YouTube is entering the online TV and movies market with an announcement today that they're going to be making premium content with their most popular users.
In an a post on their blog, they outlined that they are going to be making new, original and premium content with four of their biggest producers on the site: The Fine Brothers, Prank vs Prank, Joey Graceffa and Smosh, who will all be creating shows in the new deal.
They also announced that they would be making the move into the field of cinema by bringing "several feature length films over the next two years" to the site, in a partnership with AwesomenessTV, a subsidiary of DreamWorks, with the first film due some time this autumn.
While the concentration in the blog post is on how this new range of premium content will help the creators and give them more freedom, The Irish Times point out that there have been no details reveled on how much they plan to invest, and that "YouTube has been trying to lure more premium video advertising to boost margins as overall prices for Google’s ads have been declining", so this is a step in a new direction to perhaps try and capture some of a growing market for quality online video content.
Via The Irish Times