Google’s YouTube is reportedly considering to launch paid subscriptions for individual channels by the second quarter of this year.
Youtube will spend millions of dollars to video craetors to develop high-quality and original content for the online video platform.
The move will put the company in competition against video streaming services like Netflix and could offer another revenue stream to the company and its content partners.
Advertising age revealed that the online video platform has already contacted a few content producers and requested them to submit proposals for a new channel that would mandate viewers to pay a monthly subscription for the content.
Upon the launch of new channels, users would be charged between $1 and $5 per month for viewing content libraries, self-help and financial advice shows, in addition to live events and episodic shows or content.
"There are a lot of our content creators that think they would benefit from subscriptions, so we’re looking at that," a YouTube spokesperson said.
YouTube will have to compete with already existing subscription services including Hulu, which has three million subscribers as well as Netflix which has 30 million.