Massive drop in views on kid channels

Toys unlimited and Fizzy Toys (miss hands) are very similar channels and they each have half a dozen channels making millions I’m sure. They are deleting some videos, especially TU, so who knows what they are up to.
 
Thanks Crown and Redterrors. I was specifically hoping for your feedback. I think that dv2000 might have missed the point. She gained those 200k subs in two days, and yes, the channel was created in 2017 but pre-weekend, there was only her new video in it and less than 200 subscribers total. Yes, the channel existed, but was previously empty and in her back pocket for use someday. Also, is the switch to reptiles because she acknowledges that she will indeed lose that kid audience and that it is time to shift to 13+ content? She's sponsored by a few advertisers that definitely fall in this category and occasionally mentions their names.

Miss Hands isn't just an algorithm wizard, she was a child psychologist - https://www.thedailybeast.com/youtube-toy-channels-target-kids-who-watch-instead-of-play. Understands both sides of the coin. I think that her direction might be something to follow, and that she falls within the realm of the type of YouTuber who isn't quite as big as Ryan and Cocomelon and fear that they might need to react, but this still feels premature to me?

Does anyone else have thoughts on this, or in general about the situation? Thanks for the news bugs.

I personally am a supporter of MeachamLake's theory, and would love to hear more evidence/opinions that support it. YouTube is a business and they understand the value of this market.
youtube's already given us guidance. basically giving us a 3 month head start to change our content. the writing has been on the wall for a while but people like me only see what we want to see. its been really tough to accept the reality that i have to do something else. the huge channels with TV deals and brand sponsorships probably don't need to worry as much since they're already making so much money they can just make the same (less-monetized) videos to market their brand. they've got enough income coming from many different places already. the rest of the channels who are not as diversified will need to do something else if we still need the income support provided by youtube. lizard channels and what not. i might do some kind of dad stuff on my channel. can't think of anything else i want to do other than what im already doing now.

i dont know about gaming channels like dan tdm. i think he's in denial also and being fed premature information. youtube said they were going to target gaming too. so who knows. too early to know one way or another. at least until the ftc meeting maybe. i hope they leave gaming alone. the last thing we need is more minecraft roblox channels exposing our kids to more curse words and adult content so they can escape the kids audience label.

and with the removal of targeted ads, there will be an adjustment as toy advertisers use the new method of advertising on kid channels. but i dont think kid channels will earn as much as we used to. i believe our CPM will go down. most advertisers do not want to waste their ad dollars on kids because kids will not buy insurance or get a loan or buy self help memberships. i dont think any increase of toy advertisers will make up for the loss of all those other ads we used to get. im already getting less than $1 cpm at this point. after getting fewer ads i dont see it going up. if history is a lesson, we've had a few ad-pocalypse and my cpm went down each time and did not recover.
 
I certainly think there is a path forward. Youtube is not going to let billions of kid viewers walk. The issue is deeper than COPPA. The problem is Youtube needs a leader that represents kid creators that the public and the FTC can trust. Youtube also needs content creators that they can trust. We can't have creators that are willing to do anything to get a competitive advantage. Last month, several channels started randomly putting foreign languages in their video titles thinking that this was favored by the algorithm. Channels will do any kind of video if they think it will get views.

I'm not sure if Youtube can continue an "open platform" when it comes to kids content. I think you should be heavily vetted before you are allowed to run a kids channel. The adults involved in the channel should be subjected to a background check. As it stands now, if I am investigating a channel for say child abuse, even with a court order sent to Google, the only somewhat verified name and address provided is going to be the one that signed up for the Adsense account. Google simply has no idea who is really running these channels.

At the end of day, if Youtube wants to fix the problem, they will have to go beyond COPPA. Quite honestly, Do we need 250,000 kid channels? Probably not.
about letting billions walk. what if youtube realizes the economics of their change would drive many channels to delete and privatize our library of kids content as we rebrand our channels? i dont think kids will stop watching youtube because there's too much kids content now. but maybe there is a risk of losing a huge chunk of content. and the 100 million fund is to prevent the cocomelons from deleting their videos and to keep producing? 100 million is a limited amount. perhaps it is temporary fund to buy more time until they figure out a new system of monetization for kids content (which hopefully includes a better vetting process).
 
Will it be considered targeted if a child is watching lego animation and it has lego ads? Won't it be considered ads based on content?
youtube will stop serving personalized ads to kids content. it was left unsaid, but logically that means they'll keep their other ads which are contextual. both types of ads can be "targeted". but the personalized ads would contain tracking information like gender, age, or "interests". which apparently are most ads. toy companies will most likely adjust and use more contextual ads which enable them to "target" kids channels, specific videos, or categories like "shopping>toys" or "entertainment>video games" etc. there were like 15 suggested categories when i searched google ads for "disney cars" or "thomas train". so there will be an allowed way to "target" ads on kids content. they're called "contextual ads". its small now (compared to personalized) but will probably increase in 2020 (probably not by much?).
 
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