Starting Feb 1, YouTube to share ad revenue with Shorts creators

In a first, YouTube has announced that it will kickstart the ad-revenue sharing YouTube Shorts Monetisation model, starting February 1, under which it’ll be sharing ad revenues with Shorts creators.

Announcing the move, YouTube has also announced that each of the members under the new YouTube Partner Program will have to sign fresh agreement terms, irrespective of their interest in the ad-revenue sharing model for Shorts, before July 10.

It is also to be noted that the previous model- YouTube Shorts Fund will be replaced by the new YouTube Shorts Monetisation model and that under the new Partner Program, Shorts creators will be able to earn their share in the ad-revenues coming from ads viewed between scrolling through the various videos on the Shorts feed.

Earlier in September, YouTube had also announced that all the creators who have a Shorts-specific threshold of 1,000 subscribers and ten million Shorts views in a span of 90 days will be eligible to apply for the new Partner Program for ad-revenue sharing.

In a company blogpost, YouTube mentioned that it will not take into consideration the Shorts views accrued prior to accepting the Shorts Monetisation Module for ad revenue sharing.

Also, YouTube will not take into consideration the Shorts views coming from non-original Shorts (example- unedited clips from movies, shows, etc.), artificial or fake views from bots and Shorts that don’t follow the platform’s advertiser-friendly guidelines.

As part of the new ad-revenue sharing model, the Pool Shorts Feed ad revenue will be used to reward creators and help cover the expenses of music licensing by splitting it between the creator and the music partner depending on the number of tracks used.

Furthermore, the creators who upload Shorts without music will be paid in full in the Creator Pool whereas YouTube will split the revenue with Music partners for the ones who upload Short with Music in it.

The blogpost also mentioned that monetising creators will keep 45% of their allocated revenue, regardless if music was used or not but what would not be included in the creator pool would be the revenue associated with views of Short uploaded by creators who aren’t eligible to monetize Shorts, or are music partners, or are associated with the YouTube Shorts Masthead and ads shown on navigational pages within the Shorts player.