YouTube May Launch Paid-Subscription Model: Report
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Popular video-sharing website YouTube may begin charging its users for premium, “specialist” content, reported the Financial Times on Sunday, in order to help content creators develop a wider range of videos, whilst adding a second revenue stream to the digital video market leader.
Popular video-sharing website YouTube may begin charging its users for premium, “specialist” content, reported the Financial Times on Sunday, in order to help content creators develop a wider range of videos, whilst adding a second revenue stream to the digital video market leader.
According to FT, the new paid subscription platform is already in its final stages of development; and will apply to as many as 50 YouTube channels – charging subscribers as little as $1.99 a month to view each channel.
The subscription service will eventually finance channel operators to produce different content, such as TV shows and films, told a person familiar with the plan to FT, adding that most other content would remain free, for now.
Just last week, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt, whose company owns YouTube, declared that the video-sharing website had already overtaken traditional television as the most popular form of visual entertainment.
Additionally on May 1, an announcement on YouTube’s blog said that the site had reached a new milestone of 1 billion unique visitors each month, “connecting 15 percent of the planet to the videos they love”.
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However, it is still unclear if YouTube users would be willing to pay for content, which have been free since the site first launched in February 2005.
According to The Atlantic Wire, Google however have seen subtly hinting towards the move for “months if not years now”, after spending more than $200 million over the last 18 months promoting professional high quality video channels.
[quote]”We have long maintained that different content requires different types of payment models,” a spokesman said in January. “The important thing is that, regardless of the model, our creators succeed on the platform. There are a lot of our content creators that think they would benefit from subscriptions, so we’re looking at that.”[/quote]Other signs suggesting that YouTube may be working on a pay-per-view options for its video channels, include a code found in a February app update mentioned subscribing and unsubscribing from paid YouTube channels, reported Mashable.
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Responding to FT, a YouTube spokesman said it had “nothing to announce” regarding channel subscriptions, but added that the company was indeed “looking into creating a subscription platform that could bring even more great content to YouTube for our users to enjoy and provide our creators with another vehicle to generate revenue from their content, beyond the rental and ad-supported models we offer”.
Adding a subscription-based model will see YouTube compete with the likes of Netflix and Hulu, owned by Walt Disney, News Corp and Comcast, while adding to the website’s ad revenues, which is expected to climb to $2 billion from $1.3 billion this year.
