Compete With TikTok, YouTube Gives 45 Percent Share Of Ad Revenue To Content Creators of Shorts

YouTuber gives additional ad income for Shorts video maker. (photo: doc. youtubeb)

JAKARTA - Facing increasingly fierce competition from TikTok, YouTube is now launching a new way for content creators to make money from short videos.

The Google-owned streaming service announced on Tuesday, September 20 that it will introduce ads to its video feature Shorts and give video creators 45% of revenue. That's an increase compared to its standard distribution of 55% for videos outside of Shorts, and TikTok's $1 billion fund for content creators.

Hairstylist turned YouTube creator Kris Collins, known as Kallmekris, credits YouTube for offering revenue-sharing for Shorts.

"Other platforms focus on making people famous for 15 seconds, which is great," Collins said. "But YouTube takes a different approach. They help creators create things in a variety of formats."

YouTube has struggled to compete with TikTok, the app that started hosting lip-syncing and dance videos that have now grown to 1 billion monthly users.

YouTube responded in late 2020 by releasing Shorts, a one-minute video that attracts more than 1.5 billion viewers each month.

In April, YouTube raised $100 million to lure content creators into making small videos in its bid to keep talented creators on their platform.

The new revenue-sharing plan, first reported by the New York Times, is meant to be a bigger and more sustainable appeal than the fund and something TikTok has yet to match.

“YouTube shares a smaller proportion of its sales with the creators of Shorts to offset its significant investment in developing the feature,” said Vice President, Tara Walpert Levy.

Google generated $14.2 billion in YouTube ad sales during the first half of this year. This number is up 9% from the same period in 2021.

But the latest quarterly ad sales reflect the slowest growth since the disclosure of the data began three years ago. While global economic factors play a role, financial analysts say TikTok is also a factor in slowing growth.