YouTube Tests New Monthly Audience Metric to Show an Artist's Total Number of Unique Listeners & Viewers
YouTube Music
YouTube is testing a new Monthly Audience metric for YouTube Music. This metric is updated daily and shows an artist’s total number of unique listeners and viewers across all formats in the last 28 days. It includes:
Videos, including Shorts, uploaded by the artist or their label
Collaborations featuring the artist’s music uploaded to other channels
Videos, including Shorts, uploaded by fans with the artist’s music
Non-music content from the artist’s channel
This new metric will appear on some artists page, while others will continue to have the traditional Subscribers count during the testing phase.
Why It Matters: With this new, fan-facing public metric, YouTube wants to highlight an artist's full audience reach across its surfaces — from YouTube, YouTube Music, and YouTube Kids.
The metric also gives YouTube its version of Spotify’s Monthly Listeners, which provides a clearer picture of an artist’s reach and engagement. Unlike subscriber counts, which highlight potential audience size, this metric captures actualized engagement showing how many people are actively interacting with an artist’s music and content and creating content using their music.
