YouTube Shorts will soon adopt a new revenue share model with content creators, granting 45 percent of the advertiser split to Shorts creator even if the video uses copyrighted music.
Released in September 2020, YouTube Shorts is a short-video video platform created by YouTube. This service has historically been viewed as the video hosting website’s response to the explosive growth of TikTok. Though prominently featuring its Shorts feature on both mobile and desktop, YouTube Shorts has largely failed to catch up to its globally prominent competitor.
One major fault of the Shorts platform, quickly exposed by its content creators, was its apparent lack of monetization. Ludwig Ahgren, former Twitch star turned exclusive YouTuber, revealed a Short of his that garnered more than 10,000,000 total views made only $85.02 despite its virality.
In a recent update, YouTube addressed Shorts’ poor monetization by announcing a new revenue split with its creators. Starting at some point in the near future, YouTube Short creators will receive 45 percent of the Short’s ad revenue split, a much-needed increase. YouTube confirmed that creators would still receive their split even if they used copyrighted music in the Short.
YouTube content creator and news reporter Philip DeFranco pointed out that this could lead to YouTube becoming a genuine competitor to TikTok.
“This lights a fire under TikTok’s ass,” DeFranco wrote. “The space has already been dramatically changing. This throws gasoline on the fire.”
Whether or not YouTube can begin to attract prominent creators onto its own short-form video platform remains to be seen, but its new revenue split certainly appears favorable for creators.
Published: Sep 20, 2022 01:37 pm