After a simultaneously difficult and monumental year for YouTube they are ready to look at the year ahead with changes to their YouTube Partner Program.

Last year was a massive year for creators on YouTube as more-and-more found careers making videos there. But advertisers concerns over certain content from the biggest players led to a lot of changes throughout the platform in regards to monetisation. After a year of lessons YouTube have made their decisions.

The main changes to the partner program is the requirements to join will be increased. Last April YouTube set the requirements at 10,000 lifetime views on your channel before you could become a partner and monetise your videos. The criteria has changed from views to time watched and subscriber count.

To join the YouTube Partner Program now you will require:

  • 4,000 hours of watch time on your videos
  • 1,000 subscribers

The threshold for joining is to ensure that the channels accepted into their partner program follow YouTube’s guidelines and policies which have gotten a lot stricter in the past year. YouTube say they have arrived at these new requirements “after thorough analysis and conversations with creators”.

Next month the change will take place retroactively for existing channels as they’re allowing 30 days of transition. From February 20th any channels with less than 1,000 subs or 4,000 watch hours won’t be allowed to earn money.

Whilst this move will obviously upset a lot of creators this will unfortunately apply for all of YouTube, including those partnered through RouteNote. YouTube justify their decision, saying: “99% of those affected were making less than $100 per year in the last year, with 90% earning less than $2.50 in the last month.”

YouTube’s chief product officer, Neal Mohan, and Chief Business Officer, Robert Kyncl, said: “Even though 2017 was a challenging year, thanks to creators like you, it was full of the moments that make YouTube such a special place. Creators large and small, established and emerging, transformed their talent and originality into videos that captivated over a billion people around the world.”

If you have any questions about your position with RouteNote Studios following these changes please get in contact at youtube@routenote.com.