Last March, YouTube announced that YouTube Shorts were generating more than 70bn daily views. Today, the company’s CEO Neal Mohan announced a new figure that is considerably higher.
“We’re seeing a huge uptick in the amount of people creating and watching Shorts. Today I’m excited to share a new milestone. YouTube Shorts are now averaging over 200bn daily views. Fans can’t get enough,” said Mohan in his speech at the Cannes Lions conference.
This is huge growth, but with a caveat. Earlier this year, YouTube announced that it was changing the way it calculated views for its short-video platform.
From 31 March, a view was recorded every time a Short started to play or replay, with no minimum watch-time requirement. Previously it needed to be played for a certain number of seconds before it counted as a view.
So, the seemingly-huge growth to 200bn daily views is likely to be partly down to that change in methodology, although clearly short-video viewing is growing rapidly on YouTube too.
Mohan had another Shorts announcement in his Cannes Lions speech, which Music Ally attended. He said that Google’s Veo 3 GenAI video model, which was announced last month “will be coming to YouTube Shorts later this summer”.
Some YouTubers have already been given access to it. One, Brandon Baum, got his own slot during Mohan’s session to show off some of the videos he has been making using the technology.
He also delivered a pitch on behalf of YouTube to creators (and musicians) who have concerns about the rapid rollout of GenAI technologies means for their craft.
“Tools that empower storytellers don’t just make things easier, they change who gets to tell the story in the first place… when we democratise the tools, we democratise storytelling itself,” said Baum.
One of the videos he showcased was a space-walk Short with impressive special effects.
“That demo wasn’t made by Veo 3. It was made by me using Veo 3,” said Baum. “Tools don’t bring stories to life; storytellers do. Tools open doors, they expand what we’re capable of… but true art still comes, and always will come, from [human] creatives.”
Earlier in Mohan’s session, he took a gentle swipe at YouTube Shorts’ competitors, albeit without naming any one platform in particular.
“Today YouTube is the epicentre of culture. I’m not talking about forgettable fads or one-hit wonders we scroll right past. I mean culture with a capital C,” he said.
He ran through some previously-announced stats on YouTube’s evolution, including the fact that its viewers watch more than 1bn hours of YouTube on televisions every day, and that more than one billion people are watching podcasts on YouTube every month.
Mohan also called attention to some of the fan-generated content around brands that have broken out on YouTube, including The Amazing Digital Circus, an animated series whose first episode premiered on YouTube in October 2023, racking up more than 300m views.
“But fans’ response went even more viral. The songs, memes and spin-off content they created about the show collectively generated 25 billion views,” said Mohan.
“Fandom itself is becoming a form of creative expression: everything from reaction videos to fan art and more. And one of the easiest ways to jump in is through short-form video… Fandom is no longer just about consumption. It’s a powerful force steering culture.”
