When does YouTube not play ads?

[Seangt]

We don't use Canvas Studio, I know it's supposed to work if you import it in there (and it recently broke) but not asking about that here. 

I did a test, and a video played ads on YouTube, but when just pasting a link in a Canvas page and opening it from there, there were no ads when I played the video. 

Similarly, if I clicked the auto-embed Canvas puts in for YouTube videos, it did not play ads. 

Further, even if I copied the embed code from the Share menu on YouTube, and put that in the embed thing in Canvas, then played that, there were no ads. 

But, I can't tell if that's a coincidence or by-design? Like can we rely on that to be true always? 

We also have a video host product, YuJa, that appeared to also remove ads but I have to also ask them if that's by-design. 

Thanks for any insights 🙂 

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @Seangt,

I do not have a clear answer but I believe, just like the case for personal web browsing that involves playing back YouTube videos, it really is seemingly random.

I believe Google/YouTube serves ads based on (1) any "partnerships" with YouTube content creators and (2) web browsing analytics (including web browser data, cookies, cache) for the person doing the watching.

Maybe someone else has a better answer but that has been my experience.

-Doug

P.S. For anyone else that comes across this, and you referenced it, below is the Canvas Studio known issue related to YouTube videos in a Studio library and ads being played back. For what it is worth, I am curious to know if and how Instructure will be able to restore the normal functionality of YouTube ads not being played back.

[OPEN] Youtube Studio videos play ads - Instructure Community - 639355

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Two thoughts:

1. The YouTube blog post (thank you for sharing it, a more technical post is available at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/15503014) is from September 2022. The information in the blog post might still be accurate but details might have also changed.
2. Canvas Studio is an additional subscription. If there is a partnership between Alphabet/Google/YouTube and Instructure/Canvas/Studio, there might be a fee associated with it (the post I linked to in #1 seems to imply that their might be). A portion of someone's Canvas Studio subscription might go to cover any associated fees for that partnership.

-Doug

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @Seangt,

I do not have a clear answer but I believe, just like the case for personal web browsing that involves playing back YouTube videos, it really is seemingly random.

I believe Google/YouTube serves ads based on (1) any "partnerships" with YouTube content creators and (2) web browsing analytics (including web browser data, cookies, cache) for the person doing the watching.

Maybe someone else has a better answer but that has been my experience.

-Doug

P.S. For anyone else that comes across this, and you referenced it, below is the Canvas Studio known issue related to YouTube videos in a Studio library and ads being played back. For what it is worth, I am curious to know if and how Instructure will be able to restore the normal functionality of YouTube ads not being played back.

[OPEN] Youtube Studio videos play ads - Instructure Community - 639355

[Seangt]

thank you, I emailed support as well to see if they have an official "line." But we'll probably end up having to use YuJa

I have seen in the past that YouTube does allow third party software that is used for education to display youtube videos without ads, and I assume there's some kind of partnership between instructure and google for this, so hopefully it's a matter of instructure resolving the issue with google for anyone using Studio. I don't see why they wouldn't extend that function to all of Canvas though. Just makes you think lol. 

Here's the blog about youtube for education - https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/the-next-chapter-for-learning-on-youtube/ 

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Two thoughts:

1. The YouTube blog post (thank you for sharing it, a more technical post is available at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/15503014) is from September 2022. The information in the blog post might still be accurate but details might have also changed.
2. Canvas Studio is an additional subscription. If there is a partnership between Alphabet/Google/YouTube and Instructure/Canvas/Studio, there might be a fee associated with it (the post I linked to in #1 seems to imply that their might be). A portion of someone's Canvas Studio subscription might go to cover any associated fees for that partnership.

-Doug

[Seangt]

ooooh that would make a lot of sense! Thanks for helping me get my brain around this. 🙂

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @Seangt,

I think @dbrace has given you some great info and basiclaly got your question answered, but I wanted to chime in with just slightly more info...

My institution uses Kaltura as our video management system, and similar to the Canvas Studio issue Doug mentioned, Kaltura has been having issues with ads in Youtube videos.  I haven't found anything official from Google, but it does seem like they may be cracking down a bit on removal of ads from their videos.  I imagine Google (and video creators) would like more ad revenue, so on some level this does make sense, but it's definitely not ideal for videos used in an educational setting.

-Chris

[dbrace]

To some (small) degree, I don't blame Alphabet/Google/YouTube. They are the world's "TV" and they need to  keep their infrastructure up and running, make investments for it to get better, and make money. However, in my opinion, the changes they have made to ads to videos over the last year has been over-the-top.

-Doug