According to AdAge.com, YouTube.com is prepping to launch paid subscriptions for individual channels on its video platform as early as the 2nd quarter of this year with the first paid channels to cost between $1 and $5 a month.
The article quotes YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar as saying:
“If we have a subscription model then absolutely that’s something that becomes possible.”
“We have long maintained that different content requires different types of payment models,” a Google spokesman said, in a statement. ‘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.”
The article goes on to say the “initial group of channels will be small, likely about 25” with the revenue split 45-55.
Wow, this could be a HUGE money maker if it takes off. Imagine youtube collecting $2 profit per month off of 10 million or more subscribers. It could fundamentally change the way we see online video content.
Yes actually I experienced this first hand a month ago when I was wanting to watch a video on “Feral Children”. Was the first thing trending on google under feral seemed interesting….
It was a 1/2 or 60 min long video from a tv series (wanna say discovery channel) and it kept asking me for $2. On youtube? uhg the beginning of ‘Micropayments’ eh?
Hmm. I can never watch youtube without buffering issues. Nearly everyone i know says this too. Maybe they can now pay for better bandwidth. YouTube has to cost a fortune in bandwidth….
Would subscription protect in the case of copyright or trademarked or patented content? Youtube already has a policy to take down copyright infringement.
Content is copyrighted