YouTube removes ads from channels with less than 10k views

YouTube is moving to restrict ads to channels that only have 10,000 lifetime views or more. It says this move will protect content creators — and probably advertisers as well.

The company opened its YouTube Partner Program (YPP) to everyone in 2007. Anyone could apply to have their videos monetized, and advertisers could have access to more obscure audiences while providing a living to smaller channels. Not everyone who applies has such noble aims, though.

YouTube says the change was put in place in order to block channels from making money from stolen content, and that the restriction shouldn’t be that difficult to meet for new creators:

Starting today, we will no longer serve ads on YPP videos until the channel reaches 10k lifetime views. This new threshold gives us enough information to determine the validity of a channel. 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.

It’s also adding a review process to YPP, where it will evaluate said aspiring creators once they reach the threshold, just to make sure that the channel meets all the requirements.

This comes not too long after YouTube was raked over the coals for allegedly allowing prominent advertisements to appear in offensive propaganda bids. While this move will no doubt restrict ads from too-small channels, it sounds like it might help eliminate this ad-related problem as well.

Despite YouTube’s insistence that ads only appeared on questionable vids in a very small number of cases, it sure is going several miles out of its way to reform its ad policy.