Did Shorts just TRIPLE your audience?!

Feb 15, 2024 - Lyor's Letter

Every day, our teams wake up completely dedicated to making YouTube the best place for over 2 billion music fans, and our 100 million YouTube Music and Premium subscribers.1

We’re carefully building an experience that brings fans closer to the artists and music they love, immersing them in the richness of content across all formats: music videos, audio streaming, Shorts, live, fan-uploaded content, and more. We still have a lot of work to do, but our mission is to bring fans on a journey where they discover music through Shorts, and then get connected to the rest of the artist’s repertoire, inspiring them to become engaged fans who lean in. To give you a sense of this experience, I’m thrilled to share new insights and product launches:

  • More reach: In January 2024, Shorts TRIPLED the average artist's audience of unique viewers. This means Shorts featuring an artist's music tripled the average artist's total reach!

  • More fans: In January 2024, artists active on Shorts2 saw more than 60% of their new channel subscribers coming directly from their Shorts posts on average. In fact, Myke Towers gained 1.7 million subscribers in 2023, all directly from his consistent Shorts uploads.

  • More engagement: Shorts are now averaging 70 billion daily views and are being watched by over 2 billion logged-in users every month. Plus, the number of channels uploading Shorts has grown 50% year over year. This means more creators putting your artist's music in front of more fans. From there, fans can go beyond discovering the latest single and onto exploring and creating with your entire repertoire: music videos, albums, interviews, live performances, and more.

  • Launching Music Video Remixes: We’re thrilled to announce that we’re rolling out the ability for Shorts creators to “remix” music videos. Shorts creators will be able to put their own unique spin on their favorite music videos using tools like Cut, Green Screen, and Collab, creating fresh new content directly with eligible official music videos.

A YouTube Short showing a music video remix featuring Maggie Rogers

Music video remix example here

We are so grateful to have partnered with artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa, and next, Karol G, to help them release their music and engage fans across all formats. Together we’re making music reverberate across all of YouTube, and I cannot wait to see what we develop together next.

With love and respect,

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Lyor Cohen
Global Head of Music, YouTube

“Walk This Way”

  • 1Including trials.

  • 2“Artists active on Shorts” defined as artists posting weekly shorts on average.