You Can Now Pay to Watch YouTube Without Ads

Sarkar

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The service will compete with Netflix and Hulu

YouTube on Wednesday finally unveiled its long-discussed paid subscription service.

Dubbed YouTube Red, the new service will offer ad-free versions of all current YouTube videos, as well as access to music streaming and additional exclusive content from some of the site’s top creators. It will cost $9.99 per month and launch on Oct. 28.

“Consumers are embracing paid subscriptions for ad-free content at an incredible pace,” Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s chief business officer, said at a press event in Los Angeles Wednesday. “[This] marks an evolution in our desire to give fans more choice and features that they love.”

With YouTube Red, subscribers will be able to save YouTube videos for offline play, listen to videos in the background while browsing other mobile apps and watch all YouTube videos without ads. The service will also have exclusive videos from YouTube stars like PewDiePie, Lilly Singh and the Fine Brothers that aren’t available on the free version of YouTube.

YouTube Red will have a big emphasis on music as well, providing access to streaming service Google Play Music and a new app called YouTube Music, which offers a Pandora-like personalized playlist based on a starting song or artist. Both music apps also have ad-supported versions that non-Red users can access.


The Google-owned YouTube has been the go-to online repository for free videos for more than a decade, serving as a launching pad for stars like Justin Bieber and Michelle Phan. Along the way, the site has grown into an advertising behemoth, pulling in a reported $4 billion in revenue in 2014. However, YouTube isn’t profitable, according to the Wall Street Journal, so a subscription play could make sense as a way of improving Google’s bottom line. The company says the new service is also a play at boosting engagement by enticing new users who don’t want to watch ads.
At its current price, the subscription service will compete with premium video services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video and Hulu, which charge similar rates. Kyncl emphasized that thanks to Red’s pairing with Google Play Music, users are essentially getting a music subscription and a video subscription for the typical price of one such service (Amazon’s offerings come with a $99/year subscription to Amazon Prime that includes other benefits as well).

At the same time, the free version of YouTube is trying to fend off an ascendant Facebook, which has managed to build out an extremely popular video product over the last year — Facebook users now view 4 billion views per day. YouTube is quick to point out that its growth hasn’t slowed under Facebook’s threat. Video watch-time is up 60% year-over-year, Kyncl said. More than 1 billion people watch videos on the site each month; the company claims it reaches more 18-to-34-year-olds than any cable network in the U.S.

For creators, the subscription service could offer a new revenue stream. YouTube says the “vast majority” of subscription payments will go creators, with revenue shares doled out based on total watch time. Creators that choose not to have their content included in the subscription service will have their videos made private when Red launches in the U.S.

YouTube has tried charging for content before. The site allowed creators to begin charging subscription fees for individual channels starting at $0.99 per month back in 2013, and many movies and TV shows are available for purchase on the site. YouTube also launched a music subscription service last year, called YouTube Music Key, that competes with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. However, YouTube Red is by far the most ambitious attempt yet to get people to pay for YouTube content. “It’s a major, major evolution of our business,” Kyncl said.

By moving more aggressively into original content and charging for access to some of it, YouTube is taking another step further away from its cat video roots. “Long term the company is trying to move upstream, but that doesn’t mean that it is trying to become like Netflix,” says Dan Cryan, an analyst at IHS. “YouTube [is] trying to build the next big change in the TV industry, as we move from the hundreds of channels offered by your pay TV company today to a world where you have thousands of channels to access.”

YouTube Red Brings Ad-Free Paid Subscriptions to YouTube
 
Why wud I pay, when I can use a simple ad blocker for blocking d ads :shy

Though for all other features of this utube red, subscription may be necessary...
 
YouTube Under Fire For Forcing Creators To Sign YouTube Red Subscription Deal

YouTube Red, YouTube's latest creation to generate even more revenue, is under fire for the way the company has handled its biggest stars.

A YouTube Red subscription will free subscribers from having to endure pre-roll advertisements from their favorite YouTube channels — for a price, of course.

For $9.99 a month, subscribers get ad-free YouTube videos, access to Google Play Music, exclusive original content from YouTube official Creator partners like PewDiePie, and other unspecified perks.

"Ninety-nine point nine percent of the content on YouTube will be free, as it always has been," Robert Kyncl, YouTube's chief business officer, said of the service.

But where we consumers have the freedom of choice to stay with a free version of YouTube or upgrade to a paid subscription for it, YouTube Creators have seemingly been left without that same choice. It appears that YouTube played a heavy hand in pushing Creators to join the company behind their Red paywall.

If a Creator chooses to continue on their own without joining the Red bandwagon, YouTube will mark their videos as "private" and will only be viewable to the Creators themselves. In short, Creators not on Red will also not be on a public YouTube.


In their defense, YouTube claims that both creators and users have been asking for what is now YouTube Red.

"Today, the overwhelming majority of our partners, representing nearly 99 percent of the content watched on YouTube, have signed up. Videos of partners who don't update their terms will be made private, but we remain committed to working closely with these partners with the goal of bringing them on board," said a YouTube spokesperson.

That gray area of the one percent outliers is the tricky part. One percent amounts to a sizeable piece of the pie when the countless hours of content being uploaded on YouTube is considered. What happens to content creators with still sizeable followings who aren't official YouTube partners? These are people who still make money from their cut of advertising on their videos.

Either way, for both content creators and content consumers, it's going to be all about the money and YouTube has the final say.

YouTube Under Fire For Forcing Creators To Sign YouTube Red Subscription Deal : PERSONAL TECH : Tech Times
 
Even with subscription, i don't think ads will disappear..
Google is greedy & might play ads in small windows in same page :wall
 
I Thing Ad Is Good To Watch
Now A Days Advertising Is Fun...
( Personal Openian )
 
YouTube launches ad-free service; should content creators be worried?

YouTube Red is a new service slowly being rolled out by the digital video giant and which aims to provide subscription-based, ad-free service to users. Some content creators, though, claim that YouTube is arm-twisting creators to get them to join the new platform
YouTube is currently in the process of rolling out a new subscription-based service called YouTube Red, which will allow users to watch video content in an ad-free environment. Red is currently available only in the US and will be introduced to other countries over the coming months.

The subscription, which costs $9.99/month, entails the user to access the service across platforms along with access to Google Music and other newly announced services for music and gaming. YouTube has also announced that members will get access to exclusive content created by popular YouTube celebrities especially for Red.



Google, in a blog post, says that the subscription model will provide support to content creators as well as an alternate to the ad-based model. However, not all content creators seem to be entirely convinced.

Though Google says that 99 per cent of YouTube content partnershave already signed on to YouTube Red, media reports suggest that there was hardly a choice as content creators who did not sign a deal to come onboard YouTube Red would see their content being removed from both versions of YouTube. It has also been reported that Google intends to pay 55 per cent of subscription revenue to the content creator, which is about the same deal a creator gets for ad revenues from the company.

Though YouTube Red is still to be available in India, digital agencies and content creators are excited about the possibilities, though they still feel that any subscription model will have to be supplemented by an ad-based model.

- See more at: http://www.exchange4media.mobi/story.aspx?news_id=62151#.dpuf
 
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