YouTube considering ad-free subscription service

YouTube is looking at creating a paid-subscription model that would allow users to skip the ads on their videos, according to a top executive.

The popular online video service has grown to more than one billion users a month with ads paying for the content and the service.

But Susan Wojcicki, a former Google ad executive who was named head of YouTube earlier this year, said a paid-subscription service is being considered as an option for those who don’t want to see ads.

We’re thinking about how to give users options- YouTube's Susan Wojcicki

“There are going to be cases where people are going to say, ‘I don’t want to see the ads,’” she said at the Code Mobile conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif., late Monday.

Many mobile apps now offer an option to users to pay to avoid exposure to ads.

“That’s actually a pretty interesting model because it’s giving users choice,” she said, according to Reuters. “We’re thinking about how to give users options.”

Wojcicki did not give a timeline for implementing such a system or say how far across the globe it would be rolled out.

She did say YouTube would continue to offer the option of music videos with ads for those who don’t want to pay.

In May 2013, YouTube experimented with a pilot program that allowed individual content creators to charge consumers a subscription fee to access a particular “channel” of videos.  

In moving to a paid-subscription service YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., will move into similar territory to Netflix.

The online streaming world is getting more crowded, with HBO planning its own streaming service and cable giants Shaw and Rogers teaming up to launch Shomi.