Free streaming services like Pluto TV have become very successful in recent years, inspiring many imitators. By offering a cable-like guide of live channels full of free ad-supported content, Pluto TV has gained a huge following of dedicated fans. Now YouTube reportedly wants in on the fast-growing free ad-supported market.
According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, Alphabet, the parent company behind Google and YouTube, want to launch a competitor to Pluto TV. This will be a hub full of YouTube’s free content that YouTube has now, plus content from publishers who want to monetize their content on YouTube.
In the 3rd quarter of 2022, YouTube generated $7.1 billion in advertising revenue. By bringing high-quality curated content into a single place on YouTube could help Alphabet significantly increase its ad-revenue in the future.
In a statement to The Wallstreet Journal, a YouTube spokeswoman said, “We’re always looking for new ways to provide viewers a central destination to more easily find, watch and share the content that matters most to them.”
The question now is what partners will YouTube be able to get. Pluto TV has a huge collection of Paramount content to pull from giving them 24/7 Star Trek channels, for example. Plus Pluto TV has live news and sports from some of the biggest names out there like CBS, NBC, Fox Sports, and CNN to name a few. Will YouTube TV be able to offer the same collection of high-quality content?
Even without outside content, YouTube has a huge collection of high-quality creators to pull from on YouTube. Taking content on YouTube and curating it into 24/7 feeds of news, entertainment, sports, and more could help YouTube generate more revenue and help creators get discovered.
For now, we will have to wait and see what YouTube does next. But it seems that YouTube has big plans for 2023.