• by Wayne Friedman , December 16, 2009

Looking to hop on the current pay-for-premium video train, YouTube says it is a considering a pay subscription model -- in part to attract more premium TV program producers to its business.

YouTube is considering running TV shows with no advertising for a fee, according to a report in Reuters.

This comes in the middle of a recent trend that big TV networks seem to be rallying around, creating new pay-video digital services, with no advertising. Currently, Hulu.com -- a venture of three of the big TV/media companies -- is a free, ad-supported service. There is speculation that it could add a pay component.

YouTube is looking to aggressively grow its list of full-length programs to complement the user-generated short video clips that are still the base of its operation.

Major TV advertisers are leery about aligning themselves with unfiltered, sometimes questionable copyright content. Some years ago, this pushed YouTube to establish separate channels for premium TV producers.

YouTube has established separate channels for the likes of CBS, NBC, ABC, and the BBC. It also has content from CNN, TNT, and ESPN.

The report in Reuters said that at the end of the day, content partners could choose the format that works best for them. YouTube could model the new business in the form of monthly subscription models that cable system operators used.