YouTube recently launched YouTube official artist channels. The aim of these channels were to bring together all of the videos uploaded to YouTube featuring a specific artists music and get them into one official channel – with the aim of making it easier for listeners to find and subscribe to their favourite artists, labels or bands.

What is a YouTube Official Artist Channel:

Having a YouTube Official Artist Channel allows artists to bring together their previous YouTube channels into one easy to access area for their fans to listen and to engage with their favourite videos and posts directly from the artists.

Artists should want to upgrade to a YouTube Official Artist Channel because they would be able to combine all their audiences into one place and promote all of their best YouTube content in one centralised location.

Here are a few of the features that come with an Official Artist Channel:

  • Your entire discography on YouTube is organised into one location
  • Better promotional control over your material
  • Improved control and customisation of your channel via YouTube Creator Studio

What are the Benefits to Having an YouTube Official Artist Channel:

There are three key benefits to have a YouTube Official Artist Channel

Unified Content

Bringing all your vlogs, official music videos, fan made videos, topic channel videos all into one location for fans to be able to follow and subscribe.

These different content types now appear as separate automatically generated shelves within your Official Artist Page, which lets your fans choose easily between the type of content they’re looking for.

Official Artist Channel Artist Watch Card

When searching for an artist on YouTube, your artist watch card will display on the right hand side of the search results – making it easier for your fans to locate you.

Increased Promotional Control

You can cross promote your own content between your own created videos and videos from your topic channel.

Additionally, artists can now create a promotional shelf which allows them to display a personally curated reel of your own content. These promotional shelves are full customisable and provide great flexibility.

How Do I Get a YouTube Official Artist Channel:

To get an Official Artist Channel on YouTube, there are a few requirements that you’ll need to meet in order for us to request this for you with YouTube.

You’ll need the following before requesting an Official Artist Channel:

  • An owned & operated (O&O) YouTube channel containing content only from the artist you’re requesting an Official Artist channel for – this may be your personal YouTube channel
  • An automatically generated Topic Channel for your artist
  • At least 1 official music video/arts track on your channels

If you already meet the criteria above, your channels may have been upgraded to an Official Artist Channel by YouTube automatically. You can check this by seeing if a music note symbol is located next to your channel name. If you have one – you’re in luck!

If you feel that you meet the criteria and would like to submit a request to upgrade your channel to an Official Artist Channel, please complete this form.

From here, it should take between 2 – 4 weeks for your channels to be upgraded by YouTube.

YouTube also recommends following these additional steps to maximise the chance of your channels being upgraded to an Official Artist Channel:

  • Make sure that the owned & operated YouTube channel that you submit has the artist name as the topic channel name
  • A high quality, high resolution image has been selected