YouTube Will Sell Subs To Streaming Services And Distribute Them Through The App

The biggest name in streaming is looking to become a billing agent for the rest of the streaming world with the launch of Primetime Channels. The new streaming hub will be a marketplace for streaming services where users can sign up for numerous services that will then be integrated directly into their YouTube feeds. The effort is the latest in an attempt to keep viewers in the same place once they jump into a streaming app. A number of other platforms, Roku (via the Roku Channel), Amazon (Via Amazon Channels), Apple, Sling TV and others encourage users to sign up for services through their apps in order to encourage users to spend more time on their own apps.

YouTube may prove to be more potent than others because first of all there is no subscription necessary in order to reach the new service. It is not integrated into YouTube TV, it will be on the free version of the app and website. You can bet that YouTube is counting on people falling down the rabbit hole when looking to view their favorite shows and movies. How often have you finished an episode of a show and then watched a YouTube video that reviewed it or a video to “explain the end of something like A Quiet Place? By integrating content like that into the same screen where viewers check out their primary content the company is betting on reeling in engagement numbers like they’ve never seen before.

“We are excited to expand our partnership with YouTube to offer customers of Paramount+ another way to stream the content they love,” Paramount Streaming’s chief strategy officer Jeff Shultz said. “This new feature gives us the opportunity to expand our presence on YouTube, broadening our reach and giving consumers even more choice when it comes to streaming the best in entertainment.”

The new feature could be one of Google’s biggest innovations since Google News and Gmail.

See the services that will work with YouTube at launch: