YouTube remains the most popular video service among kids and teens, with a recent report by software company Qustodio highlighting that, in 2024, children worldwide spent an average of 71 minutes per day on the platform. Such dominance has naturally drawn scrutiny, and YouTube has long been under pressure to raise the bar when it comes to the quality of the content it places in front of young viewers – with parents, educators, and industry professionals having expressed concern over the years about what exactly is being served up by the platform’s algorithm.

Now, that concern is being addressed in a big and potentially game-changing way. In March, YouTube announced that it had joined forces with multiple studios, broadcasters and educational organisations on the Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative, which will see it enable greater access to high quality content that “promotes media literacy and digital citizenship, fosters learning in and outside of the classroom, and supports development and wellbeing” and can be described as “enriching, engaging, and inspiring.” It will also work to limit the reach of low-quality and potentially harmful videos by investing in research-backed resources for families and parents, setting age-appropriate defaults for sexually explicit content and graphic violence, and considering the developmental needs of kids and teens from the beginning of product design and content development.

The initiative will see changes made to both YouTube Kids and the platform’s “supervised experiences” – the latter refers to pre-teen access to the main YouTube app, which can be customised through parental controls. Its partners are notably international, representing 10 countries from around the world. They include Animaj, Benesse, BouncePatrol, ChuChu TV, CoroCoro Comic, EBS, Japan Football Association, Kedoo, Khan Academy, El Reino Infantil, MSP Estúdios, Miraculous Corp, Moonbug, The Pinkfong Company, The Wiggles, TV Cultura, and WildBrain.

It’s worth noting the variety here – not just in their country of origin, but also their place in the kids industry ecosystem – with the list including everything from broadcasters, to brand-specific names, and digital-first companies that either began on YouTube or have made it a big part of their business. As such, the initiative will be pulling from a broad range of perspectives to achieve its goals, an approach that seems destined to work in its favour.

A problematic byproduct from these changes may lie in the demotion of content that is safe, highly valued by kids, but doesn’t meet YouTube’s high quality guidelines. An overly curated experience would risk pushing older demos in particular towards the platform’s UGC competitors, while too light a touch wouldn’t bring about the change on YouTube that many yearn for, particularly those in the TV industry who, over the years, have had no choice but to make the platform a part of their strategy in order to reach their target audience. For the content that doesn’t fit under YouTube’s high or low quality categorisation, it will be interesting to see how reach suffers as a result of others being given prominence.

The widespread desire within the industry for YouTube to provide prominence for high quality kids content was a big talking point at the Children’s Media Conference in 2024. The platform has previously resisted doing so in favour of pushing content based on children’s viewing habits, emphasising its selling point as a personalised experience. Clearly its Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative has a fine balancing act to pull off, as it strives to meet the needs of not just its young users, but also the industry that serves them. From our perspective, its formation feels like an important and arguably overdue step, though – with any changes yet to be implemented – it remains to be seen if it’s in the right direction.