YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that the platform’s Shorts feature has reached revenue parity with regular video uploads in some regions.
Speaking at the MoffettNathanson Conference on May 15, Mohan explained that Shorts have seen a 20 percent increase in engaged views from last year.
MoffettNathanson is an independent equity research firm that focuses on companies across the telecom and media landscape. The conference brings together companies throughout the media, internet and communications industries to connect with analysts or investors and share strategies.
“[Shorts is] something that we have been working on for a while and it’s a testament to both the viewer side, but also the quality of the ad products that we build for our advertisers,” Mohan told conference attendees.
YouTube Shorts, which initially launched in 2020, are short-form videos that are less than 180 seconds long with a viewing experience similar to TikTok or Instagram Reels.
“Especially for younger audiences, viewing video is increasingly participatory in nature,” he added. “They want to jump in themselves and participate in that creation process. And Shorts just makes that easy and straightforward.”
“Lots of viewers don’t want to just listen to podcasts. They wanna watch them,” Mohan said.
He said making audiences grow is the “bread and butter” of YouTube, adding that the assistance given to traditional creators can also be extended to podcasters.
Mohan pointed to AI-driven innovation as an area of key focus for YouTube. One example, he said, was multitrack audio, which could be use AI to overcome language barriers.
“What if we could actually take every video on YouTube and translate that into, not just a couple of languages, but many, many languages and do it at such high fidelity, capturing the creator’s voice, etcetera. That’s a really powerful application of AI that creators are excited about,” he said.
YouTube has become the nation’s top service in media distribution, according to February data from Nielsen. YouTube captured 11.6 percent of TV viewing, outpacing Disney with 10 percent, and Fox, Netflix, Paramount, and NBCUniversal, each with about 8 percent.
YouTube celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. The Google subsidiary is available in over 100 countries and 80 languages worldwide.
YouTube currently has over 2.49 billion monthly active users, with over 80 million paid subscribers through its Premium and Music services. These figures did not include other services that bring in revenue such as YouTube TV.
