The American Botanical Council (ABC), a nonprofit focused on promoting the science behind herbal products, has announced the relaunch of the YouTube channel HerbTV.

The channel already features 180 educational videos on medicinal herbs, and includes interviews and in-field tours with herbalists, botanists, and ethnobotanists. The channel already has 21,000 subscribers and nearly 1.4 million views.

HerbTV features playlists organized by categories and health conditions. It includes ABC’s new Adopt-an-Herb videos, videos and webinars on herbal sustainability, and content from sources outside of ABC, such as the public television series “Healing Quest,” “The Medicine Hunter,” and others. New content will be added on a weekly basis, ABC reported.

“The American Botanical Council has been working to expand its educational mission through videos for a number of years,” said Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of ABC. “We’re highly pleased to finally release HerbTV as an international online portal that we anticipate will greatly expand the interest in and understanding about numerous herbs and botanical medicine for anyone seeking accurate and entertaining video content.”

Citing a 2024 survey by the Council for Responsible Nutrition, three-quarters of Americans use dietary supplements, and a sizeable portion of those supplement users take herbs, ABC noted. The World Health organization approximates that herbal medicine is used by 4 billion people worldwide, including 80% of people in developing countries, ABC reported.

“Market data show that the statistics around online video viewing are staggering, and it’s clear that people increasingly flock to social media outlets for educational videos, with YouTube leading the way with 2.5 billion monthly, active users in 2024,” said Blumenthal. “In fact, in 2022, 62% of internet users in the United States accessed YouTube daily, and 92% used it weekly. This presents a huge opportunity for ABC and its botanicals-based educational content. We encourage interested and curious consumers, healthcare practitioners, academics, researchers, media, and natural health products industry representatives to visit HerbTV, explore the channel, and ‘like’ and subscribe.”

HerbTV was started in 2008 by David LaLuzerne, a pharmacist, former herb shop owner, and videographer. It was donated to ABC in 2018, and was updated, rebranded, reorganized, and given new content as part of the ABC-branded relaunch.

ABC will promote the channel through its media, including Herbalgram.org, as well as other vehicles. ABC will also use its partnerships with member companies, media partners, and other nonprofits to promote the channel.

For more information about HerbTV, or to find out how you can have vetted, science- and botanical-based content included on the channel, contact Frank Lampe, HTV program manager, at [email protected].