YouTube to Soon Offer Monthly Subscription With Ad-Free Viewing

Google as previously rumoured is said to be planning a monthly subscription service, one that will let users watch YouTube videos free of ads.

YouTube is said to have sent out an email to its content creators noting it is looking to offer a new paid subscription service that will give “fans an ad-free version of YouTube for a monthly fee”.

“By creating a new paid offering, we’ll generate a new source of revenue that will supplement your fast growing advertising service,” noted the letter (via Bloomberg on Wednesday).

The service may debut by the end of the year, reported Bloomberg on Wednesday citing a person familiar with Google’s plan for YouTube.

“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 to Bloomberg.

Google is rumoured to price the subscription at $10 a month, just like it did with YouTube’s Music Key Beta in November. The service not only allows users to access music on YouTube without ads, but also offers offline access.

YouTube content creators will now get 55 percent of the total revenue generated from subscription and it will be mandatory for them to accept the new revised revenue terms and conditions on YouTube’s Creator Studio Dashboard, which notes that the changes will go into effect on June 15, 2015.

“YouTube will pay you 55 percent of the total net revenues recognized by YouTube from subscription fees that are attributable to the monthly views or watchtime of your Content as a percentage of the monthly views or watchtime of all or a subset of participating content in the relevant subscription offering (as determined by YouTube). If your Content is included in and viewed by a user in multiple subscription offerings, YouTube will pay you based on the subscription offering with the highest amount of net revenues recognized by YouTube, as calculated by YouTube,” notes the dashboard.

Source-NDTV