San Francisco — Google-owned video-sharing service YouTube, which has been shrewdly bundling up more professional content to a website that started as a venue for amateur videos, announced on Thursday that it has reached a deal with several major Hollywood studios to stream full length movies and TV show content to its users for free, and is also discussing with other big studios to ramp up content and attract more advertising dollars.
The movies and TV series will be delivered by several top-brand major studios, and will be available to viewers within the United States.
The partnership to put movies and television shows on the Internet stuck by Google Inc.’s YouTube with Hollywood studios include Sony Corp., CBS Corp., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., Lionsgate, Starz and the BBC.
YouTube also indicated making deals with 11 other partners including the Anime Network, Shout Factory, Telenext Media, Documentary Channel and First Look Studios, reinforcing its licensed content offerings from dozens of movies and hundreds of TV episodes to 700 movies and thousands of TV episodes.
YouTube will also include two new tabs to its homepage to emphasize shows from sites such as Sony’s Crackle, and offer new material to subscribers who log in, the San Bruno, California-based company said today on its Web site.
The partnership extends efforts by Hollywood studios to offer mostly older full-length movies and television shows on advertiser-supported Web sites. Google is also separating professional clips on YouTube from home videos to charge more for ads. The site will increase its use of so-called in-stream ads that viewers must sit through, similar to a TV show.
“Our foremost focus is on advertising,” Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said of the company’s plans to add content to YouTube. “We do expect over time to see micro- payments and other forms of subscription to come,” Schmidt said today on a conference call after quarterly earnings.
Youtube.com/shows, which went live late Thursday, features television programs from companies such as BBC Worldwide, CBS, Discovery Networks, Lionsgate, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, National Geographic, PBS, Sony’s Crackle, Starz and others.
Youtube.com/movies, which features movies from Lionsgate, MGM, Starz and other studios.
“This addition is one of many efforts underway to ensure that we are offering you entirely different kinds of video you want to see, from bedroom vlogs and citizen journalism reports to music videos and full-length films and TV shows,” YouTube said in a post on the official company blog.
The television shows and movie destinations are currently limited to users in the United States but YouTube said “we look forward to expanding to other regions as soon as possible.”
Rather than asking viewers to pay for viewing content like some Internet services, YouTube will share advertising revenue with the studios.
YouTube faces stiff rivalry for videos from Hulu.com, whose owners include General Electric Co.’s NBC and News Corp. NBC and Fox post shows that include “The Office” and “Family Guy.” YouTube gains access to CBS horror series “Harper’s Island.”
“It is a first step and we think it is a positive step as a business,” Chris Dale, a YouTube spokesman, said in an interview. “We are in active negotiations with other Hollywood content creators.”
In an effort to boost revenue, which has become a major concern for YouTube while it continues to grow get more expensive to maintain, YouTube will use video ads more broadly, including mid-stream ads shown in breaks on longer content.
YouTube and the studios are to share advertising revenue on the sites and Google simultaneously on Thursday announced the launch of Google TV Ads Online, which allows advertisers to place commercials into the ad breaks of television shows being watched online.
Mountain View, California-based Google has been striving for ways to make money on YouTube while avoiding alienating notoriously transient Web users and assuring film and music studios that copyrights are being respected.
The number of US Internet users watching videos at YouTube hit a new monthly high in January, topping 100 million, according to research firm comScore.