YouTube launches a new watch page just for news stories

YouTube has launched a new watch page to show stories related to specific news topics getting traction on its platform. The company said it's a new immersive watch page experience for news stories that "will pull together content from authoritative sources."

The news watch page has started rolling out and it will be available in over 40 countries in the coming future. It's supported on mobile devices as of now, but YouTube said that the feature will be available on its desktop and TV interfaces as well.

You can access the YouTube news watch page on the homepage feed or in search results. Primarily, it's meant to show up when a user looks for news stories on YouTube. The feature consolidates video content from a variety of sources and formats such as long-form, podcasts, live, and Shorts.

The YouTube news watch page carries a newspaper icon to differentiate itself from regular videos in the feed. You can swipe on its card to see thumbnails of various related stories. Apart from that, YouTube has also announced a new Shorts Innovation Program to help news organizations create short-form video content.

In a blog post, YouTube stated:

Our goal with the Shorts Innovation Program is to jumpstart innovative news publishers who are interested in embracing short-form news capabilities, but haven’t had the resources to do so. We look forward to getting feedback from publishers on the opportunities and challenges to short-form content, as we work together to support an innovative news ecosystem.

YouTube will select participants for the program based on their existing long-form video presence. The company has set aside a funding of $1.6 million which it will spend while working with over 20 organizations across 10 countries. This new watch page was added not long after YouTube's recent feature drop introducing various features like Stable Volume and a new way to increase playback speed.

In recent news, YouTube's parent company Google pulled the plug on the Google Podcasts app in favor of YouTube Music. YouTube's Premium Lite subscription tier, which is available in select countries, is also going away later this month.

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