YouTube has now officially opened its video rental store, with mainstream offerings joining the independent, documentary, and Bollywood films already available. But can it possibly compete with Apple iTunes?
YouTube Rentals
YouTube is slowly but surely expanding the boundaries of its business. As well as TV-on-demand, the other big rollout of the past few months is video rentals, intended to compete with the likes of Apple iTunes and Amazon Video On Demand.
This was first rumored last September, and a trial of the video rentals store took place in January around the Sundance Film Festival. Only five films were on offer, all of which were indie flicks.
Independent Films
The first offerings were The Cove, Bass Ackwards, One Too Many Mornings, Homewrecker, and Children of Invention. The trial lasted for the whole of the Sundance Film Festival, and YouTube is estimated to have taken $10,709.16 in total revenue.
Although not a great amount of money, it was enough to prove there’s a future in this rentals lark.
Consequently, YouTube has spent the last few months adding more videos to its library, including videos related to sport, travel, cooking, and education. But there still wasn’t a huge fanfare over the service. Until now.
Open For Business
The YouTube video rentals store is now open for business at youtube.com/store. Films and episodes of TV shows can now be rented for 48 hours, with most costing between $0.99 and $3.99. Google Checkout is unsurprisingly being used to collect the fees.
YouTube now has to wait and see whether its millions of users are willing to pay for content. Rentals are currently only available in the U.S., but should hopefully be rolled out internationally in the future.
As VentureBeat points out, one hurdle YouTube still has to overcome is making its content more accessible on TVs and devices people actually want to sit and films on. YouTube XL is a good start, and the iPad is likely to be the first choice for mobile viewing, but more definitely needs to be done in this area.
Conclusions
This is another step towards the obvious point at which physical media is no longer the first choice for the consumption of media. Netflix is already moving towards a digital future, and YouTube also wants to be there when the revolution kicks in.
Related Ad
Purchase TV shows and movies from Amazon Video on Demand
