Afternoon guys,
Thought I would make you a quick breakdown of the 4k 1k rule, showing you what exactly you will need in order to make this threshold for channels that are interested.
First up, the 1,000 subscribers. That's self-explanatory, you need 1,000 subscribers, nuff said.
Now the 4,000 watch hours bit. (Screenshots of stats are from my own channel for comparison)
YouTube Analytics shows everything in minutes, meaning you will need a total of...240,000 watch minutes a year! That's equivilent to 11 hours or 660 minutes a day. That's quite a lot for the average channel! I'm personally fortunate to be six times over that limit, but most of this is based on one video on my channel. If that loses popularity, then I'm down in the dumps!
Back to the watch minutes and how to break this down. YouTube will tie this to the last 365, NOT from the start of the year or any other time scale. For those that head over to their YouTube Analytics, use the 'Last 365 days' option to find this number. If the Watch time (minutes) option falls below 240,000, your adverts will dissappear.
Breaking this down to the 11 hours a day mark, if you head over to the Real time 48 hours section, you can see here that you will need at LEAST 1320 minutes in this section to make up this time. (660 minutes per day)
As I said before, I personally have made this threshold by growing a small community of die-hard fans who love my content! My viewcount may be small and shrinking day by day, but the fans that do love my channel do watch the majority of my videos, which does help me out.
If I now go for my channel's most popular video, a comparison video between two popular simulators, this will also give you an idea to what is holding my channel up with all these minutes. This video has a total of 180,896 views at the time of writing this forum post.
First a look at my most viewed video in the last 365 days. The video uploaded in mid-August and has gained a stable 497,472 watch minutes since release (enough on its own for the 4k 1k rule!). This video on its own is stable with views and watch time, and while shrinking very slowly should keep going for a fair while to come.
And as for the last 24 hours? If we head over to the 48 hour page, I can see that the video has had 5,167 watch hours in the last two days for an average of 2583.5 hours a day. Again this is more than enough for the 11 hour limit, but still holding up my entire channel. If that video were to go, I would almost surely fall below this threshold.
DRAWYAH'S TIPS ON HOW TO EXTEND YOUR WATCH TIME
- LIVESTREAM! A sure way to increase your watch time is to livestream! The easiest way to do this is to stream 11 hours a day to 1 viewer, 5.5 hours for 2 viewers, 2.75 for 3 viewers and so forth. That would be the most simple way to increase watch time as the interactive nature of a livestream helps keep viewers engaged. My most recent livestream was showcasing a BETA pre-release addon for a flight simulator. It now has 310 views in three days, but with a watch time of 1,568 minutes, is enough for nearly three days on its own! Longer and more popular livestreams can then see greater numbers after that. (Start streaming right when a larger popular channel just finishes. Viewers will then be more inclined to watch you straight after as they want more interactive and live content!)
- Don't make videos too long! 20-30 minutes for a gaming channel is more than enough. Most viewers will click away after two minutes of watch time. Retain in the first two minutes, then drag out where nessicaty, but unless your video is something really that special, don't beat beating a dead horse.
- Look for the popular and obscure! My channel loops around simulator content rather than your standard PUBG and Dota 2 gameplays. Fair enough I did a fair few more popular games like Rocket League, Tropico and World of Warships on the side, but they bombed in terms of views and watch minutes. With my popular simulator comparison video, its something that not too many people have done, but has a very large viewbase meaning this was something I could 'exploit' as such with clear presentation and factual videos that get people watching.
- Grow your fanbase. Subscriber count doesn't matter. It maybe helps with gaining more viewers, but a number of subscribers will be dead. My channel as a comparison has 1,606 subs with an average of 20-30 views per video. I have got good connections with simulator companies such as Dovetail Games which helps, but on a general basis most of my subscribers are inactive. The more views, the better you are off. Even if you have a viewer click off after 1 minute, that's 1 more to your 4,000 hour goal!
- And finally, keep at it. I run a schecule meaning my viewers know what video I am releasing and on what day. This means that my viewers are not in the dark about my content and it also helps find new people to watch my channel. I'm sure there are numerous small communities that are dying for a high quality video producer, which is where my sponsorship with flightsim.com comes in! I review products and make a quick video showing it off, they put it on their website and get their own website ad revenue, it's a win-win situation.
I hope that this information helps you in growing your channel and potentially see your adverts return one day in the future! If you did find this little breakdown helpful, please do think about supporting my channel! While my content may be a little different to most gaming channels, I hope to also potentially bring in more helpful videos and tutorials to help smaller channels, if this is something you are interested in.
If anyone else has anything to add or any corrections for this thread, please do let me know and I'll be happy to add and fix!
Thought I would make you a quick breakdown of the 4k 1k rule, showing you what exactly you will need in order to make this threshold for channels that are interested.
First up, the 1,000 subscribers. That's self-explanatory, you need 1,000 subscribers, nuff said.
Now the 4,000 watch hours bit. (Screenshots of stats are from my own channel for comparison)
YouTube Analytics shows everything in minutes, meaning you will need a total of...240,000 watch minutes a year! That's equivilent to 11 hours or 660 minutes a day. That's quite a lot for the average channel! I'm personally fortunate to be six times over that limit, but most of this is based on one video on my channel. If that loses popularity, then I'm down in the dumps!
Back to the watch minutes and how to break this down. YouTube will tie this to the last 365, NOT from the start of the year or any other time scale. For those that head over to their YouTube Analytics, use the 'Last 365 days' option to find this number. If the Watch time (minutes) option falls below 240,000, your adverts will dissappear.
Breaking this down to the 11 hours a day mark, if you head over to the Real time 48 hours section, you can see here that you will need at LEAST 1320 minutes in this section to make up this time. (660 minutes per day)
As I said before, I personally have made this threshold by growing a small community of die-hard fans who love my content! My viewcount may be small and shrinking day by day, but the fans that do love my channel do watch the majority of my videos, which does help me out.
If I now go for my channel's most popular video, a comparison video between two popular simulators, this will also give you an idea to what is holding my channel up with all these minutes. This video has a total of 180,896 views at the time of writing this forum post.
First a look at my most viewed video in the last 365 days. The video uploaded in mid-August and has gained a stable 497,472 watch minutes since release (enough on its own for the 4k 1k rule!). This video on its own is stable with views and watch time, and while shrinking very slowly should keep going for a fair while to come.
And as for the last 24 hours? If we head over to the 48 hour page, I can see that the video has had 5,167 watch hours in the last two days for an average of 2583.5 hours a day. Again this is more than enough for the 11 hour limit, but still holding up my entire channel. If that video were to go, I would almost surely fall below this threshold.
DRAWYAH'S TIPS ON HOW TO EXTEND YOUR WATCH TIME
- LIVESTREAM! A sure way to increase your watch time is to livestream! The easiest way to do this is to stream 11 hours a day to 1 viewer, 5.5 hours for 2 viewers, 2.75 for 3 viewers and so forth. That would be the most simple way to increase watch time as the interactive nature of a livestream helps keep viewers engaged. My most recent livestream was showcasing a BETA pre-release addon for a flight simulator. It now has 310 views in three days, but with a watch time of 1,568 minutes, is enough for nearly three days on its own! Longer and more popular livestreams can then see greater numbers after that. (Start streaming right when a larger popular channel just finishes. Viewers will then be more inclined to watch you straight after as they want more interactive and live content!)
- Don't make videos too long! 20-30 minutes for a gaming channel is more than enough. Most viewers will click away after two minutes of watch time. Retain in the first two minutes, then drag out where nessicaty, but unless your video is something really that special, don't beat beating a dead horse.
- Look for the popular and obscure! My channel loops around simulator content rather than your standard PUBG and Dota 2 gameplays. Fair enough I did a fair few more popular games like Rocket League, Tropico and World of Warships on the side, but they bombed in terms of views and watch minutes. With my popular simulator comparison video, its something that not too many people have done, but has a very large viewbase meaning this was something I could 'exploit' as such with clear presentation and factual videos that get people watching.
- Grow your fanbase. Subscriber count doesn't matter. It maybe helps with gaining more viewers, but a number of subscribers will be dead. My channel as a comparison has 1,606 subs with an average of 20-30 views per video. I have got good connections with simulator companies such as Dovetail Games which helps, but on a general basis most of my subscribers are inactive. The more views, the better you are off. Even if you have a viewer click off after 1 minute, that's 1 more to your 4,000 hour goal!
- And finally, keep at it. I run a schecule meaning my viewers know what video I am releasing and on what day. This means that my viewers are not in the dark about my content and it also helps find new people to watch my channel. I'm sure there are numerous small communities that are dying for a high quality video producer, which is where my sponsorship with flightsim.com comes in! I review products and make a quick video showing it off, they put it on their website and get their own website ad revenue, it's a win-win situation.
I hope that this information helps you in growing your channel and potentially see your adverts return one day in the future! If you did find this little breakdown helpful, please do think about supporting my channel! While my content may be a little different to most gaming channels, I hope to also potentially bring in more helpful videos and tutorials to help smaller channels, if this is something you are interested in.
If anyone else has anything to add or any corrections for this thread, please do let me know and I'll be happy to add and fix!
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