The news: YouTube is updating its criteria for counting a view to the moment a video begins or a user enters a live broadcast, the company announced Monday.

• The update puts YouTube’s view-counting system on par with Instagram and TikTok.
• Though the company did not previously disclose criteria for counting a view, it was generally assumed that the threshold was 30 seconds, TechCrunch notes.
• YouTube noted that it will keep an “engaged views” metric available to creators so they can see how many viewers continue a video beyond the initial impression.

Why it matters: The change is likely to significantly inflate YouTube viewership figures—meaning creators could claim millions of views even if their actual audience is considerably smaller. That makes public view counts a less reliable measure for marketers assessing a creator’s popularity because they offer a weaker indication of actual engagement.

And while platforms like TikTok follow the same method of counting viewership, YouTube’s change is particularly meaningful to advertisers given the platform’s place in the broader digital video ecosystem:

• YouTube is the most widely viewed video service in the US, and is one of the biggest OTT players in the market. Nearly 71% of YouTube’s US audience will watch YouTube on a CTV device this year, per our forecast. By 2030, its CTV audience will surpass 200 million.