YouTube Plans To Offer Paid Subscription Channels: Report

COMMENTS (21)

• Damn. Guess I’ll have to move over to one of the other free video channels for my “exotic babe strips” videos.

  Comment by Baked in Alaska — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 4:03pm EST  Reply to this post

• So, I get to pay to watch some dude record himself in his living room? Umm… no.

  Comment by Riley — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 4:24pm EST  Reply to this post

• good luck with that.

  Comment by oh, ok... — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 4:25pm EST  Reply to this post

• Funny hearing old media try to cling to a changing empire

  Comment by Thefuture — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 4:41pm EST  Reply to this post

• When is someone going to call the YouTube Channels out as an epic fail? So over saturated with crap – and that’s saying something since I watch E!.

  Comment by Yeah, ah.. — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 4:43pm EST  Reply to this post

• free Youtube good. paying for Youtube bad.
  I cannot think of one webshow in the history of webshows that I would actually pay money to watch. can you?

  Comment by Craig H. — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 5:01pm EST  Reply to this post

  • No.

    Comment by A B — Wednesday January 30, 2013 @ 12:50pm EST  Reply to this post

• Show of hands, everyone who’s ever found anything on YouTube worth paying for.

  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

  Comment by Geewhiz — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 5:10pm EST  Reply to this post

• I understand what they are doing, but this dooms Youtube to becoming just another paywall in front of content.

  Comment by Sorry — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 5:11pm EST  Reply to this post

• $5 is WAY too much for one channel. Would have to be under $1 per channel, with multiple appropriate discounted bundles available. Comedy, Games, Music, Sports, Culture etc.

  Comment by bundles — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 5:26pm EST  Reply to this post

• I don’t really see a problem like this, it’s essentially HBO but on YouTube, they’re not forcing EVERYONE to pay, it’s voluntary.

  Comment by Tiffany — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 5:29pm EST  Reply to this post

  • But, HBO has quality original programming like Boardwalk Empire from award winning writers. Youtube has random untalented people filming themselves in their living rooms. Sure, it’s fun for a laugh here and there, but it’s not quality entertainment worth paying for.

    Comment by Riley — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 6:22pm EST  Reply to this post

• So does that mean the content will be Ad free after you pay?

  Comment by Groupthink9 — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 6:03pm EST  Reply to this post

  • ask hulu plus about that logic

    Comment by Zack — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 9:14pm EST  Reply to this post

• Paid channels will give YouTube an incentive to clean up the rampant pirated content on their site. There used to be a lot of feature films on YouTube to watch for free, but when YouTube started PPV, those free titles coincidentally disappeared. I think we’ll see that trend continue as YouTube tries to make more money. Do they expect viewers to pay for mediocre programming when clips from classic SNL and TV shows are available for free?

  YouTube is an important first stop on the Internet for tweens and teens. It also teaches them how they can get content and how it’s paid for (with ads). If YouTube becomes less free, it lets them know the truth: good stuff isn’t free (as much as modern American society tries to tell us otherwise).

  Comment by Dan — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 6:26pm EST  Reply to this post

• Coming from a cable background, it is hard to get people to buy a channel on an a la carte basis unless they have a pretty good idea of the quality and quantity of the content they will receive. That’s a high hurdle for any new programmer. If there is someone with a preexisting (i.e., already paid) library of content that is not particularly advertiser friendly, maybe this an opportunity. If it is advertiser friendly, the programmer is probably better off going the free route. It might also work for a really well defined niche that is not well represented on cable right now — something like surfing or anime or some foreign language content.

  Comment by Peter Litman — Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 10:29pm EST  Reply to this post

• Perhaps, but that is changing. The studios behind youtube’s premium channels are growing, learning, acquiring better talent, etc. It’s only a matter of time before the amount of amazing content on youtube rivals premium television channels. Some of these premium channels are the future NBCs and MTVs of the world. They garner tens of millions of views a month, and the advertising dollars behind their content is growing. You just may see the next Boardwalk Empire pop up on a solid premium youtube channel in the next few years.

  Comment by Cruz — Wednesday January 30, 2013 @ 1:57am EST  Reply to this post

• I like it. Imagine ala carte cable service. Say you only watch 5-10 channels? Why pay cable for 500 you have zero interest in. Curious to see how this plays out.

  Comment by Aaron — Wednesday January 30, 2013 @ 10:49am EST  Reply to this post

• The problem here is that youtube is inextricably linked in the minds of hundreds of millions of people with the words FREE CONTENT (and not exactly top notch quality videos). How exactly are they going to rebrand themselves as providers of paid content? Just because they start charging doesn’t mean people will start paying.

  Comment by A B — Wednesday January 30, 2013 @ 12:55pm EST  Reply to this post

• I believe this is for things like Nerdist.

  Comment by ILDC — Wednesday January 30, 2013 @ 4:19pm EST  Reply to this post

• Piracy is going to go through the roof on this one.
  I can see it now on pirate bay

  Youtube_Subscription_:Author:_SxePhil:Episode xxx

  Comment by Michael — Wednesday January 30, 2013 @ 8:01pm EST  Reply to this post