Feb 23, 2023 [[read-time]] minute read
Welcome to the latest installment of our Innovation Series, a behind-the-scenes look at how the YouTube features find their way to your screen, as told by the people who create them.
YouTube creators reach and delight viewers from all over the world, from dance challenges to fitness tips and daily vlogs. There’s perhaps no better example than MrBeast, who has over 130 million subscribers worldwide and was recently awarded the Red Diamond.
MrBeast has already dubbed his most popular videos in 11 languages and is hoping to bring more international viewers to his main channel through multi-language audio.
Because his content is so wide-reaching, over the past year we’ve asked MrBeast and a small group of creators to help our team test a new feature that lets creators add multi-language audio to their videos.
Since then, MrBeast has already dubbed his most popular videos in 11 languages and is hoping to bring more international viewers to his main channel through the feature. We sat down with him for his unfiltered thoughts about his experience working with us to bring multi-language audio to life:
For viewers, multi-language audio means they can now watch videos dubbed in their primary language, introducing them to even more content that they otherwise may not have seen. And for our creators, we hope this feature helps you expand your global reach and find a new audience for your channel!
Creators testing multi-language dubbed videos saw over 15 percent of their watch time coming from views in the video's non-primary language.
In fact, we found that creators testing multi-language dubbed videos saw over 15 percent of their watch time coming from views in the video's non-primary language.1 And, on average, viewers watched over 2 million hours of dubbed video daily this past January alone.
So starting today, we’re excited to expand the availability of this feature to thousands more creators. In our early tests with just a handful of creators, we’ve already seen over 3,500 multi-language videos uploaded in over 40 languages.2
Getting started is simple: When uploading a video to their channel, all creators need to do is add different audio tracks through the Subtitles Editor tool. Existing content in creators’ catalogs can be updated with additional audio tracks as well. If you’re a viewer, just click the video’s settings to see what audio tracks are available to start watching in another language. We want this to be a seamless experience, so content will also default to match viewers’ preferred language and users will be able to search for multilingual content courtesy of translated video titles and descriptions.
Whether it's chess tutorials, a historical documentary on Rome, or a series of ghost hunting investigations in Italy, we can’t wait to see our creators continue to adopt this feature into their own content, and for our viewers to discover videos from international channels.
1. In January 2023
2. As of January 2023
