YouTube Announces $100 Mn Fund for Shorts Creators

by  EVENTFAQS Bureau Industry Watch | May 13, 2021 | News

YouTube Shorts

Video streaming platform YouTube has announced a $100 million YouTube Shorts Fund to be distributed over the course of 2021-2022.

Amy Singer, Director, Global Partnership Enablement, YouTube Shorts, made the announcement in a blog post released 11 May 2021.

YouTube launched Shorts, its short-form (less than 15 seconds) video offering, in the US in beta mode in March 2021. In India, an early beta mode was launched for testing in September 2020.

Each month, YouTube said it will reward thousands of creators whose Shorts receive the most engagement and views. The platform is expected to share additional details closer to launch, which will be ‘in the coming months’.

The Shorts Fund is not limited to creators in the YouTube Partner Program. Anyone who creates original content for Shorts and follows YouTube's community guidelines will be eligible.

YouTube revealed that it will also begin to test and iterate on ads on Shorts, to better understand their performance.

In the blog, Singer said, "The Shorts Fund is the first step in our journey to build a monetization model for Shorts on YouTube. This is a top priority for us, and will take us some time to get it right. We are actively working on this, and will take the feedback gathered from our community to help develop a long-term program specifically designed for YouTube Shorts. YouTube has helped an entire generation of creators and artists turn their creativity into businesses. We’ve paid more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over the last three years, and we remain deeply committed to supporting the next generation of mobile creators with Shorts."

YouTube has also begun to roll out a new feature that will allow users to remix audio from YouTube videos. This will be made available to those with access to Shorts creation tools, in the near future.