Brian Whelan from Times Radio on growing a successful YouTube news channel

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The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 showed that in the UK, the use of YouTube for news is up 3 percentage points from last year, which may not sound much, but it makes it the fastest-growing platform for news. It also places it as the third most used platform for news, ahead of Instagram, WhatsApp and TikTok - only behind X and Facebook.

YouTube is also a place where you can expect to see almost any type of video content you want, and it is also a very easy way to fall down a rabbit hole and keep watching more and more. So how does news thrive in such a busy environment?

News UK's pandemic-launched digital radio broadcaster, Times Radio, has just hit 1m subscribers on YouTube. However, that number sounds more flattering than it actually is, according to head of video, Brian Whelan. In this week's podcast, we dig into the metrics that really matter, how to achieve success, and most importantly, how to monetise a YouTube news channel.

Continue the conversation on 27 November at our digital journalism conference Newrewired in London. We will talk more about social video strategies for publishers with The Telegraph, The News Movement and WIRED, as well as lots of other pressing topics.

Secure your place today and join our study tour the day before for an extra day of training and exclusive access (and save yourself £50)

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