http://www.economist.com/news/business/21577427-youtube-becoming-more-normal-television-worth-paying
ONE of the most popular videos this month on YouTube, an online video site, is a commercial by a bottled-water firm, Evian. In it, adults walking by a shop window see their baby lookalikes reflected, and start dancing with their former selves. The grown-up YouTube, however, looks nothing like it did in its infancy. Once a warehouse for pirated clips and amateur footage of cats, YouTube has been trying to transform itself into a sleeker, more sophisticated site that can compete with television for advertisers. It will soon look even more like television. On May 9th it is expected to announce that it will charge users for subscriptions to some “channels”.
According to Needham, an investment bank, YouTube will bring in $2.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2013, but that is not enough to move the needle at Google, or to make it a worthwhile outlet for content companies. Like newspapers that have decided they cannot survive by online advertising alone, YouTube needs to erect a “pay wall” for some of its offerings.
