YouTube scraps some creator ad controls, builds out livestream ad capabilities

YouTube is shuttering certain ad controls for creators in November, the company announced this week.

Creators will still be able to choose if they want ads to run before and after a long-form video, but they will no longer be able to control whether these are pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, or non-skippable. YouTube will gauge factors like how long “viewers are exposed to ads and the number of times an ad interrupts the video they’re watching,” according to a company blog post. The change will only apply to newly uploaded videos.

Most creators shouldn’t be impacted, the blog post noted, since “more than 90% of videos had pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, and non-skippable ads turned on.” The post added that an experiment the company conducted earlier this year found that creators who have pre-roll ads or non-skippable ads turned on in conjunction with “multiple combinations of all other ad formats” received more ad revenue compared to those who did have these options enabled.

Creators will still be able to manually select when mid-roll ads run or have YouTube run them automatically. They’ll be able to combine the two options “in the coming months,” according to YouTube.

Speaking of mid-rolls, the platform is giving creators more options when it comes to using the ad format in livestreams, like adding “self-selected mid-roll frequency.” It’s also letting them skip mid-roll ads before they’re about to run or delay them by 10 minutes in case they want to avoid interrupting a stream.

YouTube has been experimenting with ad formats in other arenas of its business as well. Earlier this year, it started serving 30-second unskippable ads on TV screens. It’s also testing less frequent but longer ads on TV.

The platform also recently modified its Partner Program requirements, giving creators with smaller followings access to some of its content monetization tools.