As long-rumored, YouTube is launching paid channels in a pilot program starting today. A small number of shows, including Sesame Street and UFC, will begin offering channels that can only be accessed after paying an apparently variable subscription fee, which starts at $0.99 per month. A full list of channels can be found on YouTube's Channels page, including offerings from film distributors Magnet and comedy channel Laugh Factory.
Some channels will offer yearly discounts, and all will come with a 14-day free trial. For now, the program is apparently quite small, but YouTube will be rolling it out in the coming weeks for current qualifying partners. Paid channels are an expansion of YouTube's partner channel program, which launched in 2012 and allows for more TV-like "series" or videos focused on a particular company. The company has played up the importance of subscription models before, and it's been making a heavy play to compete with both traditional television and streaming services like Netflix.
Update: Infamous B-movie producer and director Roger Corman has announced that he will launch a paid channel this summer. "Corman's Drive-In" will showcase his studio's library of around 400 films, along with introductions and interviews. Corman has worked with a huge number of Hollywood actors and directors at an early stage in their careers, including Robert de Niro, Martin Scorsese, and David Carradine, who had a leading role in the Corman-produced '70s classic Death Race 2000.
Update: While a full list of channels is currently available, Sesame Street, one of the partners, is still based on the older model, with pricing from its previous episode-based format; a new subscription-based channel will come later. Article has been updated to reflect this.
Comments
Take that you bastard cable companies!
By Vinc on 05.09.13 3:12pm
DAM i thought I was goin to be first for the FIRST time in my life
By shaq3334 on 05.09.13 3:15pm
what/why is this I don’t even..
By jainrounak on 05.09.13 3:17pm
By Cats-R-Friend on 05.09.13 3:22pm
I don’t know how to feel about this.
By maroonmushroom on 05.09.13 3:41pm
I second that
By Sicsicpuppy on 05.09.13 5:45pm
Hahahahaha I logged in just to recommend maroonmushroom and the exhaust
By Zylam Marex on 05.09.13 6:24pm
I do. This is a complete and utter travesty.
By MikehMike01 on 05.09.13 8:37pm
Embrace it.
By Super Number on 05.09.13 10:06pm
Just feel happy about it.
By sonelone on 05.10.13 1:04am
It’s the power of the zoom.
By infinit_zero on 05.10.13 3:31am
Wow, another way to directly monetize original work without having to go through soul-sucking publishers.
Man, I love it when paradigms shift like this.
By SilenceInTheLibrary on 05.09.13 3:20pm
so google won’t take their percent out of it?
By AIRHAB on 05.09.13 3:38pm
Google should take something. After all, it is their hosting and bandwidth. Publishers currently are one of several middle men. With this it is just you and Google.
By TheWhiteLotus on 05.09.13 3:46pm
Are they going to show ads or not?
By Jesse Lashley on 05.09.13 9:27pm
Doubt it, I hate it when you are used for 2 revenue streams, if you pay you shouldn’t see adverts.
By pleaper on 05.10.13 2:24am
Yes, because people never watch ads for a service that they pay for (cough cough Hulu Plus, Cable, etc).
By thomasrpowers on 05.10.13 8:16am
Yes, that was pretty much the reason I got rid of satellite TV. I guess I should have said “I hope not”. :-)
By pleaper on 05.10.13 10:14am
Hulu Plus doesn’t have adverts does it? It didn’t when I used the 30-day trial on my AppleTV in Japan just a couple of months ago…
By christianoliff on 05.10.13 10:15am
In the U.S., it definitely does.
By thomasrpowers on 05.10.13 10:53am
Cable was originally sold to the public as commercial-free “Pay TV.”
Watched any basic cable channel lately? 22-25 min/hr of ads…. …with the breaks mostly synchronized across most channels so you can’t even catch snippets of another program during ’em.
So no, I’m sure this will all remain pristine and ad-free forever. (As if.)
By Ice Cowboy on 05.10.13 4:22am
Seriously.
Popular Youtube music guy Jack Conte just launched a service called Patreon that allows users to pay content producers directly.
Up yours, middle-men.
By bosephus.jones on 05.09.13 3:56pm
On the other hand, fewer people working means less aggregate demand. So even if music revenue accrues more heavily to artists, there will be less spending in the economy as a result of job losses. I’m not saying it isn’t good to break down the inefficiencies in the music industry, but there are always consequences for changes to industry.
By bobrovsky on 05.09.13 6:51pm
Aaaaaand here’s bobrovsky, with a negative outlook on any news Google related!
That’s called structural unemployment, and comes with an evolving market. Are you attempting to argue that markets shouldn’t evolve, or that artists should continue being screwed by the music industry that they clearly don’t need any more.
This is a net good for the consumer and the artist, and a net bad for the soul and money-sucking music industry. I call that a win.
By SilenceInTheLibrary on 05.09.13 7:41pm
This processes started with Napster over a decade ago. I wouldn’t attribute it to Google, specifically. This is an inevitable process of structural change in the economy. It will be solved by the creation of new industries and new jobs.
“Are you attempting to argue that markets shouldn’t evolve, or that artists should continue being screwed by the music industry that they clearly don’t need any more.”
Not at all. Just making an observation that the disruption of industries isn’t totally positive. The same thing has occurred numerous times as a result of innovations by a variety of companies. I’m certainly not blaming Google in any way. Perhaps you should evaluate your knee jerk defense of Google at every turn.
By bobrovsky on 05.09.13 9:50pm