Roger Corman’s campy B movies, children’s shows like Sesame Street and Inspector Gadget, and inspirational monologues by celebrities — these are among the offerings on 30 channels that will soon require a paid monthly subscription on YouTube.
Although the world’s largest video site has rented and sold movies and TV shows from major studios since late 2008, most people watch videos on YouTube for free.
It’s the first time YouTube is introducing all-you-can-watch channels that require a monthly fee. The least expensive of the channels will cost 99 cents a month but the average price is around $2.99.
In the field of paid video content online, YouTube is playing catch up to services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, all of which have millions of paying customers.
But with a billion monthly visitors from around the globe, the Google-owned video service hopes to quickly add subscribers and add to the money it already makes from online advertising.
“This is just the beginning,” said Malik Ducard, YouTube’s director of content partnerships. The site plans to roll out a way for a broad number of partners to also launch pay channels on their own soon. READ FULL STORY »
