YouTube Revises Monetisation Rules, Doubles Minimum Watch Hours

YouTube has set new requirements for content creators who wish to earn revenue from advertisements and subscribers, effective 1 February. New creators seeking to generate income must now accumulate at least 8,000 watch hours in the past year or 20 million Shorts views within 90 days. This is an increase from the previous threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in a year, or 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in 90 days. Additionally, creators must maintain at least 10 million Shorts views over a 90-day period to continue earning through the Shorts Creators Pool. Channels that do not meet these new criteria can still join the partner programme and earn revenue from long-form video content. The monetisation policy update comes as YouTube records over 200 billion daily Shorts views and more than 1 billion hours of watch time on televisions each day. In the same announcement, YouTube also confirmed the expansion of its Premium Lite subscription service to all countries where YouTube Premium is available. Creators will receive a share of revenue based on watch time and views from subscribers, with a 55 percent split for long-form video creators and 45 percent for Shorts creators. YouTube noted that the addition of Premium subscribers could potentially boost creator earnings, as partners typically earn more from Premium users than from those watching with advertisements.