YouTube announced that they will be shutting down the “Stories” feature. YouTube also gave an official date for this. The new focus is the ‘Shorts’ format. “Stories are short, mobile-only videos that allow you to connect with your audience in a more daily, on-the-go style. They stay live for 7 days.” The “Stories” feature, which it defines with this description, is generally not used much.

We say goodbye to the YouTube Stories on June 26

For this decision, the official support page says, “As of June 26, 2023, the option to create new stories will not be available. Stories shared on June 26 will be deleted after 7 days.” From now on, the company will continue to focus on the TikTok-inspired Shorts format and some other content. The YouTube Stories infrastructure was opened to channels with more than 10,000 subscribers, but it has never reached a high usage rate on this platform than other platforms.

Before that, YouTube came to the agenda with the advertising step. As you know, the revenue of the YouTube platform and creators comes mainly from advertisements. The company closed ads in videos only to paid YouTube Premium subscribers.

In addition, the company made two important announcements at the YouTube Brandcast event held in New York, which are of interest to those who watch YouTube on their smart TVs. First, YouTube will now add 30-second unskippable ads to its best-performing content. In the new period, instead of two consecutive 15-second ads, a single 30-second unskippable ad will be shown.

The platform also brings a new ad format to YouTube for smart TV viewers. In this format, viewers will be interrupted by ads when they pause the video. When you pause the video in the infrastructure, the window of the content you are watching will shrink and ads will appear next to it. Since there are no ad blockers on smart TVs, the company wants to increase the advertising level on that side. YouTube also has some other plans in this regard.