YouTube Gets Movie, TV Shows Sections

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Google yesterday unveiled the product of an agreement with the likes of Crackle, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate and Starz and others: A Shows tab on the YouTube that brings with it thousands of television episodes and hundreds of movies.

Google yesterday unveiled the product of an agreement with the likes of Crackle, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate and Starz and others: A Shows tab on the YouTube that brings with it thousands of television episodes and hundreds of movies.

Unfortunately it all comes at a price. The company announced via the same blog post that, as of this week, users will start to notice the wider roll-out of in-stream ads, which the company has been testing since October. Basically, in order to make it worth the media companies while offering the content for free, YouTube has to implement the kind of ads (unskippable might we add) to support the shows and movies.

This is the kind of news that could spell trouble for Hulu, which has always taken a different route to YouTube by offering commercial-supported episodes of TV shows for free as well as movies from the likes of Fox and NBC.

While the addition of ads was sort of inevitable (the complete removal of pirated content would mean fewer users, which Google definitely doesn’t want), we can’t help but groan at this necessary evil.

YouTube is currently only offering the shows in the United States (which explains why I can’t see them) but will be rolling them out to other countries “as soon as possible.”

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Jane McEntegart

Jane McEntegart works in marketing communications at Intel and was previously Manager of Content Marketing at ASUS North America. Before that, she worked for more than seven years at Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, holding such roles as Contributing Editor and Senior News Editor and writing about everything from smartphones to tablets and games consoles.

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8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • kyeana
    The more free movies/tv shows on the net the better :D

    However i just took a look at their selection and didn't see anything that peaked my interest, but that is just one mans opinion
    Reply
  • The Schnoz
    This is only the beginning. I believe this is the future of TV. I work for a cable company, but I think the future will be web enabled televisions that access the internet to get content straight from the copyright holder or sites like hulu and youtube rather than being limited by the selection offered by their cable/satellite provider. No longer will there be exclusive partnerships with the NFL or millions of users without access to HDNet. If you want a channel go to their iptv site. Viva la revolucion!
    Reply
  • solymnar
    Frankly I can live with the commercial here and there. Its the nicity of being able to watch something you're interested on your own schedule that ultimately matters for me. :)

    And considering that the more media distributors that wise up, the less profitable "bandwidth caps" will be from internet providors as it will directly cut in on the amount of online TV people can watch thus = less revenue from ads.
    Reply
  • San Pedro
    I doubt you'll be able to watch outside the U.S. anytime soon. I've been waiting for Hulu to get international streaming rights, and I don't think anything has been happening on that front. Who knows, maybe Google will be able to get the ball rolling a little faster.
    Reply
  • ravewulf
    One question. Are these ads in normal user uploaded videos (user generated content) as well as the in TV shows and movies, or is it only in the TV and movies?
    Reply
  • gorehound
    We must stop ISP's from doing bandwidth caps.This is a subject that should piss all of us off.Not having cable TV and watching hulu and youtube and other free videos will eat up caps and then they will get you for your video watching.
    I dumped my cable tv a few years ago.
    The internet is nothing like it was when I started out in 1993.It will only continue to invent new cool things.
    Reply
  • blackened144
    San PedroI doubt you'll be able to watch outside the U.S. anytime soon. I've been waiting for Hulu to get international streaming rights, and I don't think anything has been happening on that front. Who knows, maybe Google will be able to get the ball rolling a little faster.Proxys are your friend. My sister and her husband moved to Germany and were missing their favorite shows. I set them up to connect to Hulu through a proxy server here in the US.
    Reply
  • randomizer
    Google better start pushing to raise the typical Australian bandwidth cap up from 5-10GB if they want this to take off here.
    Reply