YouTube Creators Must Clear 10K Channel Views Hurdle To Generate Ad Revenue

Becoming a YouTube star is not just good for your ego, it can be financially rewarding. In some cases, that is an understatement—look at megastars such as Felix Kjellberg (better known as PewDiePie) and famed prankster Roman Atwood, both of which have earned millions through YouTube. If you have an interesting shtick, you can also make money on YouTube, though your videos will need to amass at least 10,000 hits before Google's video service will pay out.

YouTube's change in policy regarding channel views and payouts is a direct result of its massive growth. According to YouTube, it is seeing cases where people are re-uploading original content that belongs to someone else in an effort to earn revenue from it. As a result, YouTube is taking steps to prevent this from happening, one of those being a minimum view count before it will serve ads on videos.


"Starting today, we will no longer serve ads on YouTube Partner Program (YPP) videos until the channel reaches 10k lifetime views. This new threshold gives us enough information to determine the validity of a channel," YouTube stated in a blog post. "It also allows us to confirm if a channel is following our community guidelines and advertiser policies. By keeping the threshold to 10k views, we also ensure that there will be minimal impact on our aspiring creators. And, of course, any revenue earned on channels with under 10k views up until today will not be impacted."

After a channel reaches 10,000 views, YouTube will review the content to make sure nothing is running afoul of its terms and service. If everything checks out, YouTube will dish out ads so the creator can start generating revenue with future video views.

This move is also to protect partner brands from being associated with videos containing offensive content. This is something that YouTube has been dealing with, and it really came to light when PewDiePie got himself in hot water over some off-color remarks and images he posted.

"Together these new thresholds will help ensure revenue only flows to creators who are playing by the rules," YouTube added.