YouTube announced earlier this week that it is introducing an ad-free subscription tier on the site, separate to its upcoming Music Key service.
The Verge reports that the new service will cost US $10 a month, and that if artists don’t agree to new terms associated with YouTube’s premium service, all their videos will be set to private.
Meanwhile, Music Key – which has been in invite-only beta since November – is expected to launch early this summer for around $7.99-per-month.
YouTube’s latest letter to Partners explains the concept of the new premium service, but doesn’t make any mention of penalties for not agreeing to the new service’s terms. Nor does it confirm any pricing details.
But the memo, which you can read in full below, does promise to “excite your fans and generate a previously untapped, additional source of revenue”.
Dear YouTube Partner,
Your fans want choices. Not only do they want to watch what they want, whenever they want, anywhere, and on any device they choose, they want YouTube features built specifically with their needs in mind. Over the past several months, we’ve taken bold new steps to bring these experiences to life.
Since inviting hundreds of thousands of fans into our YouTube Music Key Beta, we’ve seen tremendous engagement. And we’ve seen an equally enthusiastic response for our new YouTube Kids app, designed to give families a simpler and safer video-viewing experience- it’s already crossed 2 million installations in less than one month.
We’re excited to build on this momentum by taking another big step in favor of choice: offering fans an ads-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 revenue.
So what’s next?
Launching a new paid offering will require us to update your terms through your Creator Studio Dashboard – a process that should feel familiar to anyone who went through a similar process three years ago when we began distributing and monetizing your content on mobile devices. Today, mobile represents over half of all watchtime and mobile revenue is up 200% in the last year.
Just as with mobile, we’re confident this latest contract update will excite your fans and generate a previously untapped, additional source of revenue for you. Please look out for our notification, review it and let us know your thoughts.
It’s an exciting year for YouTube, as we push ourselves into uncharted territories. But we continue to be guided by a desire to deliver the choices fans want and the revenue you need. By working closely with you, we know it’ll be a successful journey.
The YouTube TeamMusic Business Worldwide
