Online content creators are decrying revenue loss following the suspension of advertisement opportunities on their uploaded videos on the YouTube platform.

With easy access on the internet and the coronavirus pandemic closed the theaters, artists and many people especially the youth flocked into content creation and rely on YouTube as the best and easy platform for earning money and popularising their works.

However, not long ago their returns started shuttering down as the advertisement suspended out of blue.

According to the content creators, since the beginning of March this year, the advertisements on their contents disappeared to anyone surfing while on Rwandan territory.

“We learnt of the suspension of adverts on our videos in May after realizing a revenue drop by at least 30 per cent. We don’t know where the problem is,” Joseph Hakuzwumuremyi, managing editor of Umuryango Ltd, which runs Umuryango TV Rwanda and Umuryango.rw.

“We mostly create content in Kinyarwanda targeting Kinyarwanda speakers, most of whom are in here and represent 60 per cent of our viewership,” he added.

YouTube revenues for the content creators vary based on the location of watchers, quality of the video in terms of resolution, watchtime and length.

Adverts are automatically generated based on the cookies that the computer collects from viewers.

Creators fear the revenue loss from adverts could force job cuts as operational costs don’t match revenues that the youth-dominated sector can produce.

Job losses

“I employed five people with whom we shared revenues but with the drop from around one million Rwandan francs to Rwf300,000, it is inevitable to lay off some of colleagues or even the entire team,” Yusuf Siboniyo, managing director of Fabrice Official, who are into movies and infotainment said.

In content creation, the circumstance, and click bets hook and entice viewers.

“We had also got viewers abroad in the US and Europe,” Jean de Dieu Kalinijabo, managing editor of Primo TV.

Most of the creators point an accusing finger at the country’s regulatory body as having a hand in blocking the adverts on work uploaded on YouTube.

However, an official from Rwanda Utility Regulation Authority told Rwanda Today that they had not played any part in the suspension.