Google planning ad-free version of YouTube

Google is working on a premium version of YouTube, which would allow users to watch content ad-free.

Digital companies such as Spotify and Soundcloud already use this sort of model, but it would mark a radical shift for YouTube, which has been ad-funded and free-to-view ever since it was founded.

Susan Wojcick, a longstanding Google executive who took the reins of the online video service earlier this year, said it was considering the subscription model in order to give users more “choice”.

“It’s near-term,” she told a conference in California. “There are going to be cases where people are going to say, ‘I don’t want to see the ads'. We’re thinking about how to give users options.”

It is not known how much Google would charge for an ad-free subscription to YouTube or exactly when it would launch. The free-to-use, ad-funded service is expected to continue alongside the subscription version.

Ms Wojcick has been tasked with driving profits and revenues at the online video streaming site, which was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65bn and is now thought to be worth more than $40bn.

The initiative follows an earlier scheme to launch a slew of subscription "channels" on YouTube, featuring programmes made by some of the UK’s most respected production companies, including BBC Worldwide and Endemol, the creator of Big Brother.

The initiative got off to a slow start but then gained traction as Google expanded the scheme.

“We rolled out the ability for an individual channel to do a subscription,” Ms Wojcicki said. “We’ve also been thinking about other ways that it might make sense for us. If you look at media over time most of them have both ads and subscriptions.”

Meanwhile, Google has also started talking to production companies about supplying content for a number of its own, subscription YouTube channels, according to reports. The channels would be themed by content, for example focusing on news.