David McManus says Red service could come to UK if successful in US

How many times have you been following a link to a video on YouTube only to be presented with a 30-second advert that plays out before the 14 second clip you came to see starts?

Yes, for the most part these advertisement pre-rolls can be skipped before they end but they interrupt the flow of browsing and quickly become irritating.

Well, no more! At least no more if you live in the States and have $10 a month to pay Google which last week announced YouTube Red, your favourite video website minus all the ads.

Clearly keen to cash in on the rising popularity of its own service in ways that largely ignored commercials cannot do, YouTube’s new subscription service turns the website into more of a TV channel.

As well as an advert-free experience, subscribers will get access to exclusive new content to download and watch offline. Google will be partnering its most popular content creators with professional TV producers to create new shows only available to subscribers of YouTube Red.

If it sounds like a business model lifted from the pages of Netflix and Amazon Prime video, it’s because that is precisely what it is, coupled with the existing pull of the content already on the service without advertising to break up the flow. Google will spin a success story out of YouTube Red regardless of the numbers that sign up for it and it is always easy to dismiss a new venture like this but I wonder what market Google is going after here.

Those top content creators who will now make the transition to fully-fledged modern TV stars include Pewdiepie – a young Swedish guy who uploads videos of himself playing and commenting on video games while swearing a lot. He is currently the number one channel on YouTube with 40 million subscribers worldwide. Every video he uploads – and there are many – commands views in the millions.

His popularity is said to have netted him over $4 million last year from shared advertising revenue with Google.

However, Pewdiepie’s audience is made up of young teenagers who have grown up with the in-built ability to accept and ignore advertising but who don’t have spare cash.

Spotify, the music streaming service very popular with the young, has a free tier which punctuates songs with advertising – just like YouTube in its existing state.

Google has promised that, exclusive content aside, nothing will change with YouTube. It says that it ultimately wishes to introduce YouTube Red to countries outside the US.

Facebook users are advised to check their privacy setting after the company said it would add two trillion older posts to its search engine, making them discoverable by anyone. To ensure your past posts stay private to you and your friends, go into the site’s settings where you can see how others see your timeline. If your posts show up under ‘Public’ you might want to change the option to ‘Family and Friends’ to keep them from the eyes of the world.