Google's presence is almost everywhere, ranging from web search to entertainment and mobile OS to PCs. In order to keep pace with ever-increasing rivals, the web giant is constantly making changes to its services.
Google's prominent YouTube site will undergo some changes to beat the competition. YouTube's head of content and business acquisitions, Robert Kyncl, revealed at the Code/Media conference in California on Wednesday that a paid subscription model for YouTube is underway.
CNBC, which broke out the news, said that YouTube is currently building a strong foundation for its experimental paid concept and will be launched in the next few months. Even though YouTube is undergoing a massive change, this will not affect the existing user experience, Kyncl said.
"There is a subset of audience who wants more things so they are used to paying for those. We don't think it changes anything for existing users," Kyncl was quoted as saying by the news agency, PC World reports.
Google has long relied on advertisements to generate revenues from YouTube. In 2013, the company first launched its subscription model to offer access to YouTube channels at fee starting at $0.99 per month. In November last year, the company dived deeper into the subscription concept with its ad-free, paid music service called Music Key. The music service is still under beta and requires an invitation from YouTube for a test ride.
YouTube Music Key starts at $7.99 per month and offers unlimited access to official videos, album tracks, concert clips, covers and remixes, according to the company. Features like offline playback and background music make the deal sweeter.
There's no news on how the YouTube subscription model will work or details on how much it will cost.
YouTube is the world's largest online video site to offer videos with short commercials at the beginning. The service has more than 1 billion monthly active users and is the world's third most frequently visited website. Google needs to ensure the paid subscription model does not come at the cost of losing its dedicated users, as rival services like Vessel already offer paid subscriptions for great content.
