Many artists discover that YouTube shows them in more than one place. There is the personal channel from years ago, the "Artist - Topic" page that appeared on its own, and sometimes a second channel opened by mistake. Fans subscribe to the wrong one, views are scattered, and YouTube Music may even show two artist pages for the same name. This is fixable, but it goes faster if you know what each channel is.
Where the duplicates come from
The old personal channel. You made it when you uploaded your first covers or demos, perhaps under your real name or an earlier stage name. It may have the most subscribers, and it may also contain videos that have nothing to do with your music today.
The Topic channel. YouTube generates "Artist - Topic" automatically from music delivered through distributors. It holds the Art Tracks, which are audio with the cover image. You don't create it and you can't edit it directly. It is not a mistake, it is how YouTube Music builds an artist page.
A second channel by accident. A new Google account made after forgetting a password, a brand account created for a band project, a channel opened by a manager. It happens more often than people admit.
Two Topic channels. If the artist name is written differently across releases, YouTube may treat it as two artists. "Lalə Nova" on one release and "Lale Nova" on another is enough. A featured artist formatted in different ways can do the same.
What you are aiming for
The goal is one Official Artist Channel. It links your main channel with your Topic channel so that official videos, Art Tracks and your channel appear together under one artist, with one name and one place for fans. You can't merge two ordinary channels into one yourself. The link is made by YouTube after a request, and it decides each time. Approval is not automatic and can take a while, up to three months.
Choose the one main channel
Pick the channel that will carry your music in the long run. Three things matter:
- The name should be exactly the artist name, the same as the Topic channel, including special letters.
- The content should be only this artist's. A channel that mixes your music with gaming clips or a family vlog is a weak candidate.
- Regular activity: it should have several regular videos and Shorts, not one upload from 2019.
Sometimes the old channel is too mixed to use. Then it can be better to build a clean music-only channel than to carry the old content along, even though you lose the old subscriber count. Weigh that honestly. A smaller, clean channel often works better than a big messy one.
Handle the other channels carefully
Don't delete anything in a hurry. Deleting a channel removes its videos and their views for good.
- Stop uploading to the extra channels.
- Write a line in their descriptions: "Official channel: [name]" and point to the main one.
- Re-upload only what you own and still want, to the main channel.
- Make old test uploads and duplicates private rather than deleted, until the situation is settled.
- Check that you can still log in to every account involved. Lost access is the most common reason this stalls.
What to prepare for the request
In the CULT portal there is a request form for the Official Artist Channel. You give the UPCs of three of your releases delivered through CULT, the link to your YouTube channel and the link to your Topic channel. Have these ready before you open the form. It is also worth checking that the channel name matches the Topic channel letter for letter, because a difference there is a typical reason a request goes nowhere.
If you have two Topic channels, send support both links and the names of the releases. Whether they can be joined depends on YouTube and on how the names were delivered, so ask before you create anything new.
What happens to subscribers and views
Subscribers of an old channel do not move to a new one, and views stay with the video they were earned on. If you re-upload a video, it starts again from zero. So tell people where to go: put the new channel in the old channel's description, mention it in your next video and pin a short post. If the old channel will stay your main channel, there is no reason to touch its best-performing videos at all.
Stop it happening again
- Write the artist name the same way on every release, every time.
- Decide in advance how featured artists are written and keep that format.
- Keep one login for the music channel and write down who has access.
- Use the same name and logo on every platform.