There have been a number of leaks and chatter that Google’s YouTube service was, at the very least, working on a ad-free subscription service. The first wave of this initiative came about with YouTube’s Music Key that was announced back in November of last year. The service let you drop $10 a month for ad-free music video streaming with the option to save them offline for viewing later. For the music video lovers out there it is pretty stellar since it still gives the musicians a cut and lets you view the video without annoying ads in the beginning, middle and end. It would now seem that Google is gearing up to bring the same ad-free offering, or one that is similar, to its more prolific YouTube content creators.
A recent set of emails has been reported from some YouTube partners that allured to the impending revenue stream offering that would allow subscribers to pay a bit of cash to clear the ads from their viewing routine. The email didn’t give an outline, timeline or structure as of yet. It was more of an informal notice that it would be coming since it will also change the terms through the Creator Studio Dashboard.
“While we can’t comment on ongoing discussions, giving fans more choice to enjoy the content they love and creators more opportunity to earn revenue are always amongst our top priorities,” Google’s YouTube said in a statement, without commenting on the timing of the service.
If I had to peg a time for when Google might make the announcement official, or at least give the public and creators some more details, would be at Google I/O at the end of May.
The whole thing does make a lot of sense when you consider the scope of YouTube. After all, it isn’t just for your cat videos anymore. If you poke about you will find all your Google Play Movies available to watch. While they don’t offer ads since you pay for them, I could see Google spinning the service to offer a Redbox or monthly movie streaming option to the mix to really kick the service up a notch. I could also be getting a head of myself and thinking way outside the box. Here is to hoping it turns into a multi-tier streaming service though.
