Youtube dropping monetization for storm videos (not April Fool's)

[Douglas Kiesling]

There is a new saga to the Youtube Demonetization. I did a test of the system with a video that would offend almost nobody. A time lapse of a peace plant that needed to be watered with real time watering of the plant and then time lapse of the plant springing back to life.

It is marked "Limited or no ads due to content identified as not suitable for most advertisers. Your video remains fully playable and is eligible to earn subscription revenue from YouTube Red."

It looks as if Youtube is pulling ads from just about everything and asking for manual review after the video receives at least 1000 views within 7 days. With the amount of manual review requests we have to do for our channel, I think it is safe to say a lot of chasers are getting or will get burned on adsense revenue for this spring if they do not get at least 1,000 views per video and can request a manual review.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

There is a new saga to the Youtube Demonetization. I did a test of the system with a video that would offend almost nobody. A time lapse of a peace plant that needed to be watered with real time watering of the plant and then time lapse of the plant springing back to life.

It is marked "Limited or no ads due to content identified as not suitable for most advertisers. Your video remains fully playable and is eligible to earn subscription revenue from YouTube Red."

It looks as if Youtube is pulling ads from just about everything and asking for manual review after the video receives at least 1000 views within 7 days. With the amount of manual review requests we have to do for our channel, I think it is safe to say a lot of chasers are getting or will get burned on adsense revenue for this spring if they do not get at least 1,000 views per video and can request a manual review.

Yep, basically every upload is being flagged now. FYI, I've been requesting manual reviews and they are being done and approved well before 1,000 views. Even so, it is frustrating to have to appeal every time without cause, especially since that means my videos usually have limited revenue during the initial surge of views after upload. I have drastically scaled back uploads to both my YouTube channels and have considered closing them. This issue of having to appeal EVERY. SINGLE. VIDEO has been going on since at least early October of 2017 and YouTube seems to have chalked it up to "it's not a bug, it's a feature."

 

[Douglas Kiesling]

I know a lot of people are not fans of TMZ as of late but there might be some hope as someone with Youtube finally woke up and pulled Logan Pauls ad revenue. http://www.tmz.com/2018/02/09/logan...old-troubling-stunts/?adid=TMZ_Search_Results

 

[B. Dean Berry]

I'm not a fan of demonetizing anyone. The societal breaking point has been reached! We have crossed the Rubicon with respects to free speech. Not only is everyone in the country "under the gun" due to sensitive cat ladies that will group together to take your money, get you fired from your job, or post your home address all over the internet, because they were "offended", but massive corporations who have developed near-monopolies on monetized platforms are preemptively taking away your money, just in case someone could possibly get offended.

I don't buy the "feature not bug" line for a nanosecond. Youtube wants to be Netflix so incredibly bad they can taste the popcorn, and it shows. What they are hoping to do is to drive away their independent content producers and more heavily feature corporate (paid/bought) content from high-dollar advertisers and interests, and become a streaming show/movie venture with commercials interspersed throughout.

Basically, they blazed ahead into the Brave New World, killed TV, and are now coming back full circle to become.......TV.

 

[ScottCurry]

One thing I've learned from starting and running numerous companies is: Never Rely Upon Anybody.

For me, and I assume most of you too, storm chasing is a hobby. Sure, it's nice to get a few bucks from your YouTube videos, but with demonitization, piracy, and other issues, it's just not a reliable source of income anymore.

Times are changing. News companies (for which I currently work for one) have had to make major changes in order to survive. Newspapers can't rely upon print subscribers anymore since everybody is now getting their news online. TV stations can't rely upon air waves or cable to get viewers anymore since everybody is now watching Netflix and Hulu.

In the same way, storm chasers can't rely upon selling video to TV stations since (1) TV stations get so much free video from local viewers they don't need to buy video anymore, and (2) TV stations are struggling so they don't have the funds to purchase video. As a result, storm chasers switched to YouTube to make money from their videos. But now that form of monetization is going away, or should I dare say, already gone.

So what is the next change that needs to take place?

Here are some ideas:

1. Host your own videos and paywall them. Use social media to promote your videos. What does this look like? Upload short clips of your videos to YouTube, but don't show any "juicy" content. Or, upload very low quality videos. Then at the end of the video say, "Want to see the full video including the juicy content? Visit <mysite>, link here." On your website, allow users to watch some content, but then make them pay for the rest. That's called a paywall, and it is what saved newspapers from going out of business.
2. Move your content to another place, like Twitch. It's not just for gaming anymore.
3. Make all of your videos free, and sell something in each video. Make money from affiliate sales, product sales, etc.
4. Make an contract with a local TV station to give them all of your videos in exchange for a monetary pay upfront. This might require producing a certain number of hours of content, and would probably only work if you stay fairly local and live in a high storm producing area.
5. Make a movie instead. Put all of your videos into your movie instead of on YouTube. Then sell your movie at the end of the season.

What else can you guys think of???

 

[Douglas Kiesling]

One thing I've learned from starting and running numerous companies is: Never Rely Upon Anybody.

For me, and I assume most of you too, storm chasing is a hobby. Sure, it's nice to get a few bucks from your YouTube videos, but with demonitization, piracy, and other issues, it's just not a reliable source of income anymore.

Times are changing. News companies (for which I currently work for one) have had to make major changes in order to survive. Newspapers can't rely upon print subscribers anymore since everybody is now getting their news online. TV stations can't rely upon air waves or cable to get viewers anymore since everybody is now watching Netflix and Hulu.

In the same way, storm chasers can't rely upon selling video to TV stations since (1) TV stations get so much free video from local viewers they don't need to buy video anymore, and (2) TV stations are struggling so they don't have the funds to purchase video. As a result, storm chasers switched to YouTube to make money from their videos. But now that form of monetization is going away, or should I dare say, already gone.

So what is the next change that needs to take place?

Here are some ideas:

1. Host your own videos and paywall them. Use social media to promote your videos. What does this look like? Upload short clips of your videos to YouTube, but don't show any "juicy" content. Or, upload very low quality videos. Then at the end of the video say, "Want to see the full video including the juicy content? Visit <mysite>, link here." On your website, allow users to watch some content, but then make them pay for the rest. That's called a paywall, and it is what saved newspapers from going out of business.
2. Move your content to another place, like Twitch. It's not just for gaming anymore.
3. Make all of your videos free, and sell something in each video. Make money from affiliate sales, product sales, etc.
4. Make an contract with a local TV station to give them all of your videos in exchange for a monetary pay upfront. This might require producing a certain number of hours of content, and would probably only work if you stay fairly local and live in a high storm producing area.
5. Make a movie instead. Put all of your videos into your movie instead of on YouTube. Then sell your movie at the end of the season.

What else can you guys think of???

 

[Douglas Kiesling]

Pay Wall has been tried and failed over and over. Too many people willing to post the same content for free. The biggest problem is social media and free content.

This story just came out about YouTube https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-27/-success-on-youtube-still-means-a-life-of-poverty

 

[Warren Faidley]

As most of you know, I've been involved with stock photography / video since the late late 1980's. The advent of digital photography, point and shoot cameras, camera phones, social media and royalty free photography killed the market. In reality, trying to make a living or supportive income from storm photography / video is impossible now days. Your options are very limited, especially with countless images and footage flooding the markets and many photographers who are willing to give it away for free. Getting placed with the one or two remaining profitable stock photography agencies is difficult for new photographers -- and agency files are so polluted with C- images it's hard to be noticed. There are literally zillions of images and clips online in countless media so the odds of getting noticed is very low. The shelf life of a good tornado image predating 2000 was years. Today, it can be minutes.

Turing over raw footage or pictures to media and news outlets is filled with danger. Unless you submit a detailed legal release noting the EXACT use and distribution rights, with severe penalties for any breach, then the footage could be abused in perpetuity. These are detailed contracts and I've found that most outlets will not agree since they are use to dealing with suppliers who don't care.

There are still options. I started out as a newspaper and magazine photojournalist. These jobs are still available and you can always spend your extra time shooting weather-related events if you live in the right place. You can also publish your book on Amazon or other online outlets. It's doubtful you'll make any type of serious profit, but at least your story and images will be published. I avoid YouTube and similar sites now because they basically abuse photographers. My advice is to copyright the hell out of your work and take on all abusers. Suddenly, your work is worth something again!

So a shift from profit to personal enjoyment of weather photography is smart unless you want to waste countless hours beating your head against the wall fighting evolution and trying to profit from a market that has long passed.

 

[John Olexa]

I shot with George Hall Code Red for a few years until George passed away, wasn't quite the same after that. You're right, It is almost impossible to market weather related images anymore for the reasons you stated. Seeing TWC or Weather Nation say "send us your photo's we would love to share them" (I guess so)! Drove me a little crazy at first, but, thats the way it is now. I still make a little change shooting freelance for the biker Magazines, Easyrider & sister pub, In the wind. Also shoot for Referee magazine high school & small collage sports. As far as shooting weather, it's now just all for fun.

 

[Dan Robinson]

The Youtube situation has stabilized somewhat for me - for now anyway. This winter (my typical higher YT revenue months) was more or less normal in terms of ad revenue. Since my last post here I've had two more popular videos demonetized, but they were both re-instated on appeal. I am nervous about several others that have yet to be hit that I suspect will at some point. The demonetization loss of my one highest-view video was offset by several others taking up the slack.

It is really shocking the decline in ENG and stock video sales over the past 5 years even. It's more significant than the big crash we saw between 2005 and 2008. I get about the same amount of stock video inquiries via my site as I always have, but only one or two small ones per year are ever closed to a sale. I'll still monetize where I can - every little bit helps with chasing expenses. I think if the small claims copyright court law goes through, things might improve dramatically for content creators - though probably not enough to get back to full-time or even decent part time income levels.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Looks like the woman who shot multiple people yesterday in CA at YouTube's HQ was enraged about YouTube's "censorship and de-monetizing."

News: "The woman who opened fire inside YouTube headquarters in California on Tuesday posted bizarre content online that accused the video platform’s employees of being “closed-minded” and “de-monetizing” her posts before she drove hundreds of miles to carry out the shooting.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Another update. During the past month, I have had several tornado videos algorithmically demonetized, but they were all restored after I appealed. So, it looks like the impact of this policy on weather videos may not be much of a concern. Again, if this happens to you, make sure you "clean up" the metadata (title, tags, description) of any possible "trigger" words (see the first post of this thread) before you submit the appeal.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Update for November 9, 2018: Youtube's latest revision to their advertiser-friendly guidelines has removed the "natural disaster" phrase from the Adsense-prohibited content:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278

This is likely a reflection of ongoing clarification and adaptation to the new policies. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have had tornado videos automatically demonetized, but they were re-instated after I appealed. This means a Youtube reviewer personally verified the videos were OK to monetize.

This is generally good news for chasers, but notice they still have the "tragedies" term in the guidelines. So, I would still advise being overly cautious about including any sensitive material in your videos. This would include things like extensive damage aftermath (particularly showing private property/homes), injuries, displays of emotion, etc. Also, be very careful about your titles, descriptions and tags (see the first post in this thread for a list of possible trigger words).

If you have any experiences with this issue on your channel, if would be very helpful to the community to post it here as Youtube tends to not disclose exactly what they're doing in these cases.

 

[Mike Thornton]

Update for November 9, 2018: Youtube's latest revision to their advertiser-friendly guidelines has removed the "natural disaster" phrase from the Adsense-prohibited content:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278

This is likely a reflection of ongoing clarification and adaptation to the new policies. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have had tornado videos automatically demonetized, but they were re-instated after I appealed. This means a Youtube reviewer personally verified the videos were OK to monetize.

This is generally good news for chasers, but notice they still have the "tragedies" term in the guidelines. So, I would still advise being overly cautious about including any sensitive material in your videos. This would include things like extensive damage aftermath (particularly showing private property/homes), injuries, displays of emotion, etc. Also, be very careful about your titles, descriptions and tags (see the first post in this thread for a list of possible trigger words).

If you have any experiences with this issue on your channel, if would be very helpful to the community to post it here as Youtube tends to not disclose exactly what they're doing in these cases.

I'm happy to see that they took natural disasters off of that list. Cuz I thought that was a little ridiculous.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Stormtrack mobile app

 

[Dan Robinson]

Well, the saga continues. My channel was just completely dropped from the monetization program for "reused content", which is normally the flag for stolen videos. These type of mistakes have been happening to others, but it looks like I have a long road ahead to resolve this based on experiences from others.