Commentary

Is YouTube Cancelling Low-Viewed Videos? Almost

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 7, 2017

You’re not getting 10,000 views for your pokey little YouTube video? You won’t be getting much in the way of any advertising revenues.

Google’s YouTube wants to crack down on fake news -- believing some small, very narrow targeted videos might be just bad news. So it will stop advertising revenues for those less-viewed channels on its YouTube Partner Program -- until they’ve reached 10,000 overall views.

All this is to stop those impersonators looking to steal traffic from creators. YouTube has been seeing more instances where someone re-uploads original content — pirated from another YouTube channel — and then try to earn ad revenue from it

In a somewhat related revelation, YouTube has been dealing with the controversy where advertisers have discovered their commercials were running against objectionable content -- hate-speech, anti-Semitic, terrorist, or other content. This has caused dozens of advertisers to have their YouTube media schedules slowed or suspended.

Other media-buying executives say this is just a small problem, YouTube can catch much inappropriate content. Still, it has a harder time with more instantaneously uploaded content.

One marketing executive told TV Watch it only “takes just one” bad association to have a substantial effect on one’s brand value. This speaks again to the continuing problems that come with user-generated videos. How can advertisers assure brand-safety?

Recently, Google says it is addressing this issue by hiring comScore to improve brand safety -- a monumental task.

What do TV networks do when it comes to these content issues? Given the amount of TV programming to that of the internet video, this isn’t much of a problem. Brand safety can be much better managed and quickly identified.

And what do traditional TV networks do when they have low-levels of interest? Those shows get cancelled. As yet, YouTube isn’t in the business of cancelled videos.

No, this is not the same thing as what YouTube says is going on. But Randall Rothenberg, president/ CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's, wrote in a post that it's time to clean up the digital supply chain.

While many TV-video marketers still yearned for promised quality and safety on digital video platforms, this is the current environment. And it looks to be around for future.

advertising, youtube

3 comments about " Is YouTube Cancelling Low-Viewed Videos? Almost".

Check to receive email when comments are posted.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, April 7, 2017 at 10:23 a.m.
So any video---even if it is perfectly OK but about a subject of highly selective interest---is denied ad income, because it doesn't reach more than 10,000 "views and such an arbitrary benchmark this is the only way that a computer can identify "bad" content? Great. Long live computers.
Reply

James Smith from J. R. Smith Group, April 7, 2017 at 6:30 p.m.

Sweeping rules, like 10k views might not be the most prudent way to go. Low audience count doesn't necessarily = unsavory content. What about client's with narrow (small) target audiences? Most obvious cases might be in B2B arena. Will ads still run...just that poster's won't get any revenue?

Tom Tyler from GCTVTexas, April 11, 2017 at 11:02 a.m.

One of the worst Hate Speech and Fake News sites on Youtube is called, "The Young Turks", it's a Progresso-Fascist "fake news" or psuedo-news site.
I don't see any ads on it today, but as it pulls in far more than 10,000 views per video, how does Youtube's policy help eliminate Hate Speech on Youtube? This site would not fall under the new rule.