Subscriptions for Youtube?

Could YouTube start charging for content? Looks like they might… ItPro reports, but only for full-length premium shows.

The subscription model would be a way to encourage the big TV channels to stream their videos on Youtube.

“We’re making some interesting bets on long-form content; not all content is accessible to us with the advertising model,” David Eun, Google’s vice president of content partnerships, told Reuters, who said content partners will be able to choose what works best for them.

Otherwise, advertising is still the core way YouTube expects to make money. And, Eun reckons, there’s a lot of money to be had: “The biggest opportunity today is advertising and we’ve just begun to scratch the surface.”

Short user-generated content would always be free, plus advertising. It’s a move by Youtube into the the territory of Hulu, the second most-watched video portal in the States, and Youtube’s closest rival. Hulu streams high-quality, full-length TV shows and was set up by Disney and

Though Youtube is the largest video portal on the web, it still makes a loss for its parent company Google. They’re looking at ways to improve that.

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