Google, which owns YouTube, isn’t having too much success selling ads on their videos. Probably because they don’t sell as many ads as they’d like and because the ads aren’t that successful for the advertisers that pay for them (otherwise word would get around that people are making all this money advertising on youtube, which isn’t the case)
So Google is looking to execute a new strategy: getting people to pay for the most popular video content on the website. The idea is that if people pay Directv, Time Warner, etc, if they pay for on demand movies, pay per views and if people pay Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime, maybe Google could get in on the action with the right video content. I think it’s a great idea and that with Google’s money, they could definitely compete with Netflix and Amazon. And they could especially start having big success if in 5-10 years from now, people stop paying satellite dish and cable companies for TV and just watch TV shows, movies and sports online.
But they have to get around the brand they’ve created for themselves which is that YouTube is the home for free internet video. That will be a difficult task that will take some time.