YouTube is to offer a new subscription service featuring original content including films starring popular vloggers from the site. YouTube Red launches on October 28 and will provide fee-paying members with ‘the ultimate YouTube experience.’ The company has also announced a new YouTube Music app.
The service will be ad-free and will allow users to save videos to a phone or tablet for offline viewing, and play content in the background. The service will cost $9.99 and will be available in the US at the end of the month, with a one-month free trial offered to lure in potential future members. The membership will be available across devices and will include the recently launched Gaming app and new YouTube Music app, coming out soon.
From next year YouTube Red with provide member-only access to new, original shows and movies from some of YouTube’s biggest creators. These include one of the site’s most popular vloggers, PewDiePie, whose new reality-adventure series Scare PewDiePie will debut on the service. Also announced are Sing It!: a scripted comedy that satirises reality singing competitions; The Game Theorists a video game series and ‘360 VR experience’; romantic drama Single by 30; and Fight of the Living Dead, a social experiment reality show traps YouTube talent in a ‘frighteningly realistic zombie apocalypse’. A full-length film will also be available to subscribers: Trip to Unicorn Island gives fans a look inside the life and journey of Lilly Singh as she embarks on a 26-city global tour. Canadian YouTube star Singh’s videos have gathered over 880 million views and her channel has over 6.8 million subscribers.
YouTube Red, YouTube Music, Gaming and Kids apps will be made available in more countries ‘soon’, according to the company. The free version of YouTube will still be available in its current form. The service allows users to ‘support the people who make your favorite videos while watching what you want, when you want, on any device you want, uninterrupted’ and is also a show of support from YouTube towards creators, to try and stop talent from moving to other competitor sites which offer better monetisation opportunities.
