YouTube Extends Revenue Sharing Program To Anyone With A Viral Video
Here’s how it works: YouTube will be monitoring its site for videos that quickly go viral, and will then reach out to the content uploader with an Email invitation to “Enable Revenue Sharing” on that video. If you choose to enable the feature, then YouTube will place ads against the video and will give you a cut, which gets paid into your Google AdSense account. YouTube’s criteria for joining the program are vague — the site plans to look at the number of views a video gets, its virality, and compliance with the site’s Terms of Service, but it has offered no concrete numbers.
YouTube says that participants in the new program won’t get all the benefits of the normal Partner Program (you won’t be able to choose other videos you’d like to monetize, for example), so it encourages users to apply for the program here.
Tom Pickett, Director of Online Sales and Operations at YouTube, said on a conference call today that the move is meant to help expand the reach of the site’s partner program. The company will address not just new viral videos, but also videos on the site that have never been monetized but are extremely popular (Pickett says that many viral videos have quite lengthly lifespans — once you’re popular, you can stay popular for years). Pickett says that the company expects to “increase the number of partners dramatically” up into the tens of thousands of partners (up from “thousands). The revenue share will be the same as what applies to the general Partnership Program, with the majority of the revenue going to the content contributor.
YouTube spokesman Aaron Zamost says that advertisers have actually been requesting a feature like this for a while, as there have been a number of user-uploaded videos that were not being monetized at all, and in turn couldn’t have ads placed against them. Now, provided the content unloader decides to join the program, these advertisers will be able to take advantage of these viral videos.