Want to watch a full-length movie or series on YouTube? If you do, you’d have to pay for it via various subscription programs that YouTube offers. However since such programs such as YouTube Originals and YouTube TV aren’t available globally yet, it means that there are many users out there who are potentially missing out.However the good news is that according to a report from AdAge, YouTube is changing that by starting to offer up ad-supported movies on its platform. Apparently this was something YouTube started to offer users back in October with movies such as “The Terminator” and “Legally Blonde”, where users could stream those movies for free (there are ads that they’ll need to contend with).
YouTube has since confirmed this feature and according to Rohit Dhawan, director of product management at YouTube, “We saw this opportunity based on user demand, beyond just offering paid movies. Can we do ad-supported movies, free to the user?. It also presents a nice opportunity for advertisers.”
YouTube already places ads in videos which is one of the ways that creators can earn money, but the company has declined to disclose what kind of split YouTube might be using with studios versus creators, although we imagine that it will most likely be very different. The current library of ad-supported movies isn’t particularly big at around 100 movies. They also aren’t the latest blockbusters either, but if you want something that you can watch for free legally, it could be worth checking out.
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