we're gonna see what that means. They haven't been very specific, but they're saying they're gonna have incentive programs. Again, another positive new shorts revenue sharing requirements. Here's where it gets interesting. Beginning February 1st,

Premium Light Expands Worldwide

SPEAKER_00

2027, we have a long time from now for that to earn ads and premium revenue from the shorts creator pool. Now, right now, this is just shorts. Creators will need to maintain that's a very important word, 10 million qualified short views over the last 90 days. That's the maintaining part. Yeah, that's not the qualifying part. That's the that's the once you're in, that's how you maintain. If your channel already meets this threshold, you're unlikely to see changes in your shorts earnings. Channels below this threshold remain in YPP and continue earning on long-form content. That's very important. If you're monetized now and you have been getting money in shorts and longs, but your shorts, your shorts amount of short views you get, and I think this is the case for our channel, uh, Dan, yeah, aren't at that number, you're gonna stop making money on shorts. Is that does that what you first of all? How do you feel about that section?

SPEAKER_01

This is the thing that I think is going to be felt the hardest by people who are already in the camp of I'm monetized, and sometimes I make shorts, which would be me for sure. And it's VidIQ as well. Like my personal channel, I would upload the occasional short, and it was kind of nice that I get a few pennies from that. And for us, we get shorts views, but we do not maintain, as far as I'm aware, 10 million in the span of 90 days. We would need way more viral bangers to be kind of meeting that that mark. So all of our shorts going forward, once once this change takes effect in February, should probably start to see a zero dollar number, uh number in the revenue tab.

SPEAKER_00

Which, by the way, you if anything, you're probably making maybe a dollar or two. So we're not talking about a lot of money here at this point. Right. Uh, launching the new short, this is the incentive program I was talking about. Creators who regularly post shorts, including those in earlier stages, may fall below 10 10 million views, will soon benefit from a new targeted incentive program designed to support diverse revenue streams. These include bonuses for YouTube shopping, incentive for brand deals, and earning boosts for cultural trend activations. We will share specific criteria and how to opt in soon. So that's what I was talking about, the little incentive thing. So that's interesting. We'll have to wait and hear what that means. But here we go. To keep up with the growth of YouTube, which now sees over 200 billion shorts views and over a billion uh hours watched on TV screens every day, we're updating the entry requirements to unlock ads and premium revenue for new creators. Entry

Shorts Earnings Get A New Gate

SPEAKER_00

requirements will now be referred to as qualifying views and watch hours. Previously, it was valid uh public shorts views and watch hours. If you're already in YPP, your YPP status and ability to earn is not impacted. So, again, if you are already monetized, you have nothing to worry about. If you are not monetized, pay attention very closely to what I'm about to say. Starting February 1st, 2027, YPP entry thresholds for new applicants are changed to 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days, or 20 million shorts views in the last 90 days. So that is a doubling of everything. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

This a lot of people feel like this is obviously people in chat going like rest in peace to YouTube and stuff. What are your thoughts on this one when you first saw this this morning?

SPEAKER_01

For our viewers on this side of YouTube, this is going to be the thing that I think we hear about the most. Uh, because a lot of the people who watch our channel are not yet monetized. They are working towards that. And for them, come February, the goalpost is moving 100% away from you. And if you are about to hit 4,000 hours and you don't do it by February 1st, you are now facing the, you know, double the climb to get there. It's it is the biggest, I'd say, gut punch of this entire update for this particular community. There are other communities that are probably a little more advanced in their YouTube journeys, and therefore they're probably gonna be more worried about the 10 million maintain 10 million shorts we use, which I'd say is significant. That's difficult. But just getting into the program is about to get twice as more difficult. Like, I mean, if you compare the thousand subscribers, like that's still staying the same. So I guess it's not twice as difficult. Uh, but 4,000 hours was already like oof, you know, for a new creator.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you we at VidIQ are going to try to help you guys for the next five months get ready. Like, we are really we talked this morning in a meeting and we're like, how do we help these creators get monetized before this thing changes? And we are gonna be working on videos for you for the rest of this year to help you get to that mark. Because again, if you if you get monetized before this, a lot of stuff doesn't apply to you. And by the way, there's something else here. There are no changes to the eligibility requirements to gain access to fan funding features like super chats and channel memberships. That's still at 500 subscribers and 3,000 uh watch qualified hours in the last 365 days or 3 million qualified shorts. So for the smaller creators, you can still get super chats. I guess super thanks are in there, memberships and stuff, at 500 subscribers and 3,000 watch hours or 3 million shorts views. So that's good. They didn't touch that. They didn't touch that. Um now you might be wondering, we're we're still gonna want to read more of this, but you might be wondering why they did this. I was in a meeting this morning with YouTube and a couple other content creators, and the thing they overwhelmingly kept saying is they said like two things. Number one, and they said it in here, that you know, this whole thing is growing, YouTube's growing, everything's growing, and you might be like, well, okay, so what? Like pay us more money then. And they said they do expect to pay more out with this new program. But they also said that it wasn't a meaningful payout for people who just made the mark. And I we're gonna talk about this uh after we're done. I'd like to see the people in the chat if they agree with this statement. They said essentially people who just made the 4,000 watch hours or just made the 10 million were making such a low payout that sometimes they wouldn't even get paid out because I think it's minimum $100 before you get paid out or something like that. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, if you yeah, so if you become a YouTube partner, you do not get a paycheck in your bank account until you that you get at least a $100. And that means if you get $50, you just have to wait until you get another $50. It's not like they take the money away from you, it just has to build to it. They're not even gonna write a check until you hit $100.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And they were saying that that was happening so often that it wasn't meaningful. So they wanted to get it to the point where every time you hit that monetization mark, you're actually going to get paid something. Now, whether or not people agree with that, I I don't know. I believe that there probably is truth in that. I genuinely do. If you think about it, like 4,000 watch hours in the course of, by the way, it's not 4,000 a month, it's 4,000 like a year. That's not really saying a lot. If you get monetized, but you only make like, you know, two videos a month and you get 300 views a month, you're probably not getting paid out. So it doesn't really change a lot of experiences for people, it just looks massive coming into it. But everyone who's in chat right now has plenty of time to get monetized. You literally can get monetized between now and February. And like I said, Vid IQ is going to help you. Um, and staying active. So here's the other thing to better recognize creators' consistent efforts and reflect the realities of different formats. Anyone who's considered active now will now have uh an extended 90-day window to meet a lower 1,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days or 1 million short views in the last 90 days to stay in the program. Now, this is referring to people who don't upload, who get monetized and stop uploading. That's not a lot of people that do that. There are some people I know that do that, and those are people that make monetized channels to sell them. That's something people don't talk about. So they're gonna allow those people to continue to uh hit these lower marks to stay monetized. They're not trying to get rid of people um, you know, from monetization. They're changing this. Now, the question is, is this coming, is this happening because of AI and some of the slop channels? Probably some of it. I mean, I think it'd be hard to deny that that's some of it. What are your thoughts uh about this, Dan?

SPEAKER_01

I go, I I mean, I just I need more time to sit with this news, but what I'll say about that is there is a chance that this is in response to the sheer amount of content that a content farm using like AI or making slop or whatever could put out in theory on YouTube, right? People are hitting certain thresholds a lot faster than they used to, potentially. The thing is, doubling the requirements to even get in the program, is that going to make it not worth their time, or does that mean they just double their output? And I guess that remains to be seen. Staying consistent so you don't get kicked out of the YouTube partnership program. Also, something they've already been doing. It sounds like are they just shortening the time span? Because I had a channel that I was not active on. It only recently got demonetized after years of just passively making like 50 bucks a month or something.

SPEAKER_00

It says right here. Uh it says, um, starting February of next year, your channel's considered active if you meet any of these following requirements. 1,000 qualified watch hours in the last year. Okay. Yeah. 1 million qualified shorts in the last 90 days, or two long form videos, or five shorts uploaded every 90 days. It's or it's any of these or so. This is really easy to stay active. Yes. It's not, it's not a big, it's not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01

So that could be to try to get some of the the chaff out of the partnership program that they feel like is maybe taking stuff up. Because here's like the thing that I'm thinking about. If you're YouTube, like why do this? Well, it does mean that you're probably doing less payouts. And I'm not a banker, but I believe that every time you like send somebody money, that costs a little bit of money, right? So that does this is like a savings for them in that regard. And if they're like, if they're having to cash checks, you know, that often, they're probably doing the math and going, you know, we tweak these few things, we can save this much money. And for them, it's a lot. It's it's like it sounds like pennies per transaction, but for them that'll amount to quite a bit of money. So that doesn't surprise me too much. The inactivity stuff is not something I'm particularly like scared of. I lost that channel where I lost its partnership, and uh, I'm like, eh, I still have partner channels I'm not worried about that I'm active on, so I don't really care. But you know, I was surprised that they would even kick someone out, and now it sounds like they're getting even more strict about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think it's important to understand a couple of things. Again, it feels like gloom and doom, but let's remember a couple things. Number one, if you're already in a YPP, you have nothing to worry about, doesn't really generally affect you.

New 2027 Entry Thresholds Explained

SPEAKER_00

This doesn't start till February 1st, 2027. You now know for a fact what the date is. Number three, we are literally at VidIQ going to be obsessing on how to make videos to help you hit monetization before then. We are literally here in the fight for you. Don't feel like you're doing it by yourself. You will, of course, have to watch the videos and then do the work, but we are not gonna let you guys get stranded halfway to the goal or three quarters to the goal and let it drop on you. We're gonna give you the tools you need necessary. Absolutely. I promise you that. It will be more difficult to get into monetization. However, the new experience will be when you finally make it to monetization, you actually might get a first check. Interestingly enough, a lot of people who get monetized don't get a check for like a couple of months because they don't hit any of the hundred dollars that we talked about earlier until like a month or two in. Like it takes a while. So, and again, the 8,000 hours is over the course of a year. The reason why it seems such a such a big deal is because you're getting to the 8,000 to begin with, but once you get there, as long as you're uploading um regularly, it's actually not that hard to keep because it's not a month, it's not every week, it's a year, and it a year is a very long time. Getting there might be tough, but I promise you, once you're there, it's not that hard.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Maintaining and and once you get there too, maintaining 8,000 hours a year, it it won't you should probably have YouTube down enough by that point to where you're not really thinking about it. You're like, I'm doing pretty good, I'm getting more views now. That's why I got monetized. The the keep in mind because this window moves, right? So, a positive way of thinking about this is once you hit the target, that whether it's 4,000 or 8,000 hours, that means you've improved because this moving window has been coming along with you, right? Every 12 months, you have to maintain uh get 4,000 hours to get monetized. 4,000 hours, like shoot, it should be easier to do that. It gets easier, which has always been true of the YouTube partner program. Like, it gets once you actually get into it, like it actually gets easier to get the numbers that right now you're probably looking at and going, How will I ever get those numbers? So it's just it's a lot, it's a big day.

SPEAKER_00

It's one of the biggest drops of of information from YouTube in a long time. And obviously, they've been working on this for a long time because they dropped three videos on it in the same day about it. They've never done that because they know there's gonna be blowback, they know there's gonna be people that are going to be like, Oh my god, this is the end. You rest in peace, YouTube, when the actual reality isn't as bad in the long term. Now, what I don't know, what I don't understand is why they think they're gonna pay out more. I I don't understand that aspect of it, but they are confident that they're gonna pay out more in 2027 than they are in 2026 to creators. Cool. I mean, that's great. So that means when you get monetized, you should likely maybe make more. But um, getting there in the first place will be harder. So, again, you unlike a lot of other companies and other platforms, you're being given a long headwind of a long time to know, okay, this is coming. You have plenty of time to get monetized now. No one in chat should be like, oh, it's over, I'm gonna give up. You have plenty of time. You have I talked to a guy on the podcast about an episode that's coming up, homeless guy, got monetized in two weeks. I need you to understand this guy doesn't have a house to live in and he got monetized in two weeks. It is absolutely possible to get monetized in six months. It's not an impossible thing. So let's not worry too much about it. But let's get, and if you're listening to the audio-only podcast, listen, you gotta you gotta come over to the YouTube channel and watch what we're about to do because I'm gonna we're gonna look at some of the comments from some of the people who have been watching this podcast live on VidIQ's YouTube channel. Let's get into something. Before we do it before we do. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You mentioned like making more money from YouTube. Uh they mentioned one tangible way that you'll probably make more money. And keep in mind, premium light is about to roll out to the rest of the world. Okay, premium light's only been available in a few places. So they they said this in the blog post. Uh, there's a dedicated pool of revenue that happens when people subscribe to YouTube Premium, right? And so 30% of the net subscription revenue for premium was set aside for YouTube creators. They're saying they're setting aside 60% for premium light. Now, premium light obviously is a cheaper plan, right? But that is a larger slice of the pie that they're setting aside for creators, and premium light will probably be more popular as time goes on than premium because one, it's rolling out to people soon here, and two, it's cheap the cheaper way to watch YouTube with a lot less ads. So it it and that's not just YouTube on browser, like you're gonna have it on TV and mobile and everything. Premium has always been, I know some people kind of dog on it a little bit. It's always been to me like a really good value because I watch enough YouTube to justify it. I'd say 60% is a pretty substantial amount that they're giving to creators. So every creator you watch as a premium light user is going to get a cut of your subscription, and it looks like they're giving more of that money to creators than they're taking for themselves. And so I think that was one of the things in one of their videos they said, like, we think that this is gonna be one of the ways that we pay out more money, not to mention the incentive programs we already kind of discussed. So I just wanted to throw that out there because it was actually, I did think that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's the other thing is they are giving like a higher percentage, which is not something that most companies do. It's an interesting move. It's like, hey, we're just gonna give you a bigger piece of our cut. Well, regardless of whether, again, I think it's easy to look at this and go, it's all bad, but there are some aspects of it that are good. Hopefully, it what this will do for the content creators that are that are listening and watching now that do genuine content. This is going to kill a couple of the slopes. That you've now raised the bar on slopes to not get monetized. This might be a really good thing for you that are that are only doing original content, and you're so sick and tired of seeing these slopes come up and taking the opportunities that you wish you could have, this might slow it down. And I I do believe that is part of the of what YouTube is doing this for. It's not the only reason, but I do believe that this will definitely slow them down. Because think about it like this those channels uh and the and the companies that are behind them are uh they they're making a lot very on short form stuff very quickly. But if you double the amount of time it takes for them to get the views and and then the watch time and stuff, some of them are just gonna

Why YouTube Says Payouts Rise

SPEAKER_00

drop off like this. I have just make money doing something else. So some of them will go away, others will just not be able to quite hit that that bar. And if you've been paying attention, a lot of those channels have been getting demonetized anyway. So the people that are creating original content that are working hard, a lot of the people that are in here working hard in the chat. I think this is actually, as a long-term thing, going to be a very good thing for you. All right. We got some comments we want to talk to uh from the live stream there, Dave.

SPEAKER_01

I've been yeah, I've been setting aside some comments. And uh they're yeah, I'm not I have no rhyme or reason, just ones I kind of find interesting or ask interesting questions. So uh we can start pulling those up if you'd like. Let's do that.

SPEAKER_00

Let's see who the first person is.

SPEAKER_01

So I've I've got 9,000 watch hours, but still no 1,000 subscribers. I feel like watch hours are more valuable for advertisers. That's true. Uh, in my opinion, subs don't matter anymore. Why not lower the threshold to subscribers? Was this a question?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you still that's a great question, but they still get access to the 500 to the the the the 500 subscriber thing.

SPEAKER_01

We don't know how many subscribers they have, but if yes, if you are at 500 subscribers right now, you should have access uh with those hours to their other tier of the partnership program where you can turn on memberships and and things like that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Um, but yes, uh, this is actually not uncommon. We were we were talking about this before we went live. A lot of people get the watch hours way before they get the subscribers. And um, you know, for America's most evil who asked the question here, this is gonna be one of the questions we hope to answer in the upcoming videos. We like I said, we pitched it this morning. We're like, how do we get creators to monetization before this thing happens? And this is one of the things is like, well, I got the watch hours, but now I need the subscribers. How do I get that? Don't worry, we're gonna make content to help you kind of do that. There are ways of doing it, it's not a trick, it's not like you put something into the description and all of a sudden you get subscribers. It's about how you do the content, and uh, we're gonna help you guys along the way.

SPEAKER_01

What's next? So uh I'm more worried about the rolling shorts. I can't get 10 million views, so now I'm gonna lose hundreds a month. Interesting. Yeah, interesting. This is the thing I'm the most worried about as well.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that rolling shorts thing is is a thing. It's they are they are again for people who just got here or people who don't understand what that means. Currently, if you were modifying. Monetized for shorts and everything and monetize, I think, period, right? If you're monetized, you get monetized for your shorts and your longs, right? Next year, starting in February, uh, if you are a long form creator who sometimes puts out shorts and you get some money on some shorts every once in a while, but you don't maintain this 10 million views every what 90 days or whatever it is, you won't get paid for your shorts anymore. Just you still get your long form stuff, but you won't get paid for your shorts. So that is straight up a negative. That's straight up like you're just straight up losing money unless you're getting these views. And YouTube's gonna say again, well, it's because they feel like it's not a significant um, you know, uh that it's not a significant amount of money. But as M Miller PCs here says, uh, you know, I'm gonna lose hundreds a month. That's not a small amount of money.

SPEAKER_01

It's not. Uh it's not a small amount of money, and like 10 million views is a large amount of views. I'd like to for me, I am primarily a sh uh a long form creator that once in a while will throw out a short if something fun happens in a stream or something. Now I have less incentive to do that because at least the shorts could make something. And the reason I have less incentive isn't because oh, my short with 20,000 views isn't gonna make a but a few pennies. The reason is because that short may, for all I know, get a million, four million views. And if I fall out of favor with YouTube, but I get a short that is four million views, that would probably be a substantial amount. But because I didn't get 10 million views in the last 90 days on all my shorts, now I'm not gonna get anything. And so I, as a long form creator who makes shorts sometimes, I'm less incentivized to play around with shorts. Um, but on the flip side of that, if you make primarily shorts, this this might be a push for you to hone your craft a little bit more so you can more regularly hit the hundreds of thousands of views, which if you're gonna be a full-time shorts creator, you should be doing anyway. You know what I mean? And maybe you're not trying to go full-time, maybe just a hobby, but still, this couldn't be the thing that forces you down the path of just making shorts, just be a shorts creator. And I do think that if you decide to go down the path of just being longs or just being shorts, make yourself a specialist in one of those. You'll be really good at whichever one you choose. But I think what this is gonna do for a lot of folks in my position that are already monetized is make me kind of double down on what the thing I I prefer to do, you know, or that I'm already doing well. For me, that's long form. I'm gonna do more long form, I'm gonna do more live streams. I'm not gonna worry about clipping my streams anymore, at least not for YouTube. It just doesn't feel like eh, you know, if especially I'm paying an editor to do those, which I was, I'm sorry. I'm just gonna have the editor focus on long forms, and I'm just gonna move on to you know focusing on that more.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Next one. What do we got next up? Uh oh, we got a lot of ones. Nice, very nice. Uh hot take here. Hot take here. I love it. Hot take.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, if you're if you're gonna earn anything close to a meaningful amount of money, 8,000 watch hours will come without you thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, that is true. That is true. It's true. And I asked, I asked YouTube, I said, Do you and I I asked them to do this, I think they should do it next year. Can you do a thing where you go, how many times someone had hit the 4,000 watch hours and didn't get a paycheck per month versus when they hit 8,000 and they get a paycheck every month? I think there is going to be a difference. I truly do. Does it make it still seem like they're stacking the deck against you? It does feel that way. I totally understand that. But again, I want to be clear if you get to the monetization goal anyway, you probably weren't going to get paid out until you hit around 8,000 to begin with. So you're not going to be missing out on much, maybe $50, $60, maybe. I understand that that's like, oh man, I finally got paid for something. I want that $50. I get it. It could be. I totally get it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But if you want to make this a career anyway, this is a blip in the road. This is nothing. And if they end up paying out more like they say they will, especially with the incentive programs, this is a plus. It doesn't feel like it right now. But long range, it probably is.

SPEAKER_01

Before I lose this comment from Koyfish, thank you for modding. Uh so such a random time for us uh going live. Same demo in the same boat, long form and streams only for me. Uh, but we just need to shout out Koyfish real quick. It's a good one. Um, so we got this question. I was gonna pull this up on the side. I forgot to. Uh, what is a qualified watch hour? Do you know offhand?

SPEAKER_00

There is a definition to this. They there is a definition. Um, let me see if I can find it. Um

Staying Active And Qualified Watch Hours

SPEAKER_00

pull up the next question. Let me see if I can find it real quick. I can find this here somewhere.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Not gonna lie, I've had a million failed YouTube channels. Might Kaven start clipping uh a clipping channel. Is there a way to do it without getting my channel nuked? So when you say clipping channel, I'm assuming you mean la long form or um might cave and start a clipping channel. Is there a way to do it without getting my channel nuked? I when okay, so if you're worried about getting your channel nuked, I'm assuming you mean maybe clipping things that are not yours. The way to do it without getting your channel nuked is to make sure you're clipping your own original content. Or if you're gonna clip stuff, you need to like be on camera reacting to it and adding more to the clip. You need to add input, you need to like transform it in a meaningful way, not just like, oh, I'm gonna add different captions. Like, you know, there's not gonna be like a cheat code, in my opinion. You definitely need like to make original the most the more original your content, the less likely you are to have your channel get nuked, is the simple answer.

SPEAKER_00

All right. I got the answer for the qualified uh watch hour, real quick. Here we go. What qualifies as a qualified watch hour? Qualified watch hours gained from long-form videos you've set to public. Watch hours gained to the following videos don't count towards YPP threshold. Private videos, unlisted videos, deleted videos, ad campaigns, YouTube shorts, or live streams that are unlisted, deleted, or not can uh converted to VOD. So basically any public videos that get are getting watch hours are qualified watch hours. Hopefully that that helps that. So in other words, if you unless if we unlist this live stream afterwards, which we may, we'll see, um, then this would not count towards uh monetization if we were going for that.

SPEAKER_01

Uh I've already monetized. Will it affect me? Uh only if you make shorts and you aren't quite hitting that 10 million uh every third every three months threshold. Otherwise, no, you shouldn't notice a change. Right. Um question, does long form content equal live streaming? And for this, I was gonna say yes, but uh like Travis just said, if we unlist this, it's no longer like qualified views or watch hours. Uh if your live stream becomes a VOD that people watch after the fact, that is long form content. It just happened to be recorded live, but it's long form content. Right now it's just a live stream, and I think it makes all of its money through ads that play live, which I don't know if we even have that on right now. I think you might see a pre-roll, but we don't have mid-rolls on, and super chats and stuff like that. So yeah, it's a little bit murky with live streams, but it does count if you're leaving them on your channel and people are watching after the fact for sure.

SPEAKER_00

And by the way, it's a great way to get watch time. It's one of the best ways to get watch time. It's it's if you get people to show up on your your live stream and they stay for longer than they would watch one of your videos, you've already won.

SPEAKER_01

If you can get them to watch the VODs, that's the biggest thing I've noticed for my channel. I my ad revenue is great, uh, my watch hours are great. I people watch my VODs. And that's if you can get if you can get a live stream going that respects the VOD watcher and you you cater to them as well, you'll notice that people stick around for your VODs. It's really powerful.

SPEAKER_00

All right, what's the next one?

SPEAKER_01

People in this chat, there are very few creators that can live. Live on ads only. Live on ads only, sorry. Uh, you really need sponsors, etc. Also, I I'd say for like big full-time operations, that's absolutely true. Uh, but I do think that even if you're not living off the money, it's important to respect everyone has like a different financial situation. And even that that small we just talked about it, even the small $60 a month check that people may have been getting, um, you know, from their YouTube shorts or whatever, that could have paid their internet bill. Like that, that's still in in the age of subscriptions, being able to just cross one off the list but then keep it active at the same time because it's paid for by something else is is a win. So it does, it does have an impact, but I see the point for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Next one. The Sam D. Uh, maybe with less people coming to the YPP, they will pay higher RPM for existing creators making their total payouts overall higher.

SPEAKER_00

You know what's funny about this, the Sam D literally, that's something that Roberto Blake said on the call. He literally said, Well, this happened before, and in shorts, the RPM went up because the the pool of people taking from shorts, especially, uh, isn't as much. So the money that's there gets filtered down to less

Live Chat Scenarios And Strategy

SPEAKER_00

creators. That is math. And it's uh it's true, it's a true statement. How much? It's hard to say. It really depends on how many people it disqualifies from YPP uh to really answer that question. But you are bringing up a very good point, and yes, that is absolutely a potential side effect of this whole thing.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, could someone summarize what happened? So I just pulled this uh real quick to let you know that Rob Wilson uploaded a video on this channel just before we went live a couple hours ago. So it's it's like a four-minute summary. So if you are looking, if you're watching this now and you're like, what are they talking about? We have a video that covers this really quick, really snappy. So definitely go watch it.

SPEAKER_00

Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Um, the 10 million views in 90 days to remain in the YPP are crazy. Keep in mind that's just for shorts. Animators can't make enough content for that to be realistic. What's the strategy going forward?

SPEAKER_00

Long form. Long form. Uh, I think at this point we're gonna I'm personally I've always thought it would be slightly easier to get paid or get monetized on long form than it is short form. Having said that now, I think it's even more. I think it's 8,000 watch hours in long form is easier to hit than 20 million views on short form, I think. Personally, uh, I just believe that it I could help, I could coach any person to get monetized monetized in less than a year and uh on long form. But in short form, I'm like, bro, we just gotta swing for the fences. So because the thing is, the type of content that that gets viral and that would get you to that metric is a lot of times stuff that can't be monetized. It's like clips of things, it's like you know, reactions of other things and and reused content, and and and a lot of times it doesn't even get monetized. So it feels like professional short form creators are gonna be eating good.

SPEAKER_01

Indeed. Uh yeah, I'm just trying to keep uh yeah grabbing some questions as we go here. Uh let's still got some super chats too. I think it was easy. Yeah, we have one here. Uh I get the subscribers, but I don't get the watch time stick hasn't good IQ.

SPEAKER_00

GV is the opposite. We need to switch them with the other person. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's so funny. Um, thank you for uh the super. I bet they they do more shorts, and so shorts can drive subscribers.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, watch time should all be watch time regardless. YouTube got viewed time, so give it to the creator regardless of or how of how or if it's deleted. That's interesting. I yeah, I don't disagree with you. I mean, yeah, the goal is to get eyeballs on this platform for what? For as much time as possible. So if people are watching during that time and you contributed to that, it'd be nice to be compensated for it.

SPEAKER_00

It's a very interesting take. I I don't completely disagree with it. Um, I think I understand YouTube's point. It's like it should be there, and why you know, if you're on if you're deleting it or something, maybe there's a reason for doing that. But to your point, the watch time was there, someone watched it, they probably threw ads on it.

SPEAKER_01

So that's that's that's something I've seen come up multiple times in the chat too, uh, in different ways, which is like YouTube is still running ads all over the place, and less people are now gonna be like able to like take money from that pool. And I I do personally see that as a little bit frustrating as a YouTube creator, just because if I am running a demonetized channel, it would be nice if my viewers at least didn't have to watch ads.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But I don't think uh next one question should we start a YouTube career? Yesterday I thought I should make a career and I had 1,000 subs and four watch hours, but today's monetation update is demotivating one way. But you're if you're already monetized now, it doesn't really affect you, yeah. Um, not in a negative way uh for long form. So if you already wait, I had 1,000, 4,000. What do you mean they had what do you have it now? I'm I'm confused.

SPEAKER_01

I'm confused if this the if this person has like actually like finished getting into the partnership program or if they were just close enough. Uh just to be clear again, if you were already partnered, you won't notice anything. You're not getting kicked out until you get 8,000 now. You're good. You're good. The shorts thing is a rolling thing. You got to maintain your shorts views in February, starting February. But if you're already partnered, and we're again, we're gonna be making a ton of content to try to get people partnered before February 1st.

SPEAKER_00

Uh you're you are set, you are good to go. Um, so uh there's a couple more. We're gonna do a couple more questions before we we head out. Um uh so to your question, yeah, you still got time to get the 1000, 4,000. So yes, do your do your thing. Does the panel believe that watch time will become the primary payment metric of reviews? Is I guess it would be already. Yeah, I guess it already is.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, I mean RPM is revenue per million, which is thousand.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, um, but they you don't get paid it unless they see something in the video, right? Like in other words, you have to be either before or after. So that's like more of a retention play. Uh yes. I think that's the way it should be, anyway, to be honest. I I I'm gonna just say yes, because it already kind of is. None of the metrics say anything about views except for shorts, right? Because shorts are different. Uh, they could have made a you need 10 million views long for, but they didn't do that, they're only doing watch time and subscribers. So I think YouTube is telling you that when it comes to views, that only matters in shorts as far as monetization goes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but it's just it's just interesting because revenue per milli is the thousand views, right? Like it that's the money you make per thousand views, yeah. And presumably most and most of the time you'll have a pre-roll on your video, but if it's five minutes long, it won't have mid-rolls. Um, it's kind of both right now, I think. It's kind of based on both.

SPEAKER_00

The longer you're yeah, but revenue per million it's the thing about RP RPM though is it's different than CPM because RPM is if it's taking all of your views and and like dividing it by how much money you made, if your videos are longer, your RPM goes up because you have ads in the video. Yeah, but you could have less views than someone else, and your RPM could be higher because they're watching longer, but they have more views and they're making less money. Plus, they could be in a different niche. So, like it's complicated. It is, but ultimately, yeah, ultimately, I think the true thing, and I'll tell you why I think this is uh exceptionally true. Even sponsors are like, What's your I had an email the other day. There was like, what's your retention at 30 seconds? They already know it's over for it's over for the people who can't get retention, it's over for them. You need to have a good story.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm so confused about YouTube premium and premium light share. Uh, it is a little bit confusing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I have I have the let me see if I can find the graphic or whatever. It's confusing even after I looked at the graphic. It's all right. Here's here's the the written uh explanation of this. Um, and again, this is for people who um who use premium premium uh light. Uh uh premium light's new lower price. Okay, so oh the calculations right here.

SPEAKER_01

The creator pool, 30% on YouTube premium, 60% on YouTube premium light. So people pay, let's just uh let's just say premium is ten dollars. It's not let's say regular YouTube premium is ten dollars again, it's not uh YouTube is gonna give you three dollars, or no, YouTube is gonna give the creator pool three dollars, okay? And that's gonna fluctuate based on how many videos people watch. That that three dollars can be spread out, right, amongst those creators that month. But with premium light, let's say premium light is also ten dollars, it'd be the equivalent of them doing six dollars, like okay, now they're six dollars because of the creator pool. I'm I'm making up numbers here just to make the percentages nice and round and easy to understand. What the the basically is happening is YouTube premium is all is always given a small cut to the creators when people watch, because they're not seeing ads, they gotta pay somehow, right? YouTube Premium Light, which is gonna be probably used by a lot more people, is giving a larger cut of the subscription price. So if I'm paying a certain amount every month for premium light, a larger chunk of that is going to the creators I watch, which I like. If I'm a premium

Final Takeaways And Where To Go

SPEAKER_01

light subscriber, I should like that because I'm supporting. If I just watch your channel and you're monetized, I'm supporting you a lot more than I was with YouTube Premium. But I don't know the price difference, so that that support could be a wash, it could be the same amount of money because it's so much you know what I mean. I just don't have the pricing in front of me, so I have to make up numbers.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So all that to say, the new uh the new benchmark here is and for those who are just showing up on the audio uh only pod or uh in the live stream, um 8,000 watch hours, 1,000 subscribers starting in February for long form, 20 million views, 20 million views for short form, uh and um qualify short in the last 90 days for them. So it's it's eight million um or eight thousand uh watch hours for a year or twenty million for 90 days, and those are now separated. It used to be if you got monetized on long form, your short forms are automatically monetized and you're all good. Starting next year, you have to keep up your you have to maintain your shorts. You will not get paid for them unless they're hit the 10 million uh over the course of uh 30 days. So it's 20 to get in, 10 to keep it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we I don't know if we emphasize that enough. 20 million. So yeah, yeah, just again, super clear 10 million is what you have to maintain to even get partnered in the first place. You have to get 20 million shorts views in the span of 90 days, in the last 90 days.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, here's the picture. So that's what we've been talking about. This has been the podcast. If you're listening to the audio-only podcast, all the information, all the screenshots are going to be in the YouTube video of this. Uh, for those of you watching live on YouTube, thank you so much for joining us for this. If you liked when we do this sort of thing, we can stream some more of these podcast episodes if you guys like it. But we do have a podcast channel, which you should go check out. Um, I don't know, we got a link it in in the comments here or something anyway. Um, but if you're listening to Audio Golden Podcasts, there'll be uh links in the show notes. Uh, if you're on the YouTube channel, you know where it is. It's in the description. And I have another video for you right here. You should watch that one. I'll see y'all in the next one.