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YouTube will now count a view as soon as a video starts playing

The change comes a year after YouTube applied the same approach to counting views on Shorts videos.

techcrunch.com ·

YouTube has announced a change to its view counting system, effective August 24. Under the new policy, a view will be registered as soon as a video begins playing or someone enters a live broadcast, rather than requiring viewers to watch at least 30 seconds of content. This shift, which has been adopted by competitors TikTok and Instagram, aims to reduce confusion among creators regarding their exposure metrics.

Historically, YouTube used various view counting systems for different video formats, but the company has listened to feedback that this inconsistency hindered accurate understanding of viewership. The change will not affect creators' earnings or eligibility for monetization under the YouTube Partner Program. However, it may make public view counts less informative for assessing a video's popularity, as it could increase dramatically for videos with brief captures of viewers' attention.

The updated metric, "Engaged views," will still be available to creators through YouTube's Analytics tools, allowing them to monitor how many users continued to watch their videos. The update follows another recent change, which raised the requirements for creators to start earning money, necessitating at least 8,000 qualified watch hours over the past year or 20 million Shorts views in the last 90 days.

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