Popular online video-sharing platform YouTube will no longer allow advertisers to purchase its home page slot in the same way again due to recent updates in its policy.
According to CNBC, the company will be retiring reservations for full-day advertisements on its coveted home page ad spot known as its masthead beginning in 2021. Advertisers will only be able to buy that spot on a per-impression basis, making it harder for a single advertiser to dominate the page for a day at a time.
Although the news of the policy amendments may have surfaced just a few days before the election, Google said the change affects all advertisers and is not connected in any way to the election or political advertising broadly.
“For years, advertisers asked us for more flexible options for appearing in the YouTube masthead, which is why we introduced the cost-per-thousand (CPM) Masthead in 2019 and earlier this year told advertisers that it would be our primary masthead reservation option in 2021. This change gives advertisers more budget flexibility and applies across all verticals, not just political advertisers,” the company said.
The company has received backlash as the U.S. presidential election inches closer, with President Donald Trump buying the masthead slot in the two days prior to Election Day.
The masthead costs approximately $2 million a day. It’s not clear how many people view the masthead or see that ad spot, but overall YouTube claims to deliver more than one billion hours of video every single day, according to a New York Times report.
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