YouTube and parent company Google have undertaken a little game of “Anything you can do, I can do better!” with competitors like Hulu and Netflix.  While YouTube is still the leader in streaming video online and gets more viewers than television does these days, but they’ve never quite figured out how to make any money with it.  So, to that end, they’re making a two-pronged attack at profitability by offering video and movie rentals on one hand and developing premium television programming on the other.  That’s right, YouTube is rolling out 20 channels of premium television, with 5-10 hours of programming per channel per week.

The website is working on a new look and a new layout to reflect the new emphasis on premium television, which YouTube executives describe as a move to make people watch YouTube in the same way they watch television, right down to support for programming via commercials.  To that end, Google is spending up to $100 million dollars to produce low-budget web-friendly programming for their new service while continuing to attempt to license older programming from television networks and movie studios.

Would you use a new premium YouTube?  I think I would if the offerings were good enough.  I know I’m not alone; for a lot of people, YouTube is the only way they can make it through a work day, so I imagine there’s a built-in audience of time-wasting cubicle dwellers who are just aching to have something they can use to kill time.

Image: DVice

Tags: television, streaming video, youtube, youtube to launch television service, youtube tv service, youtube to make television programming, youtube to offer premium television, youtube launching 20 channels of television, youtube to offer 20 premium television channels, youtube to make television, google

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