is starting a chess yt channel a good idea?

No one can really judge that except for you.

What would you talk about?  Do you think of yourself as an entertainer? 

Agadmator has over 1 million subs and he's 1900 FIDE or something.

The most important thing is you have to enjoy it. Eric Hansen was streaming years before anyone cared.

Some people only want to watch the best, so yeah, those people will have zero interest in your videos... but others don't care about that.

To me it's like those people who ask "I'm a beginner, can I be a master in ___ years?"

The answer is the people who do it have passion for the process, and don't care whether they achieve a title or a certain number of subs. They just do it because they wake up every day and love doing it... and after ___ years yeah, they do get a master title or a lot of subs, but that's not what they were aiming for each day.

So just like a chess title, if your motivation comes from others telling you it's a good or bad idea, then you probably don't have the passion... not that you should read this and be discouraged... the point is you should read this and not care what anyone else says, and do it if you enjoy doing it.

BobbyBojanglles is around 1600 and he's pretty popular for a chess youtuber

If you enjoy making video for educational or entertainment purpose and you have the time and motivation for that then sure. When you want to make some money from it then it will be tough though.

I've been on YouTube since '07 -- with a grand total of, I believe, 0 videos right now -- and I can tell you that you have to give people what they want, and ideally what they need. If you can do that, and you have the persistence to do the work every day, then you *should* do it, because most likely you'll succeed.

What people need is an edge over their next opponent. They don't really want to watch great games that don't come with thorough explanations, and they only want to study openings if they trust the person giving them the information. That's ideal. That's the space people like Levy Rozman and Antonio Radić are operating in. They're knowledgeable, and they don't shy away from the work aspect. If you can't do that there's always an interest in chess history, such as famous players, etc. A video simply being good is never enough, however, and wanting to create chess content isn't enough to get you there either. That's putting the cart before the horse.

If you enjoy it, then probably yes. Even if no one watches your videos, you probably learn a few new skills regarding youtube, filming, presenting...

If your content is good and everybody wants to watch... But if you want to make money from it?🙄🙄🙄🙄

It depends on what you want. I started a chess YouTube channel (KeSetoKaiba YouTube channel name) but I still feel really new to this whole thing. I don't believe rating is the most important thing for chess streaming. There are many chess streamers who are titled players and many who are GMs! We can't compete with their level of chess knowledge, but the way I look at it is...do we have to? 

I don't think so. If we can find ways to teach others, or to entertain, then we can build an audience. If your channel teaches chess, then a higher rating is preferred as you can better understand the positions but with video preparation and strong engines like Stockfish, sheer chess rating isn't as important. Besides, 1500 Rapid on chess.com is a higher rating than about 90% of all chess players on here; certainly you can explain most positions well enough for your channel to add value to the community.

Even if chess teaching isn't your thing, people might still want to watch your content if you are entertaining. Find what makes you stand out. Why would people want to watch your channel over the many chess and non-chess channels on YouTube? To be honest, I'm still exploring what my target audience exactly is, but it is a learning process and you can join this journey too if you like

Business-wise it probably helps if you wear tons of make up and dance when you lose. ;-)

Dang, I knew I was missing something!

Thx for noticing 

6 months ago I struggled against 400-500 rated players 

My channel (mentioned above) also generally targets this beginner to intermediate chess range too. I occasionally have more advanced topics as well, but many of my videos are for beginner to intermediate because that is where most chess players are at and that is the rating range many of my chess.com friends are at and my videos is one way to help them.

As for "a market for that", I'd say @GothamChess was one of the first big streamers to appeal to this chess target audience, but @DanielNaroditsky is also a great YouTube channel to learn from. I'm subscribed to Danya's channel. His content is quality and he has a good way of explaining things.

1) Guess it depends on how one defines "great" - I'm no titled player and nowhere near as high in chess understanding as some of the players out there, but I'm also fairly experienced myself and higher in rating than most. Being 1800+ isn't a requirement though. The average chess rating in the global pool on chess.com is something around 800. Shocking, I know, but yes there really are this many inexperienced chess players out there. There are MANY more of these players than GMs and so yes this does skew down the average, but even if you can reach 1400 or so on chess.com, you are probably higher rated than roughly 80% of all chess players! I recognize the ability and knowledge gap from a titled player and a 1400 is massive, but most of your audience won't be GMs so it matters little.

2) I like my personality

3) sigh, guess I'll have to settle for being a friendly guy with no webcam yet, but with a genuine interest in trying to help people

Northernlion is a good example of the fact that if you have a good personality, you don't have to be a titled player in order to create good content. I wouldn't worry about rating so much as personality.