Al Jazeera Balkans Awarded YouTube Silver Creator Award

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Al Jazeera Balkans, one of the most watched regional television stations, has received the YouTube "Silver Creator Award", which is awarded to official YouTube channels with over 100,000 subscribers. In addition to this number, AJB boasts over 125 million views of video content. Al Jazeera Balkans is among the most watched regional media on YouTube, the television station announced.

The Director of Al Jazeera Balkans, Tarik Đođić, stated on this occasion: "We must thank our viewers who appreciate serious and informative content, programs dedicated to important topics, and documentaries that we broadcast, which are usually watched once. Compared to entertainment content, such success of our television on the YouTube platform is a confirmation of our consistency and adherence to ethical principles and journalistic norms, all with the aim of objective public information. Our work will always be in line with the highest standards associated with the name of one of the most influential media entities of the modern world, the Al Jazeera Media Network."

A very significant number of views on the official AJB YouTube channel, over 10 million, comes from live television program broadcasts alone, and other content is equally interesting to the audience, Al Jazeera Balkans points out.

AJB's YouTube channel broke several of its own records last year. A 50 percent increase in views was recorded, and the number of content shares on social networks also significantly increased. Half of the existing subscribers registered last year.

Diverse Content

There you can find original stories created by the News desk, regular weekly and periodic Current Affairs programs, documentary series from its own production, such as "Alhemija Balkana" (Alchemy of the Balkans), "Vrhovi Balkana" (Peaks of the Balkans), and others, as well as educational documentaries for which AJB is also known for its quality.

Commenting on this award, Edhem Fočo, Director of Al Jazeera Network and AJB DOC Film Festival, emphasized that documentary series and films from AJB production have millions of views on YouTube.

"I believe that the further popularization of quality and thematically diverse documentaries through festival platforms, availability via Netflix and other online services, will contribute to even greater viewership of this type of content in general, and also on Al Jazeera's YouTube channel," Fočo stated. He also added that Al Jazeera Balkans has tens of millions more views of video content on the Brightcove platform, as well as on Facebook.

Over the past seven years, the most views have been recorded from Serbia (over 27 million). The top five are followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, and the USA, which account for four to 22 percent of the total number. In addition to the countries of the region - Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia, Austria is at the top of the list at sixth place, and Switzerland at tenth place.
Reports on current topics are often so popular that they are among the top most viewed content in the country and the region. Video clips from special programs, such as coverage of the Hague Tribunal verdicts, as well as reports by Al Jazeera reporters from the most watched sporting events, have often been at the top of the trending list.

Working under the slogan "From every angle and from every side," Al Jazeera Balkans remains committed to independent and impartial reporting and telling untold stories, both on television and on its official YouTube channel.