YouTube Introduces Multi-Language Audio Tracks Worldwide

Following several months of tests, YouTube is launching is multi-language audio track feature worldwide, with popular vlogger MrBeast helping to promote the new feature’s benefits. MrBeast, who has over 135 million global subscribers, is hoping to attract new subscribers to his channel now that the most popular videos are dubbed into 11 different languages. The multi-language audio feature allows creators to dub new and existing videos. YouTube says more than 3,500 multi-language videos have been uploaded to the site in 40-plus languages since January of this year.

“Creators testing multi-language dubbed videos saw over 15 percent of their watch time coming from views in the video’s non-primary language, and, on average, viewers watched over 2 million hours of dubbed video daily this past January alone,” MrBeast said in a YouTube interview.

The new audio feature “supercharges the heck out of videos,” said MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson. “Whether you’re in Mexico, in India, all the dubs are in one place, on one video, so it’s also just a lot simpler for people to understand.”

“To use YouTube’s multi-language dubbing feature, when uploading a video to their channel, eligible creators can add different audio tracks through the Subtitles Editor tool,” Variety explains, adding that viewers can “just click the video’s settings to see what audio tracks are available to start watching in another language.”

Content with multiple language offerings “will default to match viewers’ preferred language and users will be able to search for multilingual content via translated video titles and descriptions,” Variety says.

TechCrunch reports that “the technology to support multi-language audio tracks was built in-house” at the Google subsidiary, “but creators will need to partner directly with third-party dubbing providers to create their audio tracks.” It’s left up to the creators to choose what additional languages they will support.

Once creators have access, “they’ll be able to use the new option in Creator Studio,” says TechCrunch, noting that “YouTube declined to share how it was determining which creators were eligible or how many would be invited in this initial expansion, saying only the number was in the ‘thousands.’”

YouTube did not reveal when the dubbing feature would be broadly available to more creators, but said it’s working on expanding the program.

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