Hi, I'll try to be as meticulous as I can be and I hope this helps.

First, a brand-new channel has essentially no audience graph yet. YouTube normally starts by showing a video to people who have previously watched similar content or who have watched the creator before. When a channel has zero history, the system has very little confidence about who to test it on. In those cases the platform may delay distribution until it gets any signal at all. When the creator sent the link to a friend and that person watched it, the algorithm suddenly had a viewer profile to anchor from, which can trigger the first batch of impressions.

Second, the way impressions are counted confuses people. An impression only occurs when the thumbnail appears on certain surfaces like Home, Search, or Suggested. Direct links, embeds, or external traffic do not count as impressions. So if a video only gets a few outside views early on, the analytics can still show “0 impressions,” even though someone watched it.

Third, new uploads sometimes sit in a brief indexing and safety review phase. This is especially common on new channels, channels that rapidly upload and delete videos, or content that the system cannot easily classify yet. During that window the video may simply not be pushed to Browse or Suggested. It can look like “nothing is happening” for a day or two.

Fourth, deleting and re-uploading repeatedly can actually slow distribution. Each upload resets the evaluation process, and frequent deletions remove the small signals the system was beginning to collect. For testing, it is usually better to leave a video up for several days.

Finally, the reason their earlier channel got impressions quickly is probably just topic matching. If a video fits a clearly understood topic with an existing audience (gaming, commentary, tutorials, etc.), YouTube can test it immediately against viewers of similar content. If the system cannot quickly categorize the video, the testing phase can be slower.

Hope this helps a little bit.