With subscription, Youtube introduces new monetisation options for content creators

Google-owned video sharing service Youtube has come up with new features to help creators make more money on the platform.

Youtube will now allow its channel owners to offer monthly subscription at $5 to see exclusive content.

"We will soon be expanding this to eligible channels with more than 100,000 subscribers on YouTube under the new name Channel Memberships," said the company through a blog post.

The subscribers will get access to members-only posts including live streams, news of upcoming events, early access to ticket sales among other things.

Last year major brands including Verizon, Pepsi, and Walmart pulled out millions of dollars in advertising over extremist video content on the platform. Following the incident, Google publicly apologised.

Youtube has also opened up another monetisation avenue for creators on the platform, merchandising.

"Merchandise has been a part of many creators’ businesses for a long time. We want to make it easier for more creators to sell merch directly from their channel," the blog added. Now, creators can offer merchandise like t-shirts, hats, phone cases or any one of over 20 different merchandise

It has also partnered with custom merchandise company Teespring to let creators sell their own merchandise directly through the platform. The feature will be available in the US first.

Besides, YouTube announced a new live streaming feature called "premieres," which lets channels pre-record a video and upload it as a live stream.

With Premieres, creators will be able to debut pre-recorded videos as a live moment. When creators choose to release a Premiere, they will automatically create a public landing page to build anticipation and hype up the new content. It is set to roll out it over the next two weeks.

India is considered to be an engaging market compared with the rest of the world for YouTube, where more than 65 per cent of the viewers subscribes to channels. Interestingly, close to 60 per cent of the viewership is clocked by non-metros.

Ninety per cent of all video consumption happens in local languages.