YouTube attracted 2.5 billion active users per month worldwide in 2024, according to DemandSage.com. Data from 2022 revealed that 62% of internet users in the United States accessed YouTube every day, and 92% used it weekly.
“That’s an astonishing high level of traffic coming into YouTube,” Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of the American Botanical Council, told NutraIngredients during a video interview at Natural Products Expo West. That figure represents a huge opportunity for ABC and its botanicals-based educational content.
Content
HerbTV already offers more than 180 educational videos on medicinal herbs and related health and well-being content and includes interviews and in-field tours with renown herbalists, botanists and ethnobotanists, according to ABC.
Featuring playlists organized by category and health conditions, as well as ABC’s new Adopt-an-Herb and content on herbal sustainability, HerbTV also includes sources outside of ABC, such as the public television series Healing Quest, “The Medicine Hunter” and others. New content is being added every week, ABC said.
“Our HerbTV YouTube channel will become more than just ABC-directed and manufactured content, created content, but also aggregation of other compelling, educational video content on herbs, medicinal plants, fungi, natural foods and other plant and fungal based materials for their health purposes from a variety of sources,” Blumenthal said.
“HerbTV is open to anybody and everybody. HerbTV is free. We’re not charging for HerbTV. It is a free public education service.”
History
Created in 2008 by pharmacist, former herb shop owner and videographer David LaLuzerne, HerbTV was donated to ABC in 2018 and received an updating, rebrand, reorganization and new content as part of the ABC-branded relaunch.
The channel recently premiered its first Adopt-an-Herb video, “Milk Thistle: A Tonic for Modern Times”, which was created via an educational grant from ABC Sponsor Member Euromed S.A. based in Barcelona, Spain. The video features broadcast-quality videography and graphics and includes commentary from experts in integrative medicine, academia and the botanical sciences to help inform and entertain viewers with the history, research, cultivation, traditional and modern uses, processing and tips for consumers related to this popular, clinically researched, phytomedicinal liver tonic.
“We believe that the milk thistle video, with its engaging information, commentary and visuals, is the standard bearer for the four additional videos already produced and for all future videos that will anchor the growing video content offerings on HerbTV,” Blumenthal said.