Whether you are watching from India or Brazil, content on YouTube might no longer be bounded by language barriers.
In an effort to help creators reach a wider international audience, the platform now offers viewers the chance to choose dubbed audio for the content they are watching.
It should be noted that creators are responsible for dubbing their content and must contact third-party organizations to get it sorted out. But once completed, viewers can head to the options menu on a video—where subtitles and quality is found—to set the language they are looking for. With that, channel owners will decide what languages to support.
Per TechCrunch, an original set of test channels first trialed the feature, and over 3,500 videos were now supporting over 40 different languages. In early testing, YouTube noted that over two million hours of watch time in January alone came from dubbed content.
It’s no surprise that the audio dubbing option has received initial success. Watching YouTube videos are often a favorite pastime for many. Still, with so many big-name creators catering to predominantly English-speaking viewers, there’s a whole international market out there that channels cannot tap on. And more importantly, viewers cannot partake in watching these videos.
One such creator in the trial was MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson), who has amassed 130 million global subscribers. He dubbed his 11 most popular videos in 11 different languages in the initial run. In the same report, he told YouTube’s Creator Insider that the feature streamlined the process of having multiple channels in various languages and made it easier for the fans.
The feature has officially rolled out, and YouTube will notify channels with access to it. In the future, the option will be available on mobile, desktops, tablets, and televisions.