YouTube is using a survey of creators to argue against mandatory prominence, meaning the preferential display of selected media, in the review of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). The European Media Board has recommended bringing creators themselves within the directive’s scope. In an October 2026 post on the company blog, 71% of creators warn that reduced visibility would directly threaten their livelihoods. The Creative Capital report itself gives the same figure only for respondents with more than 100,000 subscribers.
There were 20,617 respondents from all EU member states. The consultancy Public First ran an anonymous online survey among them from June to early July 2026. YouTube then drew up five recommendations for European institutions from the responses.
Eurostat is among the institutions addressed. It would introduce a separate sub-class of the classification of economic activities for digital creators, so that they become visible in economic statistics. Creative Europe should gain a Creators of Europe strand, and European awards should get new criteria so that digital work competes with film and television on equal terms. Erasmus+ should fund exchanges, mentoring and residencies for creators from different member states.
When the creator Leila Gharani introduces herself in Austria as a creator, “people just think you have a hobby”, she says. Her channel had 3.1 million subscribers in October 2026. The German channel Dani Verdari was looking for money to expand and develop series formats. In the US, according to the channel, there is much more choice. Being based in the EU, it found it hard to get any support at all.
The report proposes tackling funding through InvestEU guarantees for lenders that develop financing products for creator businesses. Member states should channel part of their European Regional Development Fund spending on cultural infrastructure into shared Creator Hubs, where creators in every NUTS-2 region would find studios, sound booths and equipment rental. “Europe does not need to build new institutions for its creators. It needs to open the ones it already has,” writes Pedro Pina, YouTube’s Vice President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in the report’s foreword.
Czechia registers YouTubers while the AVMSD review is still under way
The Czech Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting, in other words an institution Czechia already has, classifies YouTubers as providers of an on-demand audiovisual media service. This applies to those who, within a year, meet all three thresholds, namely an average of 500,000 views per video on one platform, at least 52 videos and income above CZK 50,000. Since an amendment in May 2025, they no longer have to register themselves. In Czechia, once a creator whose work people in Austria treat as a hobby crosses the thresholds, the broadcasting council enters them in the list of media service providers.
For creators who would newly fall under the European directive, the Media Board proposed in July 2026 a common framework built on editorial responsibility, transparency and consumer protection. By 19 December 2026, the Commission must submit an evaluation of the directive to the European Parliament and the Council, where appropriate with proposals for its review.
The review also opens the question of prominence. The Commission wants to secure it for media services of general interest. The Media Board proposes harmonising prominence more strongly and also securing it in recommender systems and new AI-driven interfaces, while leaving Article 7a of the directive non-mandatory. Individual member states would still decide whether to introduce a scheme for services of general interest.
A non-mandatory regime is not enough for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Its first demand for the review, from June 2026, reads “make it binding”. Public service media content should be actively surfaced in recommendations and in search. Meanwhile, according to the EBU, YouTube now sits at the centre of many TV screens and competes directly with broadcast media for viewers’ attention.
YouTube’s report speaks in creators’ voices
In its open discovery recommendation, YouTube warns that strict prominence obligations would force platforms to favour a small group of organisations prioritised by the government at the expense of everyone else. YouTube’s recommendation algorithms matter for channel growth and revenue to 83% of respondents in this year’s survey. If governments picked the winners, according to the report, independent creators and next-generation newsrooms would be the losers.
The Spanish creator Alberto of the VisualPolitik channel accepts that the aim of the changes to the directive may be pluralism, but sees the demise of small European creators as their most likely effect. “Changes to the algorithm are just going to help media channels owned by billionaires to become even more powerful,” says the French creator Gaspard G.
Creators get little or no help with representing their interests when dealing with government, said 63% of respondents in the same survey. In the report, the Danish creator Rasmus Brohave suggests involving people with first-hand experience of the industry in drawing up the rules, so that the rules are practical, balanced and fair.
The French site Influenth described the report as an advocacy publication commissioned by YouTube that measures the perceptions of creators on YouTube. Yet among the participants in the Commission’s May dialogue on the directive, alongside YouTube and the European Broadcasting Union, was the Czech Association of Creators and Online Media (Asociace tvůrců a online médií, ATOM). According to its president, creators founded it partly for dialogue with the authorities responsible for regulating their work.
Comments