YouTube's big changes to ads on children's content is hitting creator revenue by as much as 50%, says a CEO who helps manage 4,300 channels

• YouTube creators are already beginning to feel the impact of the platform's new rules governing children's content, according to entertainment company Yoola, which helps YouTubers grow and develop their businesses.
• Yoola CEO Eyal Baumel told Business Insider that within the week that these rules had been implemented, creators under the company's banner had taken a hit to their revenue of between 30 to 50 percent.
• He cautioned that only time would tell the full extent of the impact of the new rules.
• YouTube rolled out changes earlier in January, after after its parent company Google paid $170 million to settle the Federal Trade Commission's allegations that the site violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting the personal information of kids under 13 years old.
• These changes are expected to affect the bottom line for creators and for YouTube itself, the company has said. It also stressed its commitment to helping YouTubers navigate the new regulatory landscape and to continue supporting family-friendly content.
• Click here to read more stories on BI Prime.

YouTube creators are already beginning to feel the impact of the platform's week-old rules governing children's content, according to entertainment company Yoola, a network which manages 4,300 channels on the site.

Yoola CEO Eyal Baumel told Business Insider that creator revenues are already starting to see a hit to their revenue under the new rules, with some seeing losses as high as 50%.

"We've seen anywhere between a 30 percent to 50 percent loss in revenue," Baumel said - though he noted that different channels would see different effects.

Baumel also cautioned that January tends to be a slow month in the YouTube creator business anyway, and that Yoola needed more time to analyze patterns and see what can be attributed to the new rules.

"But I can tell you there's some negative impact," he said.

That negative impact may soon reach creators' livelihoods: Baumel, whose company manages the account of YouTube stars like multimillion-dollar 5-year-old creator Anastasia "Nastya" Radzinkaya, says that kids are "by far" the biggest content category on YouTube. And while adult channel creators often work with brands for another source of revenue, Baumel said when it came to kids, "most of them are dependent on advertisements from YouTube."

For now, the entertainment company executive sees two trends emerging among child-creators in reaction to the rules: a push toward diversifying their revenue channels outside YouTube advertisements, like working with toy companies, merchandise companies, and other brands, and a close consideration of offers to migrate to more traditional entertainment, like starring in a TV show.

The new policies

YouTube implemented an overhaul of its policies surrounding children's content at the beginning of January, four months after its parent company Google paid $170 million to settle the Federal Trade Commission's allegations that the site had violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from kids under 13 years old without parental consent.

Back in September, the company announced its intended overhaul of children's content: targeted advertisements would be stripped from videos designated for children, and user comments and live chats would be disabled.

A YouTube spokesperson pointed toward the company's blog posts announcing the changes. The company has acknowledged that the new rules could hurt the bottom line for both creators and YouTube itself, and included a link for creators to learn about other ways to monetize content. YouTube also stressed its commitment to helping creators navigate the new landscape and to supporting family content in its January blog post announcing the changes, and said it would share more on that topic in the upcoming months.

That may be necessary for the platform. Baumel lauds the idea of YouTube doing more to protect children, but says that as it stands today, the policies could come at the expense of creators.

"The idea behind COPPA and behind the policies are, in general, positive," Baumel said. "But I think there's a way that both sides can be happy and still monetize their creations.

That being said, Baumel has stressed that YouTube is still a great platform for user-generated content, even for kids. "There is no one else who does it better than them," he said.