Locked out: YouTube changes qualification for ad revenue

Sponsored by Magellan AI. What shifted in podcast ad spend last quarter? Magellan AI's Q2 Benchmark Report breaks it down. Download the report

• It's going to be much harder to get money from YouTube. In "the first significant change since 2018", YouTube has made it twice as hard to get into the YouTube Partner Program, which pays creators based on consumption on the platform. New creators applying for the program will need 8,000 qualified watch hours (in the last year), or 20 million qualified Shorts views (in the last 90 days) - both double the amount that was required previously.
• Greg Glenday, CEO of Acast, has given a statement to The Hollywood Reporter about Spotify's "skip-ahead" ad-skipping button. "We do have some creators on the Acast platform who are not happy about this and we will support them completely as they evaluate any recourse. Acast is working privately with Spotify to understand if we could have collaborated more on the rollout or positioning," he said. Acast didn't give us a statement when we asked last week.
  • Many stories are now appearing about Spotify's ad-skipping button: but some stories suggest that it doesn't skip ads sold by Spotify. This isn't true - our story specifically included a video with an ad on a Bill Simmons show being skipped by the tool, and Podnews understands that the feature is not targeted at competitors' ads.
• Podcast ad revenue is up +23% year-on-year, says Magellan AI's Q2/26 Podcast Advertising Quarterly Benchmark Report. The average ad load increased again, though - the average podcast is 8.75% ads (up from 8.25% last quarter). That's an average of 5 and a half minutes an hour.
  • There's a free webinar going through the data on Aug 20.

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