YouTube recently launched a subscription service called Music Key and it is reportedly working on another subscription service but that one will be very different from Music Key. Apparently the world’s largest video streaming website is trying out a subscription model that will allow users to pay a monthly fee if they want to remove all ads from videos. This means no ads in the sidebar, no ads before the video plays, and no ads popping up in between the video.
The subscription will not cover advertisements that are part and parcel of the video. For example if a YouTuber takes money from a company to promote their products in a video then that advertisement is obviously not going to be blocked out.
YouTube has toyed with this idea in the past as well. In 2013 it did a pilot test for a 99 cents per month subscription which removed all ads from videos.
CNBC reports that YouTube’s head of content and business operations Robert Kyncl has said that advertisers who opted for unskippable ads on the website saw their annual revenue rates surge by 70 percent.
This could encourage other advertisers to go with these ads as well which force users to watch through them before their video plays.
Kyncl has said that YouTube is “fine-tuning the experience” right now so it can’t be said for sure right now how much this subscription service would cost and if other features will be bundled with it as well to provide more value to subscribers.